• Shareni@programming.dev
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    7 months ago

    You’re correct, but the point is that it’s forcing you to do something. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is less free than Apache or MPL

    • bruce965@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Ah I get what you mean, I used to share your same view. I used to think that the MIT license was more free than GPL for the reasons you mentioned.

      When Google started working on Fuchsia OS and they said it will be MIT license, I started to get worried that smart products producers would start using it instead of Linux. Then they wouldn’t need to release the source code to customers as the software would no longer be GPL.

      The difference is that MIT gives more freedom to the producers, while GPL gives more freedom to the consumers.

      Personally, my sympathy goes to consumers, not producers, thus I understood why people say GPL is more free than say Apache or MIT.

      Licenses such as MIT, Apache, MPL, etc… are a double-edged sword. 😬