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Comment by broodbucket | Hacker News Reader

>Personally, it makes me happy if people can make a business using a bit of my work

Copyleft doesn't say that they can't, it says they have to make their changes available

I am mostly just an anti-contaminating license proponent. Porting to multiple platforms gets complicated if you include a 3rd party commercial library with a project that on linking demands it also become publicly accessible.

For example, if someone wants to do something creative... they shouldn't have to cite 400 different peoples licenses. That isn't sustainable or fun.

I will stick with Apache 2.0, but understand different folks have other use-cases =3

That is why the FSF invented just one GPL, and said everyone should use this one or later. Then when they invented another one, it was automatically compatible. This way, the license is compatible, and you don't have to give up any freedoms.

GPL and LGPL works for a lot of people, but becomes a persistent issue when porting to other OS. They both still become a contaminating license if you have to static link something, embed 3rd party blobs, or even use icons for a consistent user interface experience.

Having a less restrictive FOSS compatible license that doesn't obligate people to modify the general purpose libraries for their edge case has proven important.

GPL only truly makes sense if targeting an OS supporting shared-object library paradigms. This is part of the reason why 95% of commercial Applications are running in an emulated/wrapper on the nix platforms.

The year of the Linux Desktop is still a ways off, and the foundational library structures are under constant upgrade or permutation. Snap/Flatpak/AppImage and Docker/RancherVM were all designed to try and mitigate the compatibility chaos of perpetual nix Beta release cultures.

It has some advantages, but also a lot of disadvantages similar to the Butterfly Effect bugs when something with the same name slightly changes behavior. =3

The GPL excludes system libraries from contamination issues.

LGPL does not allow static linking without disclosure.

It is why the wxWidgets has a license that allows creating monolithic commercial blob dependent binaries for Windows, Linux Gtk/X11, and MacOS.

https://wxwidgets.org/about/licence/

People should not static link GPL/LGPL code to closed source blobs, and expect copyright/copyleft trolls to leave their project violating licenses. =3

Why would you want to not disclose that you used an LGPL library?

LGPL requires whatever you static link it with is GPL/OSS.

This is sometimes impossible with mystery binary blobs from manufacturers. =3

Which could make the business untenable. I'm not GP commenter, but I do want to be useful to these too.

And as others have said the deceptive term of "plugging the SaaS loophole" ignores that it means most software cannot be combined with it. Most. By far most.

Sure, some people will say "well fuck that software". And that's a stance. But it ain't freedom.

One problem is that people (mostly--we'll ignore the various edge cases) know what traditional *nix-style distribution looks like. No one knows what network interactions resolve to if someone with deep pockets and/or a grudge wants to file a lawsuit. So better to just run away.

Use an AGPL license if you like but--and I'm not even a lawyer--but I'll probably just walk away. Your software is probably not that interesting to compensate for any risk.

Yup. As I said in another comment "I treat AGPL as a rabies infected animal. I may have uses for it, but I'll keep it EXTREMELY segregated from everything else".

Indeed, keeping track of every shader/asset/texture under CC BY-SA 4.0 was a nonstarter.

For media, 3D files, game FX, and icons it is only CC0 Public Domain projects we recommend to folks having fun. Keeping track of every Copyright and Copyleft trolls content demands is just too much work for small hobbies. =3

We also financially support people clearing barriers for future artists and creatives (clean Blender resources.)

https://polyhaven.com/

And procedural textures with bake export (actually made Blender usable for mere mortals):

https://sanctus.gumroad.com/l/SLibrary

One of the problems we found was people reselling other peoples pirated works, or plug-ins for features already in Blender for free. Cons will always con regardless of community intentions. Make something fun and beautiful instead =3

There can be issues with public domain in Europe (moral rights you can't disclaim yada-yada in some non-common law countries). And, as I distantly recall, there were some issues with CC0 related to patents. MIT-0 would probably be my choice absent deep legal research into the topic (though I have discussed public domain as related to software with IP lawyers as related to a book I wrote).

Trademarks are still a possible liability, which is why film sets use gaffers tape or stickers to cover equipment logos and branding. The photo can be CC0, but the coca-cola logo is still owned by a company.

Patent claim sections are the only legal part at the end of the document, and may only cover functional or process facets of an innovation. Software patents are also only valid in certain jurisdictions.

Generally speaking, if something has been time-stamped in the public domain you can challenge a patent for $2k. Since a global patent is around $240k to $600k each, most people would not want to take that bet with archive.org active.

The Patent first-to-file changes under the US system may have altered the 17 organizations disclosure limit rules, but as far back as I can recall any patented technology older than 19 years is almost certainly public domain. =3

Yes, especially in an actual commercial context (e.g. an ad on a billboard) companies are or should be very careful. I've had panicked last minute emails from organizations where some CC photo of mine was being slated to be used. I've said yes of course as they were usually some form of worthwhile charitable organization.

I did even get a check once from a magazine but it was Canadian so that was very cute. (Sorry to any Canadians in the audience.)

But there are a lot of, often unclear, rules related to publicity and model rights that are by no means clear across geographies. Even leaving aside Eiffel Tower light displays, I'm sure a lot of the photos I've taken in Europe and put up on Flickr or Facebook could be an issue if someone really wanted to pursue it. Organizations do often have disclaimers as part of event registrations as well but they're pretty pro-forma and a lawyer could probably argue that there was no meeting of the minds in any contract.

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