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