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submitted 6 months ago by renzev@lemmy.world to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world

Context:

Permissive licenses (commonly referred to as "cuck licenses") like the MIT license allow others to modify your software and release it under an unfree license. Copyleft licenses (like the Gnu General Public License) mandate that all derivative works remain free.

Andrew Tanenbaum developed MINIX, a modular operating system kernel. Intel went ahead and used it to build Management Engine, arguably one of the most widespread and invasive pieces of malware in the world, without even as much as telling him. There's nothing Tanenbaum could do, since the MIT license allows this.

Erik Andersen is one of the developers of Busybox, a minimal implementation of that's suited for embedded systems. Many companies tried to steal his code and distribute it with their unfree products, but since it's protected under the GPL, Busybox developers were able to sue them and gain some money in the process.

Interestingly enough, Tanenbaum doesn't seem to mind what intel did. But there are some examples out there of people regretting releasing their work under a permissive license.

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[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 86 points 6 months ago

If I choose MIT it's because I don't care if people "steal" the code. This meme is stupid and condescending, if he didn't mind that Intel used it's code it's because he didn't mind, that why he chose MIT. Why is Intel beating him in the meme? It makes no sense. You are proyecting your thoughts onto him as if that's how he felt, but then you show that he didn't feel the same way you do. Why?

When I see a GPL license I don't see freedom. I only see forced openness, which makes me immediately avoid that library, since I can't statically link to it.

Freedom means that everyone can use your code. Yes, that means for-profit corporations. For free, without restrictions.

If I want to make a piece of software to improve people's lives and I don't care to do it for free, I'll choose MIT. If it gets "stolen" by a for-profit corporation it only makes it better, because now my software has reached more people, thus (theoretically) improving their lives.

[-] tshlye@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 months ago

Implying you can't profit with open code.

[-] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

You can, but for most software companies that would mean changing the business model.

If a company has to change its business model just to use a library, they just won't use that library.

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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
1006 points (88.7% liked)

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