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Comment by o11c | Hacker News Reader

> we are not able to opt out of diffusion of progress. People move between companies and between countries and take their ideas and talents with them.

Never forget that Industry itself came to America by way of direct theft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

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If you care about your users, you should always prefer some copyleft license.

Prefer permissive licenses only if you want to subsidize big business. Hopefully you have a plan for when they decide to take it closed-source and outcompete you. You probably don't, though, since that's not mentioned in the aggressive "use permissive licenses" marketing campaign they've been running for the last decade or two.

Permissive licenses can fit in a niche for software that has already been implemented many times. But the downsides remain, and why aren't you just using the existing code directly? The main occasion on which I will consider it is when everybody else is doing it wrong (and content to do so), and I as a user keep getting annoyed at hitting those limitations.

The second-worst reason to use permissive licensing is arguably "I don't understand how to dynamic linking".

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> If you care about your users, you should always prefer some copyleft license.

There is no possible way for users to be hurt by a permissive license. Even if some company were to make a closed source fork, who cares? The original is still there, still just as free as it ever was.

> Prefer permissive licenses only if you want to subsidize big business. Hopefully you have a plan for when they decide to take it closed-source and outcompete you.

I prefer permissive licenses because I'm making a gift to the commons. It strikes me as hypocritical to say "I'm giving this to you, but only if you things the way I approve of". Thus, I make it completely free for all users, whatever they want to do with it. You may not see it that way, which is fine. But I'm sick of the false idea of "you're just subsidizing big business" being promulgated. That isn't true.

And why would I care if someone "outcompetes" me? My gift to society is still there to be used if people want, or not if they don't want. It doesn't diminish or harm my efforts in any way.

> Even if some company were to make a closed source fork, who cares?

They can add sufficiently popular functionality to said closed source fork and make the open source original a) obsolete and b) incompatible with the combined ecosystem, and thus deprive the users of a feasible free option.

If the closed fork functionality is superior enough to make the original de facto obsolete then the users have already collectively decided that the tradeoff is worth it.

And if the original can't compete it means the additional functionality was only going to exist because the financial model of the closed fork could pay for it.

> If the closed fork functionality is superior enough to make the original de facto obsolete then the users have already collectively decided that the tradeoff is worth it.

Users cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about these kinds of things for the same reason that corporations cannot be trusted to be environmental stewards and children cannot be trusted to select a dinner menu or file taxes.

Just because users don't make the same choices you do, doesn't mean those choices are invalid.

users can only choose what is available. the license greatly affects the options that a user can choose from.

> And if the original can't compete it means the additional functionality was only going to exist because the financial model of the closed fork could pay for it.

This completely disregards the fact that the "financial model of the closed fork" explicitly chose to build upon the permissively licensed original.

If the company chooses to build upon free software, they should be obligated to give back to the community from which they leech. Otherwise, they should just build their own thing from scratch with all the money they've hoarded, and keep it closed.

You know what would be even better? If the new functionality was open.

The original can't compete because the original author used a permissive license. Do you want to make yourself not compete?

at the expense of the original developer whose work was taken advantage of without giving anything back or paying it forward.

That's not the only reason it would become the defacto standard, and it's naive to claim so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu...

Users can get a bundled version that slowly breaks compatibility forcing vendors to align with the closed source version.

It would indeed be naive to make that claim, so it's a good thing that's not what I did.

> If the closed fork functionality is superior enough to make the original de facto obsolete then the users have already collectively decided that the tradeoff is worth it.

I'm afraid you did. Users are lazy, and IE and Java on Windows are great examples.

> But I'm sick of the false idea of "you're just subsidizing big business" being promulgated. That isn't true.

All the permissively licensed code that came with my mac disagrees. This is even more true of iphone software: you can technically look at some of the code that comes with it, but you can't modify it.

So it sucks to have iPhones?

Yeah, the idea here seems to be, iPhones would be open hackable devices if only more people would use copyleft licences, but in reality Apple would still lockdown their gadgets and just write the software themself if no permissive licence is avaiable.

I think if copyleft were more common fewer people would tolerate iPhones.

That would require a far larger fraction of the general population to give a shit about any software license than currently.

> in reality Apple would still lockdown their gadgets and just write the software themself if no permissive licence [were] available

This is a common opinion, but seems uninformed to me. The free code helped them get started. They are Goliath now, but the benefitted from not having to do the R&D earlier.

I don’t know if they could have done the R&D. I definitely imagine it would not have been as good as the product they got from using BSD.

Anyway, I believe this kind of thinking is a shallow dismissal of the value that companies receive from starting from Libre software.

"Anyway, I believe this kind of thinking is a shallow dismissal of the value that companies receive from starting from Libre software."

It is a dismissal of the idea, that using a different licence will magically transform the whole industry.

If the code is open, the profit orientated companies don't need to do R&D from scratch. They just take the copyleft source code and make it closed, either by simply not publishing it, or if they care about whistleblowers by rewriting it. Which is easy if you have sources of something working. Even more so today with LLMs.

That is why I am a fan of permissive licences. It is a working compromise for companies who would never consider copyleft code in critical parts of their product.

Compromise implies both parties give something. Can you explain what that is on the company’s side?

Compromise for me is, the concept of open source gets more widewspread. There is no must in giving back. And if you try to force it with copyleft .. you won't get far. I believe history is on my side here.

Android is based on copyleft code and it is far from an open hackable system. On some devices it possible to install an own build but it requires skills and patience so not an option even for most IT professionals. But for most devices there are locked loaders and closed drivers/firmware. I don’t see a copyleft license helping if a business is not willing to participate in open-source.

> but in reality Apple would still lockdown their gadgets and just write the software themself if no permissive licence is avaiable.

That would be preferable to me.

If you want to run modified or your own code, yeah, it does.

> you can technically look at some of the code that comes with it, but you can't modify it.

This is equally true of the GPLv2. The attempt to close this loophole - Tivoisation as Stallman called it - only won him a lot of scorn from Linux land and a refusal to adopt the GPLv3!

Fair; I suppose that concern is technically beyond copyleft.

As a reminder, the GPL (or any other Free Software license, by definition - it's "Freedom 0" in the list) places absolutely no restrictions on users. Its provisions only kick in for those who want to go beyond merely using the software.

> or any other Free Software license

That's not quite true of AGPL (and for this very reason some companies, e.g. in the database provider space, use it for free versions of otherwise paid products)

On the contrary, that's just FUD they spread.

Section 13 of the AGPL (the part that's not in the GPL) explicitly begins with "[notwithstanding,] if you modify the program [and allow users to access it over the network]". Merely using the upstream version is no burden.

I have a different take on permission license. I offer up what little code I produce under the assumption that anyone can use it for whatever, just give me credit. Why? Because it might result in an interesting collaboration on a project I like. If someone uses my existing code to accomplish something neat and sees who I am, they can reach out to me for more, which I'm open to since it would likely result in some growth for me as an amateur. I'm not particularly interested in making money since I recognize that I am nowhere near that level, yet, but creating a future opportunity seems like a good idea since I enjoy coding.

> There is no possible way for users to be hurt by a permissive license. Even if some company were to make a closed source fork, who cares? The original is still there, still just as free as it ever was.

The users of the closed source fork are harmed. They are unable to use the software to the full extent (e.g. inspect, modify, fix bugs). This is what copyleft intends to protect.

Closed source reduces the software into an appliance and the user into a consumer.

The users of the closed fork always had the ability (if not duty) to inspect the program's licence before using it.

> Never forget that Industry itself came to America by way of direct theft.

Two other examples come to mind: John Rolf arrived at the Jamestown settlement in 1612, having purchased tobacco seeds presumed to have originated in Spain (where their export was supposedly punishable by death, though I haven’t found sources confirming that).

William de la Barre adapted the rollers used in Minneapolis wheat mills from a European design. I have seen a few sources claim this was industrial espionage wherein Barre obtained employment in the mill and sketched its design out to copy it for his employers in Minneapolis, though Wikipedia makes no mention of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_la_Barre

The American publishing industry also got its start by refusing to recognize British copyrights; this didn’t change until 1891.

This is to say nothing of the more explicit, above-board technology transfers involved in bringing European experts in to develop the American industrial plant. Similar things are currently going on in Saudi Arabia and China, and to a lesser extent in South America and Africa.

And then you have Operation Paper Clip and the looting of the German industrial plant after World War II.

Permissive licenses enable small or individual developers (like myself) to sell software based on them.

With copyleft licenses, developers always have to sell stuff adjacent to the software (support, individual development, software-as-a-service).

With permissive licenses, developers can just sell a license to the software itself. Much easier, much more direct.

It's the reason why there is much more tooling around permissive licensed projects vs. projects with a GPL style license.

Permissive licenses are win-win: Proprietory developers win because they get to sell licenses, users win because they have more tools they can use.

That does not follow. You might as well make it "source available" and sell proprietary licenses.

I think you misunderstood. My software is not permissive. My software is closed source, but based on a big open source project with a permissive license. It's a tool that helps users of the big open source solution.

I can sell licenses to my tool because it is closed source.

If the big open source project was licensed under a copyleft license, I would have to make my tool open source as well. Then I would have a hard time selling licenses.

I couldn't have spent the last 10 years building a tool for the open source software, and users of the open source software would have had fewer tools available.

Your personal financial incentives < humanity. I would rather you had a harder time selling licenses if it meant the ecosystem around whatever big project you're talking about was compelled to contribute to the commons in the same way that the big project does.

Proprietary software is the dead or soon to die branches of the tree of human development, may spawn some useful insights that will ultimately be applied elsewhere, and may be profitable and useful in the short term, but the branch dies, I don't want to subsidize dead branches, and I don't want to write software that enables people to make more of them, even if some of those branches might be nice to hang on for a while.

I'm not completely familiar with the details and haven't done it myself, but what's stopping you from selling non-restrictive licenses to a GPL project? Can't you just etch out an exception for each customer?

I'm not sure what you are suggesting. My tool is classic shareware: You download a free version, and if you like it you pay to remove feature restrictions. Companies pay per device the tool runs on. I'm not sure how I would implement this when distributing a GPL licensed program? Customers could just remove the license checking code and distribute it for free?

I don't understand, a shareware software is not permissively licensed.

jjcob is taking a permissively licensed project and selling a closed-source product derived from it. That's why they are arguing against copyleft in this thread.

right, so jjcob is saying that it is better for others write permissively licensed software so that jjcob can use it for their restrictively licensed software. That's obviously good for jjcob, but I'm not sure how that benefits anybody else.

I'm building a tool that makes working with the big open source project easier for some users. It makes the open source project accessible for more users.

In theory, it would be nice if my tool was open source / free to use. But nobody makes a tool like mine for free, because it is a lot of work and not essential for using the open source software. The kind of people who need it are not programmers and extremely unlikely to come together to fund an open source version of my tool.

My contribution is that I make the big open source project accessible to more people. (Aside from contributing back to the project, which is in my own interest, because contributing fixes is easier than maintaining a fork. A lot of contributions to this open source project come from proprietary software vendors like myself.)

(Sorry for the generic description, I'm trying not to dox myself on HN...)

I just don't really want to support the sale of any software. I see it as directly harmful compared to subsidizing the development of modifiable, free software, which is the true allure of computation.

Users lose because the tools with the most functionality, the applications with the most interoperability, the software with the most mindshare,... will be proprietary software.

There are alternatives. We can dual license software under a strong copyleft and a proprietary license, so that users (developers) who don't want their derived software to be copyleft can pay the proprietary license fee. IMO this is the approach that everyone should be taking - it rewards the developer rather than them subsidizing your derived works with their free time.

Obviously this has constraints. The developer must have full rights or ownership to redistribute the work under other licenses. This can be obtained from contributors via agreement, where every developer retains ownership of code they write, but grants permission to relicense it for the benefit the project. Ideally, contributors would also be rewarded for their time via bounty systems, contracts or direct employment.

It's possible to make non-derived works which utilize copyleft software. The license's conditions apply only to the derived works, and not directly to your code unless it unquestionably a derived work such as a fork. If your application is written in a way that it can function without dependency on a copyleft software, but can be augmented using copyleft software using a plugin system, then you're able to distribute your software under any license you chose, and only the plugin which uses the copyleft software would be required to be licensed under a compatible license. The "aggregate" would need to be distributed under the copyleft license - but there are also ways around that - simply distribute your software without the dependency on the copyleft work, and have it optionally download the copyleft plugins separately so that they're not part of the "aggregate".

Permissive licensing won't sustain itself unless the developers who depend on it start donating to the maintainers of the permissively licensed works they depend on. In some cases this happens, but mostly it's just the case that you can make money using software other people have given away and continue to maintain for free. What happens if they decide to stop maintaining it? Is your product still viable if you have to take over the task, or employ someone new to maintain it? Would it be viable if you, or your users, had to purchase a proprietary license fee for an alternative dependency?

Your logic seems to assume that there two disjoint groups of people:

1. Developers who work on the open source project

2. Developers who work on proprietary software based on the open source project

In reality these groups overlap. Developers contribute to the open source project, and they also work on their own software based on the open source project. If you look at the git logs of successful permissive open source projects, you'll see that a lot of the development time comes from developers who work for proprietary software companies.

That's true for some projects, but there are others who have a sole maintainer, receiving no other contributions or donations, who are expected to continue maintaining the work for free.

My advice is basically to not be that person.

You need to read the GPL licenses more carefully. Your code gets infected by GPL when you link. The principle difference between GPL 2 and GPL 3 being that the definition of "link" is much more expansive GPL 3. So separately downloaded packages don't really cut it unless the packages in question are LGPL-licensd (GPL with a link exception).

GPL 2.0 and GPL 3.0 (to a much more significant extent) disallow use of plugins. Or well, the do allow plugins, but at the cost of infecting the entirety of your own codebase with GPL 3.0 obligations.

And that's my principle objection to GPL. Linking to GPL code infects my code, requiring me to also license my code via a GPL license.

Permissive license stand a better chance of getting funding because they allow commercial users to use your software, and commercial users are more likely to give sustaining grants to projects they depend on than mere-ordinary users.

> GPL 2.0 and GPL 3.0 (to a much more significant extent) disallow use of plugins. Or well, the do allow plugins, but at the cost of infecting the entirety of your own codebase with GPL 3.0 obligations.

> And that's my principle objection to GPL. Linking to GPL code infects my code, requiring me to also license my code via a GPL license.

No. You release a host application with no dependence on GPL code.

The end user loads a plugin that is (or uses) GPL code. The end user doesn't distribute anything.

In very practical terms, what is the enforcement here? Who is gonna sue the end user?

> In very practical terms, what is the enforcement here? Who is gonna sue the end user?

There's nothing to enforce because no license violation has occurred.

The end user is allowed to use GPL licensed code alongside proprietary software. This is permitted by Freedom 0.

  * The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

> The end user is allowed...

As a developer, my primary concern is what the GPL says about what I as a developer must do. What it requires users to do is an entirely secondary question.

The Free Software Foundation is typically who sues you (or provides legal assistance to 1st parties who wish to enforce their GPL license). They can, and do sue people. And have sued people. And seem to make a fairly reasonable income from suing people.

As in all matters relating to intellectual property, things only become interesting once you have earned enough money to pay. So weekend warriors aren't going to get sued. But anyone who runs a commercially successful company (or plans to) becomes a target. And given that the Free Software Foundation is notoriously litigious, and notoriously unwilling to settle for anything less than complete submission, and a substantial cash payment, this is not a theoretical issue. And as with all matters relating to Intellectual Property, the cost of litigating even the most basic of questions is enormously expensive (some significant fraction of $1m for each party, not including costs for appeals). So it probably doesn't even matter what the GPL actually says.

One of the most significant problems with the GPL licenses is that they are extremely difficult to interpret. A corporate lawyer who reviewed a GPL license for me said: the first mistake in the GPL is on the first line. (Legal contracts cannot be copyrighted). And things rapidly go downhill from there.

Consider my application, in the context of GPL 3. It loads lv2 plugins, using a permissively licensed library. The majority of lv2 plugins are GPL-3 licensed.

According to GPL-3, you incur GPL-3 obligations when you link to GPL-3 code. The GPL-3 license goes to great lengths to explain what "link" means, and defines "linking" in very broad terms. It does grant exceptions for plugins that are loaded through "system apis" (but fails to define what a system api is). And in practice, Linux system APIs are covered by an exception in the Linux GPL license. So in actual practice, there is no exception for plugins. Is the LV2 plugin api a system api? It is not. It does not come pre-installed as part of most distros, and it is not part of the Linux kernel APIs. So the "plugin" exception is purely fantastical. It does not exist.

The GPL-3 also fails to define WHEN linking must occur in order to incur GPL-3 obligations. So. I as a developer, download and install an LV2 plugin. I use my program to load the plugin, while doing testing. Have I "linked", thereby infecting my entire codebase with GPL once I publish it (the 2nd condition required to incur GPL obligations)? I would fantastically hope not, but there is a very plausible interpretation of the GPL-3 text that says I have. It's easy for you as user to say that I have not. But the actual text of the GPL is unclear. And as a developer who writes code for a living, I have a professional responsibility to consider such questions.

You have to make a careful distinction between what one would like a reasonable license to do, and what the GPL actually does. And given that the GPL is extraordinarily poorly written, exceedingly difficult to interpret(according corporate lawyers I have asked to review it), largely untested in American courts (which are no longer entirely dependable these days, anyway), and increasingly aggressive about what "linking" means, this is a problem. Is the GPL a "reasonable" license that places only sensible restrictions on developers? Not at all clear. There's a long list of fantasy clauses one might imagine the GPL should have -- most of which it does not.

And it's also a big problem that the intent of the GPL is clearly stated: to infect as much software as possible with GPL obligations.

The GPL doesn't "infect" any code. You can write code which clearly calls GPL licensed code and license it under a MIT license.

The GPL comes into play when you distribute. If you distribute your MIT licensed code alongside the GPL licensed code, then the aggregate must necessarily be GPL licensed. This doesn't mean your code suddenly becomes GPL code and cannot continue to be licensed under MIT when not distributed as an aggregate. It is perfectly reasonable for someone to take the code, strip out the GPL licensed parts and replace them with MIT licensed alternatives, and license the whole thing as MIT.

Obviously for proprietary software this implies the aggregate must have its source code available in a GPL-compatible form.

But the point here is that you're separating the GPL work from your own code by means of a plugin system. If a plugin depends on GPL code, then the plugin itself must be distributed as GPL - but this does not infect the host program which loads the plugin.

That is, unless it can be reasonably argued that the host program is a derived work of the GPL licensed work. If the program basically does not function without dependency on the GPL licensed work then this might be a reasonable argument - but if the program runs fine, and is only augmented by a GPL licensed plugin, then it is not a derived work.

You can sell GPL software. You can even sell GPL software under proprietary license as long as you are the copyright owner (dual-licensing).

Really, when you take time to understand real restrictions, as opposed to repeated myths, the only argument in favor of permissive license is that they help big players use free labor.

You don’t even need to be the copyright owner to sell GPL software, but it’s unlikely many would pay for it.

> You don't even need to be the copyright owner to sell GPL software

You do, if sell means also allowing another vendor to use your software as a part of their proprietary software.

GPL alone, if you're not the copyright owner, would not allow you to sell software in this way. But if you are the copyright owner, you can bypass GPL and sell a proprietary license to the vendor saying "you can use this software in your proprietary product if you pay me $XYZ".

For anyone who thinks I'm talking out of my ass, consider Qt.

If you don't own the Qt copyright, you cannot sell Qt to a company who wants to use it to build a proprietary product - since Qt is GPL licensed, using it in a proprietary product would not be permitted.

But since The Qt Company owns the copyright, they can sell their own software to companies that want to build a proprietary product with it - they just sell it under a proprietary license, specifically tailored for this. The fact that it was previously released under GPL is irrelevant, because the copyright holder can license it under as many licenses as they want.

If you don't own the copyright to it, you can only """sell""" GPL software in a manner in which local DVD shops sold pirated movies back in the early 2000s.

Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, and myself, among many, "sell" GPL software that are used by others as part of their proprietary products.

Each of those, and the customers, are required to make the source they received (not their own proprietary source), including changes, available to those that receive the software (thus indirectly back to the public and the authors). AGPL is similar but includes the case of providing sources for products used in Internet services.

There are all kinds of nighmarishly horrible ways to sell GPL software. e.g. inscrutable build procedures, undocumented build dependencies, crippleware, indispensable non-open-source tools). A significant part of the reason why I avoid GPL software like the plague is all of the horrible schemes owners of GPL software have come up with in order to monetize their supposedly "free" software.

> A significant part of the reason why I avoid GPL software like the plague is all of the horrible schemes owners of GPL software have come up with in order to monetize their supposedly "free" software.

These schemes wouldn't be necessary if industry would start paying for the stuff they use. And I wouldn't call it a "scheme" when the deal is clear - you either pay by giving money to the author or by giving source code to your users. Choice is yours, and since you are developing proprietary program you shouldn't really have any qualms with the first approach, unless you are a leech.

The one surefire way to ensure that you never get a big corporate sponsorship: ship your code with a GPL license.

Industry does in fact sponsor a LOT of permissively-licensed opensource software. Apache. Webkit. Android. openssh. boost. x11. VSCode. react. jQuery. node.js. Ruby on Rails. llvm. The International Components for Unicode project. Mono (and now .net!). And an endless list of opensource libraries published by Google and Microsoft (and others). To cite really big examples. But there is a very long list of smaller examples as well.

And the way I pay personally is by releasing my own software under a permissive license that respects and honors the intent of those whose permissively-licensed libraries are used by my project.

Respectfully, I think it might be time to move on, and accept the fact that GPL is a failed experiment that has been superceded by permissive licenses.

If it helps any, at two companies I was responsible for ensuring that all FOSS was made available to customers in an easily re-buildable, re-imageable way alongside our proprietary binaries.

how would that be any different from selling someone elses permissibly licensed software?

as a user i have the choice between yours and the original in both cases.

Permissibly licensed software does not require you to provide sources or the changes to it.

Copyleft licenses require the source, including changes, to be provided.

The original purpose of copyleft is roughly the "right to repair". When you buy a product: you receive the necessary source, build instructions, and tools in some cases, to update and replace the software you received. The use of copyleft software passes those requirements on through proprietary users.

Note that one can still build a proprietary product as long as all the copyleft pass-through software can be modified and replaced on the product.

Why do you believe you can't sell copyleft software?

> Prefer permissive licenses only if you want to subsidize big business.

Another reason to prefer permissive licenses is if you want anyone to use your project.

Most coding out there in the world is done in the service of a commercial enterprise and my experience is that companies won't use copy left projects. Companies are generally happy to use projects with permissive licenses or pay for SaaS or commercial licenses, but anything with the GPL is a non-starter.

There are a few, well known exceptions (Linux, GCC), but I can't think of any exceptions from projects started in the last 20 years.

I don't necessarily think this view is entirely rational or irrational, but I’m confident this attitude exists; companies using GPL projects are pretty rare. Anyone found differently?

I’ll personally rather have companies not use my project than use it while restricting their users’ freedom.

> Never forget that Industry itself came to America by way of direct theft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

Wikipedia says:

> He memorized the textile factory machinery designs as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the U.S. at the age of 21.

Doesn't sound like he stole anything? At most it's some infringement of intellectual properties. (Wikipedia says: 'He learned of the American interest in developing similar machines, and he was also aware of British law against exporting the designs.' But again, no theft.)

There is another side to it. Instead of using open solutions, big business then copies the open solution to a degree that is permissable or a copyright vioaltion deniable. It can easily stomach the development costs. And in that case would outcompete you as well, as they offer service level agreements and build a consumer product around you solutions.

On the contrary, you would penalize small business, because they cannot stomach the increased developing costs. Large businesses wouldn't even notice the change.

Sure, for software exclusive businesses there were cases were a too permissive licence was counter productive for economic success.

Do you have any examples?

Instead of using open solutions, big business then copies the open solution

i highly doubt that. sure technically they can copy it, but they could not guarantee 100% compatibility. yes, the model would work, but at least they would compete on somewhat equal footing.

what happened to redis, elastic search, mongodb etc was way worse. people switched to amazon and others because they got the original and did not have to risk issues when switching. further more, they also didn't have to risk lock in. (or at least had the impression of not risking lock-in)

in other words offering a functional copy vs taking the original (without paying for it) are two very different value propositions.

but amazon could have made the same offers using GPL software, or even AGPL. yes, it would have cost them more, but not as much more as developing their own. so the fact that they could afford to develop their own clone is not an argument for the original developer to just allow them to use their software without restrictions.

"you should just give this to me because i could afford to just clone it and put you out of business." what kind of choice is that?

small businesses can use GPL licensed software just as they can use permissible licensed software. if using GPL software hurts your business model more than spending the money to develop your own well then maybe it's the wrong model.

i'd argue that using GPL software can jumpstart your business faster than developing your own, and once you make enough money you can develop your own like everyone else who doesn't want to use GPL software. permissible licensed software doesn't provide that much of a jump-start. it also makes it easier for your competition.

and most importantly, it all happens at the expense of the original developer. why should they accommodate that?

> The second-worst reason to use permissive licensing is arguably "I don't understand how to dynamic linking".

??! Not sure what that has to do with ANYTHING.

You can use LGPL licensed-software in your proprietary software, as long as you only link to it dynamically - i.e. you provide a clear separation between your software and the LGPL software.

Sure. But GPL does not permit that. You can also link to LGPL statically.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), as the author of the GPL and LGPL licenses, maintains that any software running in the same process space qualifies as "linked" under the terms of these licenses. This includes dynamic and static linking, plug-ins, loadable modules, and, in some cases, even interpreted code.

However, some developers who use GPL licenses interpret these requirements differently and permit certain uses that the FSF does not. A notable example is the Linux kernel, which allows proprietary kernel modules under specific conditions.

For proprietary software authors, the best-case scenario is having to convince a court that the license they accepted, by redistributing GPL-licensed software, permits linking without the obligation to disclose their own source code, as otherwise required by the license.

some developers who use GPL licenses interpret these requirements differently and permit certain uses that the FSF does not. A notable example is the Linux kernel, which allows proprietary kernel modules under specific conditions.

this is not necessarily a different interpretation of the license but it is an exception the authors make. and they can do that because they are the authors.

the interesting question is if they could change their mind and remove the exception. i believe they could. should they though? that's another question altogether.

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