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Comment by err4nt | Hacker News Reader

I put a simple, self-contained HTML/JS/CSS scratchpad (think JsFiddle, Codepen) on Github without a licence. I was contacted because somebody saw the project and wanted to use it to help teach a classroom HTML, but only if the licence was good.

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.

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That doesn't at all address or relate to the question I asked, but instead provides a completely different talking point supporting permissive licenses as a charitable act.

> That 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.

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.

Did you mean to reply to my comment? I can't tell.

Regardless, all the reasons you're giving for why you prefer permissive open-source licenses also apply to the GPL.

The viral nature of the GPL leaves a bad taste in my mouth like a ideological chain-letter!

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.

For the example you gave in response to my first reply the GPL license would have permitted them to do as they please. No-one forces a license on you, you choose what license your original code is under. If I would like to prevent my code from being taken and profited from that's also my right. The fact that you can choose what license your code is under is freedom. The non-permissive vs permissive license argument is a moot point, because the very arguments supporting permissive also support the right to use a license such as GPL.

The GPL has a viral clause that says that whatever code touches GPLed code must be GPLed as well. This is a deal-breaker for many people who may be working with code under different licenses without similar viral clauses already in their codebase. They don't necessarily have the right to GPL other people's code, so they have to forgo using the GPLed code.

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!

Wait, why would it be a bad thing if they needed to publish the fixes for bugs they found? Wouldn't this be better for even more people in the future?

Nowhere did I say it was bad if they had to post their changes, but in reality it just means they won't touch it, won't have changes to post, and they will keep looking for more permissive code to use.

If a viral licence is an impediment to people using my work, then releasing it seems like a waste.

> 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.

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