I love HN. Read an article that raises a reasonable point about a project’s license, and that project’s author shows up to announce they were convinced and changed the license accordingly. Repo was updated 5 minutes ago.
replyIt’s things like this that give me hope for the world.
I'm not a scab, so I won't use permissive licenses on my unpaid projects. People who want to use them at work can cry me a river.
replySame. Started to adopt AGPLv3 for every new project. With AI sucking up all the CV-driven contributors, it’s time to take back open source as a joyful hobby for nerds that enjoy programming and sharing their creations with one another, instead of being corpo stans that do free support for shareholder driven enterprises.
replyDo you think AGPL is going to stop a crawler from incorporating your work into their training set? I don’t. There are zero meaningful consequences atm.
replyThat being said, I’m with you in spirit and in action, but realistically it’s pointless outside of living in accordance with your values.
Edit: Re-reading that, i just told you that your principles are pointless, and thats fucked up and wrong. I’m going to live in accordance with mine and not delete this, but apologies.
That's kinda how I'm thinking about this in terms of licenzing my upcoming projects.
replyThe code is just going to be laundered anyways, so why bother putting on a license like AGPL that might just hinder adoption?
I went through similar thoughts. Settled on just dropping everything under MIT.
replyI'm using AI assistance a bunch, nothing fully vibe coded (yet) so what's it really matter? My "novel" approach to BOM line item attributes?
What a thread.
replyMaybe there is hope for the internet?
I don't bother so much with licenses, but learned to reply with "that would be 1k bucks" instead of "you are welcome" where someone wants my library to do something it didn't before.
replyNot to be Debbie Downer but software licensing has no effect on what matters to billions of people.
replyWe are facing very real global and societal issues that people on this site are actively exacerbating, like disinformation and climate change.
If a dude changing an inconsequential text file on GitHub gives you hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.
So I'm guessing you don't do anything except what matters to billions of people? Always 100% fully generalized contributions, never making your local world a better place? Your only local contributions being to tell off people who are grateful that their lives are materially improved by someone else's smaller actions... You must be beloved by your community.
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replyYet here you are, posting self-congratulatory comments about how you don't post self-congratulatory things.
replyIMHO this is even less meaningful/impactful than the comment that you objected to.
I don't think the point you're trying to make improves the quality of the discussion here. If a downstream project laments a license and the author changes it, that's good communication and cooperation. Complaining that people are happy with the outcome isn't productive.
replyMaking one small corner of the world a little bit better is a good thing. There's not much use in complaining that it's not as big of an impact as could hypothetically be achieved on some larger issues.
reply“He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer.” -- William Blake
replyIt's things like this that rob my of my hope for the world.
replyLol. Someone liking this change is stupid for letting it lift their outlook, right? How stupid is it then to let this comment rob your hope.
reply:) Alternative reply to lighten mood in odd thread:
reply Not to be Debbie Downer but making one small corner of the world a little bit better has no effect on what matters to billions of people.
We are facing very real global and societal issues that people are actively exacerbating.
If a dude explaining that there’s not much use in complaining robs you of hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.You understand I'm on your side here, right?
replyI saw someone smile at the park the other day, do you think you could talk to them for me?
replyI think you like very much to be a debbie downer
replyNot GP but I feel like that's kinda their point - the fact that we still have this platform to collaborate in such an organic way is truly remarkable and must not be taken for granted.
replyThis is verifiably false. Without copyleft licensing like the GPL or permissive licensing like MIT and Apache we literally would not have the internet, or it would be somehow even more wildly dystopian and proprietary than it already is.
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replyActually a lot of that bad stuff billionaires are doing is enabled by MIT licensed software. Like, device lockdown is illegal with GPL3
replyPeople are concerned about having homes to live in and having food to eat. They aren't concerned about 'device lockdown'. Try to see the bigger picture.
replyDevice lockdown is why our biggest billionaires are billionaires. It's how they made their money and still make it.
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replyYou are indeed being a Debbie Downer.
replyYou must be fun at parties
replyIsn't this[0] the use-case that is supposedly covered by LGPL?
reply[0] copyleft-licensed library that could be legally linked into non-copyleft code base.
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replyThose poor multi-trillion dollar companies that can't use copyleft projects, whatever will they do?
replyWrite copyleft software?
replyNah, send the trench grunts to cry on the internet
replyPlease consider using the LGPL instead.
replyThank you for all the hard work and inspiration.
replyHero
replyThank you!
replyYou might want to check again for something that has patent protection.
apache2+llvm exception, or just the mozilla public license...
replyEUPL is also basically GPL without being viral, too.