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   Blender Dumbass ( J.Y.Amihud ) (blenderdumbass@mastodon.online)'s status on Thursday, 11-Jul-2024 20:47:29 JST Blender Dumbass ( J.Y.Amihud )

   in reply to

   • ploum
   • Jesper Agdakx

   @jesper @ploum There are strategical uses of Push-Over licenses such as MIT. For example, say you are developing a Free Software format, like #ogg and you want people on Windows or Mac to be able to play file of this format. Then it's good to publish an easy to use library of this format under a push over license. Otherwise use strong copyleft. GPL, AGPL, or anything else which has strong copyleft.

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 11-Jul-2024 20:47:29 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • ploum
     • Jesper Agdakx
     @ploum >TL;DR: put your open source code under the AGPL license.
     There are 3 versions of the AGPL and all of them are free software licenses that don't say "open" in them; https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
     
     If you want to ensure your software isn't going to get proprietized before you can blink, then you should indeed license under the AGPLv3-or-later.
     
     @jesper >which already have an MIT license, as is common in academia.
     MIT has published many licenses, but I assume you mean MIT expat.
     
     >my philosophy was always that I'm happy if my software gets used by anyone
     My philosophy is that I'm happy for my software to be used by anyone as long as they respect the users freedom.
     
     >so I should use the license that is the least onerous.
     MIT expat is in fact more onerous than the AGPLv3 as it completely ignores many issues that face software such as patents (making interpretations about some implicit patent license is a terrible idea), while the AGPLv3 adequately handles issues that face software.
     
     Furthermore, if I see software licensed under the AGPLv3-or-later, I can be confident that it's free, while if I see software licensed under MIT expat, I have doubts (which are often proven) that part of the software is actually proprietary and having to check is pretty onerous.
     
     @blenderdumbass >For example, say you are developing a Free Software format, like #ogg and you want people on Windows or Mac to be able to play file of this format. Then it's good to publish an easy to use library of this format under a push over license.
     Software licensed under the GPLv3-or-later, or LGPLv3-or-later or the AGPLv3-or-later can be run on windows and macos just fine to play audio files - see VLC as an example of this.
     
     It's only if one intends to displace an existing proprietary format such as mp3 should taking a retreat away from freedom be considered.
     
     opus's implementation was released under a pushover license, as the intention was to get it implemented everywhere and displace mp3 - too bad looking back it turns out that not that many things use it and it's only really popular in degeneracy like spotify as it allows the hosters to save money on bandwidth (although without it they would have just used a less efficient proprietary format) - so maybe it would have been better to release it under the LGPLv3-or-later.
   • Embed this notice
     Jesper Agdakx (jesper@agda.club)'s status on Thursday, 11-Jul-2024 20:47:30 JST Jesper Agdakx

     in reply to

     • ploum
     @ploum Some very good points you make here. Until now my philosophy was always that I'm happy if my software gets used by anyone, so I should use the license that is the least onerous. Also it has mostly been contributing to existing projects (i.e. Agda) which already have an MIT license, as is common in academia. Do you think there's a difference in what kind of software should use which license, or would you recommend AGPL for everyone?
   • Embed this notice
     ploum (ploum@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 11-Jul-2024 20:47:32 JST ploum

     On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons

     TL;DR: put your open source code under the AGPL license.

     https://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.html

     #gemini : gemini://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.gmi