Comment by arccy

Comment by arccy 2 months ago

1 reply

the people who have the ability to make changes are a mostly disjoint set from the entitled ones who complain loudly in your issue tracker.

the only thing licenses help with is discouraging people from using it in the first place

palata 2 months ago

> the only thing licenses help with is discouraging people from using it in the first place

It may discourage people from using it, often because it's easier to go with a permissive alternative. But if there was no permissive license at all and only weak copyleft, then I am absolutely convinced that people would use them just fine.

One important thing I believe you miss is that weak copyleft gives developers leverage to contribute back during their work time. If my company needs this particular library which is MPLv2, then as a developer, internally I can tell my managers that I must upstream my changes. Whereas if it is permissive, then I can try to ask the permission to upstream my changes, and obviously that will be refused (because it takes time which costs money).

By using a reciprocal license, you give developers a legal reason to contribute back during their work time. Ain't that amazing?