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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2024

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  • I don’t think believe using GPL will achieve anything. I am a professional developer. If I’m looking for a library for a problem and find one that’s GPL, then I will simply not consider using it. What are the options here?

    I could search for a different library with an MIT license. Let’s, for the sake of argument, assume that there are none.

    I could ask my boss if I can release all our source code to the public. Yeah, sure. That’s going to happen.

    I could ask my boss if I can have a bit of budget to haggle out a license with the library author. That’s a waste of time and money. Hammering out a license agreement across language boundaries and jurisdictions will involve a lot of lawyering and waiting that’s just not worth it. The additional fees would likely even outweigh the agreed payment to the author.

    So what’s left? I don’t use a library and program the thing myself. It might take a while, but I’m way cheaper than lawyers. So in the end, GPL won’t do a thing to force a business to support FOSS, but will annoy developers.

    That’s why, if I ever am in a position to meaningfully add to FOSS, it will be under the MIT license.