Copyleft licenses are not โrestrictiveโ
https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/19/2024-04-19-Copyleft-is-not-restrictive.html
@drewdevault I cant tell you how many times people released their innovated idea under a copy-left license only to be angered when they realized the consequences, the vital nature, and the lock-in that resulted. Many abandoned the project and had to start over...
To each their own, but I will never use a copyleft license again.
@freemo oh no, it prevented you from making proprietary software, what a tragedy...
@drewdevault No, I didnt say anything about proprietary software. And it allows for that just fine.
@freemo that's literally the only thing that vitality prevents
I assume you mean "virality".. and no, it prevents quite a bit else.. for example it prevents switching or in some cases even using other copy-left licenses. It is also well known for not working well along side other open-source licenses in general.
There have been countless open-source projects that had to be abandoned and restarted from scratch due to the virality of a copyleft license that prevented progress regarding open-source interests due to licensing conflicts.
@freemo name one?
X.org server I think was the one that had to be abandoned, or was it XFree86.. one of the major X11 implementations had to be completely abandoned and rewritten as whatever replaced it.
I have no real issue with anyone using GPL.. you are giving your time for free, put whatever rules on your contribution you want, im just happy your contributing.
But **I** will never contribute to a copyleft project, and I certainly never want to be limited with how I can use my own projects either. So I will certainly never support anything copyleft if ic an help it.
The vasy majority of my contributions are in no way proprietary and have no real use for me in a proprietary setting. Some other stuff does.
And yea, it is doing its job by cutting off developers from wanting to contribute to it, which is why copyleft has been dying out significantly in recent years and largely replaced with MIT and apache licenses.
The trend of GPL to isolate itself and push developers away by punishing the very people who release under it is exactly why its dying.
Even the Mastodon server you run is AGPLv3.