Picking a license

[Carl Banks]

On May 13, 4:30 pm, Brendan Abel <007bren... at gmail.com> wrote:
> While I think most of the disagreement in this long thread results
> from different beliefs in what "freedom" means, I wanted to add, that
> most of the responses that argue that the MIT license permits the user
> more freedom than the GPL, suffer from the broken window fallacy.
> This fallacy results from the short-sided-ness of the user base, as it
> is only considering the first generation of derivative works.
>
> I agree, that under an MIT license, the first generation of derivative
> works have more freedom.  But any extra freedom gained here comes at
> the direct expense of all future generations of derivative software.
>
> Under a GPL license, it is true that the first generation will have
> less freedom to distribute their software as they would like.  But it
> also ensures that all subsequent generations of derivative works have
> the freedom to access all previous derivative works.

I believe the you have the fallacy backwards.

The thing you GPL fanbois refuse to understand or accept is that, in
the real world, a person or company who doesn't want to open source
their "derivative work" will only rarely be forced to by the GPL.
They'll work around it instead, vast majority of the time.  They
could:

1. Derive their work from a project with a license that grants the
user more freedom
2. Reimplment the functionality seperately (*cough* PySide)
3. Ignore the license

And no, a small number of anecdotal counterexamples is not any strong
evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, those who intended to release their work as open
source are going to do it even if the license is permissive.  The way
some of you GPL fanbois talk you'd think the MIT license prohibitied
open source derivatives.

So, you see, the rights given to users of first generation works (as
you say) are far more important than requiring people who create
"derivatives" to also offer those rights.  Those who intend to do that
will anyways, those who don't intend to will find a way not to.


Carl Banks

PS The word "derivative" is quoted throught because the GPL's
definition of "derivative" is ludicrous and not in accordance any
common defintion of the word.