They're silly, folks. Intellectual property is a spook.

Under communism all software will be free to share, use, and modify without restriction.

This post inspired by the current Ruby mimemagic gem license drama.

In case you're not following:

  • mimemagic is a Ruby library (gem) used for detecting the MIME types of files, either by their extension or by their content
  • it's widely used and included in Rails
  • it was MIT licensed
  • it was using an xml file from freedesktop dot org, which is a GPL project
  • the GPL license means that every project that uses that software must also be GPL licensed - open-source, freely usable/modifiable/etc
  • someone from freedesktop pointed this out to the mimemagic maintainer
  • the maintainer republished the gem as GPL and yanked all the MIT licensed gems, breaking builds everywhere, and making rails currently uninstallable

I have a big headache because of ideology.

  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This is copy and pasted from another comment I wrote in this thread but here's my take on it:

    The issue with GPL and living in a capitalist society means that if you have any significant library, tool, or framework, GPL licensing it means that you either effectively kill the framework by making sure that it can only ever be open source.

    I'm not talking about applications, like Lemmy or whatever, which yeah if someone forks an open source application that I wrote or maintained it should stay open source if I want it to and not get turned into a new Alphabet product.

    But that shouldn't apply to non-application code. GPL-poisoning a framework like Rails would kill it — companies not using it means that you can't get a job for knowing it, which sadly in capitalist society means that at best it becomes a niche or hobby tool. Contributions drop significantly.

    Open source is great but I'm way more likely to find and patch bugs or add features to libraries and frameworks if I'm using them 40+ hours a week and getting paid for it. I don't have the energy to do my job after work.

    LGPL solves this problem pretty well, but GPL will sharply reduce the number of people contributing to it.

    • garbology [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Online stuff shouldn't be "poisoned" by GPL, only AGPL, yeah?

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Afaik that's backwards: using GPL to create derivative works requires you to GPL license your stuff too, but AGPL only applies if you distribute your derivative works (ianal but I think that applies to web stuff too? Not sure)

        • garbology [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          AGPL is the Affero GPL , and it's stricter than the GPL, because it also requires you to share your source even if you only use it to provide services online, and never distribute the program.