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Comment by arca_vorago | Hacker News Reader

"the library can be used in both open and closed source projects."

When that source gets put in a product that is closed and then that product makes it to the user. How do people not understand this difference by now? Tivoization. It violates the four freedoms principle. That's how.

To quote zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC:

"A law that allows murder is more permissive and obviously does not increase freedom. It's simply a fallacy to think that not putting any limits on what any individual can do results in maximal freedom for society at large."

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This argument for the GPL only wins in a fantasy land where all software has to be released under GPL or not at all. In reality, companies reject the GPL and just write their own code or adopt and contribute to permissively licensed projects, and that is what ends up "making it to the user".

You're telling authors to take away freedoms of its own users now, to prevent a potential bogeyman from taking away freedoms of other users in the future.

You can use permissively licensed code now and forever, because that can't be taken away once released. You're refusing to use it now on the off chance that in the future, someone modifies that code to do something else and give it to other users without the code. Your initial use still hasn't changed, and your right to use that initial code hasn't changed. You are not a user of the new, modified code, so your rights have not been impacted whatsoever.

In reality, companies reject the GPL and just write their own code

Right, so we either end up with more Free Software, or with more employment for us programmers. It's a clear win-win!

This is called the Perfect solution fallacy.

For most users the choise is not between a 50% proprietary product that uses an MIT library and a FOSS product that is 0% proprietary. The choice is between a 50% proprietary product and a 100% proprietary product and you are trying to take away their choice of the 50% proprietary product.

Complete eradication of proprietary software is not the expected outcome of MIT licensed libraries. The goal is reduction.

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