> Shitty is moving from the imported GPL baseline to an MIT-only codebase. It does not intend to retain the GPL as the final project license.
An interesting, and disappointing choice. Shitty, one may say.
An interesting, and disappointing choice. Shitty, one may say.
Forcing someone to release their code for free isn’t freedom, that’s a lack of freedom. Oh, you want the code to be free. Well guess what? MIT licensed means you can have it. Oh, you want a third party’s changes to be made free. No. Expecting that is batshit insane.
If someone forks this, changes it, and doesn’t release their changes, this still exists. Nothing is lost.
When something is released under MIT, it is “released”. When GPL software is released, it “binds” anyone that works on it, adding requirements to the entity doing the work. I.e. not free.
There is a trait in human nature that pushes us to share our knowledge. But we would like this sharing to be mutual.
When I publish a piece of software for free, I would like others to read it, comment it, give me suggestions on how to make it better, and the whole community can benefit from the process.
Unfortunately, someone might instead take it, start making profit out of it, and never giving anything back to me or the community.
As a device to get the former effect and avoid the latter, a sort of "contract" was created that mimicks a copyright licence. It is called copyleft and says that you can do whatever you want with my work except profit.
Now, someone might say that stopping a third party from profiting out of something they have not made is correct, someone might say it nevertheless means removing a freedom from them.
Whose side are you on?
address this culturally, that is the only way to address this completely. legal means cannot fundamentally redirect the culture of a society and make them believe that sharing is better for everyone. if you want a society that shares what it creates, then help create THAT. forcing people to do it pushes them in the opposite direction, they want to grasp their things even tighter than before.
Now, please reread your post replacing "people" with "corporations" and check if it still sounds reasonable.
No one is forcing you to do anything, and least of all which software licenses to depend on. If you don’t like something, choose something else. Freedom, you know?
>you can do whatever you want with my work except profit.
GPL doesn't prohibit that.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
> If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
Practically, to make a substantial profit, what you sell must be more worthy than something you can also download for free. So you must sell an enhanced version of the original software. And that is what the GPL wants you to give back and not keep for yourself.
I don't get it when the software author choses the license they don't see suitable in full, only because it's one of a common FOSS licenses, and than wiggle around it. There's nothing wrong with making open-source with exception, or dual licenses, or non-free software.