this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Maybe there could be another reason why people choose MIT to begin with:
When you start a new repo on github it makes suggestions which license to use, and I bet many people can't be arsed to think about it and just accept what they're offered. [My memory is a little patchy since I very rarely use github anymore, but I definitely remember something like this.] And maybe github tends to suggest MIT.
That said, please undestand that many, many git platforms exist and there is no reason at all to choose one of the two that actually have the word git in them.
I can't believe professional developers choose MIT because they can't be arsed to look at the license choices
Have you worked with many professional developers?
At work, yes
Well, my experiences with my coworkers would lead me to pretty much exactly the opposite conclusion: the majority would probably intentionally avoid the GPL, if they even care at all.
Why do they not care? And why would they avoid GPL?
Because, for many of them, they don't have any reason to. In other words, privilege. Copyleft licensing is a subversive, anti-establishment thing, and software engineers are predominantly people who benefit from the established power structures. Middle/upper class white men (I'm included in that category, by the way). There's basically no pressure for them to rock the boat.
Because many of them are "libertarian" ideologues who have a myopic focus on negative liberty (as opposed to the positive variety).
Look, I understand if your boss tells you to not write Open-source/only use MIT so they can profit off of it later on. But for the people who have a choice, why wouldn't they? I don't see how it hurts their bottom line.
I'm middle class and here I am raging on Lemmy about software licenses LMAO
Yeah, but you and I aren't really representative of all software people. Most of them just want to grill.
I understand. I can't argue against wanting to earn money and be told to do something. I just wish that those that have a choice would take the extra minute to use GPL
Well professional developers are often employed by companies that want make use of open source code to sell their proprietary code. It seems more likely to me that those companies will instruct their developers not to work on any GPL code rather than some big ideological shift in the individual developers.
Ah, OK. No, of course not. I was thinking more about hobby developers.
But somebody else already pointed it out: MIT makes a project more attractive for investors. Follow the $£€
I think many hobby developers also see "hobby" developing as part of their career, so they would happily try and have their hobby align with future employment possibilities. Since companies avoid GPL, those devs will rather choose a license that is more attractive to those potential employers when they see their portfolio.
If it is solely for investors, then I understand. However I'm saddened to think that altruism in software has gone to the gutter
Is giving away your software in a way that doesn't use a copyleft license, not altruistic? Seems like a pretty narrow definition.
Altruism towards shareholders, not the open-source community
And they are mutually exclusive, in your eyes?
In this case, yes. If you were altruistic toward the community, shareholders could instruct devs to use it anyway so it works out for both groups. Doesn't work the other way around
How does a corporation using it obstruct independent developers from using it under the same license? I don't see a compelling case for them being mutually exclusive
Because most corporations do not contribute their changes back if it's MIT/BSD licensed
Oh so you're saying the companies are not altruistic? I'd agree. I thought you were saying that the people making the FOSS were not being altruistic.
The very act of writing FOSS code is altruistic. Indeed, I'm looking at the big corporations when I point and say "thief!".
Some companies do work that I like though. Mullvad is a prime example. Recently I've been looking at Nym and I like their ideas and work. I really liked that the big giants like Google and IBM collaborated for k8s. I believe Uber has done something wonderful for the FOSS community too but I don't remember what it is. The fact is that they can if they try
Yeah me too but it's been a long time coming. Ubuntu started it decades ago by replacing the altruism* with a warm and fuzzy "sense of community" while exploiting the enthusiasm of largely unpaid coders, Google certainly has done this for a long while, and by now it's just how you do your basic FOSS Kickstarter campaign.
All that really brings is "more customers", and doG knows that's not what the whole of GNU/Linux needs.
Over the years I have developed a sense for how projects present themselves before choosing one that suits my needs. Because the sane ones, both feet on the ground types, that do GPL and accept donations (or sometimes offer paid support), those still exist, old and new.
* a form of altruism btw that does not exclude egoism!