An agenda such as putting food on the table.
I quickly put it under MIT, which means though I never saw changes back - something I did helped somebody else teach a class of people HTML. That's doesn't put food on my table, but the same effort from me under a bad licence would have meant that good likely would not have come from my efforts.
If you can have passive income projects that sit there and generate revenue over time without further input, why can't you have passive charitable giving, where you put in effort once and others are able to get value from it over and over again as time goes on.
Permissive licences pay it forward in a way that viral licences don't.
Who is more likely to be hired for paying work: the guy whose code you have benefitted from or the guy whose code you haven't seen?
I believe there is such thing as 'corporate stewardship' and companies ought to give back to the communities that host them. With remote work, and independent workers I believe that responsibility to give back falls on the individual.
I've surely benefitted in my life from open-source software. My income depends on my use of it, so I feel not just a desire but a duty to release work for others in the same way.
It's not direct, but the more code I put out there the more my industry thrives. The more my industry thrives the more work there is in it. The more work there is in my industry the easier it will be for me to find work.
It's a roundabout way of doing it, but I like to think of it as watering the garden I get my food from, instead of harvesting it.
Regardless, all the reasons you're giving for why you prefer permissive open-source licenses also apply to the GPL.
I like public domain, I like MIT, I like libPNG, but I don't like forcing ideology or licenses on people and THEIR code. Take it, learn from it, modify it, USE it. If I didn't want it to be taken and used I wouldbt bother to post it! The GPL gets in the way of that.
It's not just the GPL, this criticism applies to any licence with a viral clause.
I understand that as an author I have copyright and ultimate freedom to licence my code under whatever I choose, but I choose to release my code under non-viral terms.
It's not about posting changes back, I don't care if they fork it and run I just want people to use it. I see viral terms a huge roadblock to this type of creativity.
So there's a solid argument for permissive licenses that excludes viral licenses like the GPL!
If a viral licence is an impediment to people using my work, then releasing it seems like a waste.
I don't agree, there are still enough people who will gain from it. Everyone who wants to learn, everyone who wants to give back, etc. that is not a waste at all, quite the opposite.
I'm referring to mid to large size companies that simply want to take permissively licensed software and repackage and lock it up so they can increase share holder value. I'm talking about executives who have never developed a piece of software but are smart enough to monetize it on the backs of hobbyists and freelancers.
I don't see how that puts food on anyone's table other than those who already have plenty.
But, hey I come to HN for the debate so thanks for your comment, I respect your opinion.
Also, if I were in a better mood right now, I would more carefully avoid being condescending. I don't mean to attack you personally.
I just want to clarify: when someone makes a claim, and another person uses an extreme example that has identical logic to the claim but is obviously ludicrous, it proves that the claim is based on faulty logic.
In this case, if you say something that implies that you can't criticize someone for trying to make a living, this comic proves you wrong by bringing up an example worth criticizing.
Your idea of "oh, this extreme example? it applies to those I disagree with" amounts to "I'm rubber, you're glue" sort of childish nonsense.
Reductio ad absurdum requires that the absurd conclusion is a consequence of the argument that you are trying to disprove when taken to extremes.
You haven't done that. You've just posted a comic that is a flawed analogy to the point in question.
If I was claiming that any behavior, however immoral, was justified by the need to make money, your argument would hold.
But I don't claim that. I claim that the rational behavior of not selecting the GPL is supported by the argument that it might be against one's financial interest and the interests of a prosperous society to do so.
Your reductio only works if you assert that the GPL is morally superior and not just pragmatically so.
My comment about the comic stands - you are raising the choice of the GPL to the level of a moral choice. Why not just admit that?
So, let's get to the bottom of this: GPL vs permissive isn't itself a moral issue, but making proprietary software is a moral issue.
So, arguing against GPL in favor of permissive specifically because permissive software can help make proprietary software… that becomes a moral issue because you are advocating not just for permissive licenses but for the proprietary software they enable.
For the record, I think in practice, the economic justification for proprietary software is acceptable if the proprietary publisher works especially hard to be honorable and not malicious in how they wield their proprietary power and it can be really shown that they couldn't get by without being proprietary. But just making money isn't an adequate excuse without those other qualifications.
We could have avoided this if you'd just been honest about having a moral problem with most proprietary software.