I think opting out would be quite hard. Due to the nature of copyleft your code can end up in a lot of random projects (which are actually complying with the license) and those projects might not opt out.
I would seriously consider opting in so long as my authorship was acknowledged and my license was upheld. FWIW I tend to release things under permissive licenses (although I think if I was copyleft-inclined I might feel the same way: just match my license).
But stripping my copyright, copying my work without my permission and presenting it to users on terms I did not agree to, all of that is unacceptable.
You could always say no. In general, copyleft has always prioritized freedom for the users over freedom for the developers and clearly this new initiative is based on that same philosophy.
I have regretted my choice of licences, so now I only go copyleft. That has allowed me to monetize some small libraries with a pretty specific use case. Some companies wont use code they haven't got an invoice for.
The way I think of it is that with permissive licences the freedoms can be removed from the code, but with copyleft the freedoms can't be removed from the code. By freedoms I mean the freedom to study the source code, to run it for whatever purpose you want, to make modifications and to share the code with other people.
What I know is if projects use permissive licenses, the software end users getting is usually proprietary.
Copyleft is designed to prevent that from happening.
I am not concerned with the code of other users' management layers. I am concerned with being able to use the code of this product in the way I want to use it. Copyleft is not important to me, I see permissive licensing as being a bigger priority for freedom.
You can do the same thing with GPL-licensed code. Only the recipient of GPL-ed code has a right to get the source code, not the public at large. Unless the recipient wants to redistribute the code, Copyleft makes little difference.
Consider licenses like MPL (or arguably LGPL) which are a halfway house here. If someone uses your library, your code is copyleft, but the rest of the app may be something else.
Yeah, most companies won't touch copyleft licenses at all due to the impact it has on their own licensing, regardless of the issue of contributing back. I guess LGPL is an exception, but most legal teams I've seen ban that too.
In practice, I'm not sure it has much effect on how many developers are hired though. If they could have used it, they would just use their existing developers to build something else. If they can't, they will use them to build that functionality, sure, but I don't think headcount would increase. They would just build slightly less capable products. Their competitors are in the same position after all.
But by doing that, you don't protect the users. If a commercial entity writes software that depends on e.g. an LGPL library. Then I as a user totally benefit from the fact that is it LGPL. Maybe it can even allow me to update the dependency myself, be it for security reasons, or for compatibility reasons (I could patch something in the library that would make the whole project work on my machine).
By not using copyleft, you make it easier for others to make proprietary products with your code. But is that what you want? As a user, are you happier with a proprietary Windows or an open source Linux?
I put my time and my effort to open source a program for free and I want to make sure that my code creates an incentive to create more free software, by using a copyleft license.
I dislike copyleft, but once you decided to go for copyleft, I think a clause like this makes a lot of sense.
Copyleft licenses are inherently trying to coerce the world to be a certain way. A penalty clause like this is probably more effective at changing the world than the normal clauses.
I view it as a personal choice for what you find important. Personally, I would prefer that my software not be used rather than it be used in a way that takes away users' freedom. You clearly think differently and are entitled to think differently.
Maybe you might consider using the MPLv2? It's a weak copyleft license that allows sub-licensing to other copyleft licenses (and inclusion into lax licensed projects without re-licensing the original project). Unfortunately, it suffers from not being strong enough to cover a "derived work" and only effectively copylefts files. But IMO that's better than nothing.
And when that's the goal, a more controlling license like copyleft makes a lot of sense. Especially in the case of a codebase from a failed startup that is no longer building a business around it though, a permissive license makes more sense.
Well put and understandable. I write proprietary software for embedded systems and I am thankful for people with more permissive licenses.
If I find useful copyleft code I would copy the code to a degree because I read it and cannot forget about it. I do try not to make a simple copy and in most cases it is just a tiny subset of the original, but a case could be made that it is still the same in abstract.
I do think that copyleft should have its place though, it doesn't have to be either/or. Especially in todays world where systems get more and more restrictive, it is a good license to have for some projects and ensures that ideas continue to be shared.
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