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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 19:55:17 JST Aral Balkan

   GPL is only “viral” if you think freedom is a disease.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 20:05:02 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • ruisan

     @ruisan I’d call it a reciprocating license.

     And I’d call licenses where you can take without giving back parasitic licenses.

     #licenses #reciprocating #parasitic

   • Embed this notice
     ruisan (ruisan@masto.es)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 20:05:03 JST ruisan

     in reply to

     @aral how do you call then? 😀

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 20:08:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     Licenses like GPL are reciprocative licenses. If you take, you must also give back.

     Licenses like MIT are parasitic licenses. You can take without giving back.

     #software #freedom #licenses #reciprocative #parasitic

   • Embed this notice
     Annika Backstrom (annika@xoxo.zone)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 20:30:34 JST Annika Backstrom

     in reply to

     @aral MIT is great if your primary goal is bragging rights about some startup using your code

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 22:10:55 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @aral Don't forget that there any many licenses in the GPL family and not just one.
     
     No version of the GPL acts as a virus, as copyleft doesn't "infect" merely aggregated software like a virus would - rather it's like a spider plant - if you make the explicit choice to take a piece, the freedom grows.
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 23:14:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Yusef Napora

     @yusef AGPL is even better for that. None of it is perfect. Not least of all because once you’re large/powerful enough the only law that applies under capitalism is the law of the jungle.

   • Embed this notice
     Yusef Napora (yusef@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 23:14:52 JST Yusef Napora

     in reply to

     @aral I made my latest thing GPL partly because I haven’t mustered up the activation energy to leave GitHub yet, and I figure the one thing that might make Microsoft pause before blending my code into goo for the plagiarism bot is the idea that a court would declare the whole model a derivative work. Probably just wishful thinking, but given how big tech seems to treat GPL as a contamination, it seems like decent armor 🙂

   • Embed this notice
     robotalien (robotalien@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 01:06:56 JST robotalien

     in reply to

     @aral I think they are altruistic licenses. You give without expecting anything in return.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 01:06:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • robotalien

     @robotalien You’re not the one getting something in return; everyone is. That’s why we call it the commons.

     When you take without giving back, you’re not helping build a healthy commons, you’re simply privatising it.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 02:42:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • fluxwatcher

     @fluxwatcher Haha, sure, of course, only the corporations should benefit from them. Not someone working for the common good.

     Good to know which team you’re batting for. And, also, goodbye.

   • Embed this notice
     fluxwatcher (fluxwatcher@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 02:42:37 JST fluxwatcher

     in reply to

     @aral Nobody forces you to use non GPL-licensed projects.
     Be a consistent person and stop using them 😉

     #license #gpl #bsd

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 04:05:26 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • robotalien

     @robotalien Good for you.

   • Embed this notice
     robotalien (robotalien@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Apr-2024 04:05:27 JST robotalien

     in reply to

     @aral But I'm not a commons-nist. If someone can create a business on top of free code, they probably have something of value to offer. I don't believe restrictive licenses incentive contributions at all. I think they just stop people who would profit from freely available code from starting their enterprises. I don't see this as a net plus as projects that could have been made weren't due to GPL's ideology.