Hacker News Reader

Comment by Devasta | Hacker News Reader

Unironically, AGPL3 is the best license. Even if you don't believe in the principals of free software, it has a lot going for it: Unlike MIT, you get full access to GPL3 and Apache licensed software, no need to worry about relicensing your code, no need to worry about derivative works or anything, just set it and forget it. In addition, corporations will avoid you like the plague. No need to worry about breaking anything, tinker away on your project freely without concern for backwards compatibility.

MIT is free as in free tech support, the sooner people accept that the better off we'll all be.

View on HN

This just doesn’t make sense to me. The best license is the one that meets the constraints of your situation. Good luck getting *GPL software onto iOS, for example. And yes, that’s Apple / Apple users’ problem, but it also means that iOS just can never use your software, excluding it from tons of users.

Personally I don’t mind something like MIT / Apache. If you wanna hack it and not guarantee stability, just hack on and make it clear in your culture, and companies relying on it get the instability as their problem. How you support your software isn’t the same question as how you license it.

It's the best license because choosing anything else means enriching corporations for free. I've come to think of open source software as just a wealth transfer from developers to corporations at the former's expense. It just makes no rational sense to release code that isn't free as in freedom. It's either that or fully copyrighted, all rights reserved.

> I've come to think of open source software as just a wealth transfer from developers to corporations at the former's expense.

It's the reverse: corporations pay for most OSS software development. Where individual developers do it, it's voluntary. If your summary were true and complete, how would you explain either of those sentences?

> corporations pay for most OSS software development

Doubt. Every once in a while there's news posted here attesting to the opposite. Case in point:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34780859

Even if that's the case, it doesn't change anything. They should all be paying for free as in freedom software development instead. Like the Linux kernel where 80% of patches come from people hired to work on it.

> Where individual developers do it, it's voluntary.

I used to do it voluntarily too. Now I believe we're working against our own best interests and therefore I'll use AGPLv3 in all of my new projects.

> Now I believe we're working against our own best interests and therefore I'll use AGPLv3 in all of my new projects.

That's fine. Just don't blame corporations for using the previous software in a way you licenced.

I'm not blaming anyone. I'm recognizing the fact that permissive licensing benefits corporations disproportionately and destroys our leverage as free software developers. I'm advocating against their use and noting that I myself will no longer use them from now on.

"Free as in free tech support?"

He likely means that companies will use the software and create issues with their problems without contributing anything back = developer will be free support for companies making money with no benefit.

AGPL doesn't have such problems because it's more radioactive than anything for companies = will be used only by other free software developers

I believe in the principals, but not necessarily the agents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com