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Comment by ckrailo | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, please avoid the GPL. Go for Apache or BSD or something more free.

Like someone stated, it's a dev tool that will not likely need to be bundled with your end product. I use Emacs, which is also GPL, as do other people, with no hinderance from a license point of view.

If I were doing Light Table, I'd use GPL too - It also does not preclude someone from writing their own plugins and selling them as an add-on. I would assume there will be a way for easy/seamless plugin installation into the main program.

It's a standalone piece of software, not a library. How does it being GPL affect you?

Well, for one, you can't make small modifications to the code and then resell it as a commercial product with the original author's copyrights tucked away in an about box. You'd actually have to release the source code too. It will be harder to convince customers you've added value if they can see exactly what you've changed.

I have to know: Was this is an ironic statement?

No one is taking it as one, but poe's law aside I'm convinced they are wrong.

"It will be harder to convince customers you've added value if they can see exactly what you've changed."

I don't get it... is your added value simply an illusion?

If they can see what you've changed the code, they should be able to see why and how you added value.

We have some ideas on how we'll facilitate that. There will definitely be ways for people to sell plugins they create and or for large companies to keep them closed source.

Grandparent was being sarcastic:

It will be harder to convince customers you've added value if they can see exactly what you've changed.

Is this sarcastic, or did you just now realize the point of the GPL?

In the long term, the GPL kills the major incentive to improve the software's design and feature set, even though small improvements and ports may be made.

Sprinkling the GPL on top of a project no one wants anyway does nothing (I say this from experience), and applying it to a popular program just holds it back (by keeping it from getting the cash that people would otherwise pay).

As an end-user, I want to see Light Table take off, and to continue innovating, not to continually engage in campaigns for donations.

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