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@DanielMicay

@awakecoding

and 3 others

You are only "restricted" from making the software proprietary (i.e., not give others the permissions you were given).

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Matt 'msw' Wilson

@_msw_

Aug 28, 2021

Replying to @wewegomb and @alyssarzg

The GPL is completely business friendly, so long as business objectives are compatible with Free Software objectives. The GPL has created virtually impossible-to-measure business value by unencumbering businesses, as software users, from the restrictions of proprietary licensing.

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It also restricts mixing it with lots of other open source software, prevents selling devices with an immutable root of trust even as an optional variant of a product, etc. It has a ton of usage restrictions. The users of source code are developers and that's who it restricts.

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I think there are many ways to meet various design requirements of consumer electronics devices while still respecting the rights that I think the other of the device should be given.

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Daniel hits on a key aspect that always bothered me: who the real "users" are. The GPL doesn't affect me as an end user, but it does affect me significantly as a developer, especially if my intent is to potentially create proprietary software products.

Hurricane Ian McKellar

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How does the GPL stop you from creating proprietary software products? You can license proprietary equivalents of GPL software for any components you need. If you can't afford to do that then you have a business problem not a license problem.

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How about Free Software advocates stop bothering people for not producing software using their special non-free licenses with restrictions they consider acceptable? These non-commercial licenses are no less ethical or legitimate. GPL heavily restricts usage itself, in reality.

Hurricane Ian McKellar

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I believe in producing and using free software for practical and moral reasons. Others have different moral frameworks and needs than I do. I accept that different people have different perspectives but I reserve the right to share my own.

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Okay, and I believe in not using restrictive software licenses like the GPL for practical and moral reasons. I also consider most of the Free Software movement to be terrible people in a cult of personality. Most important reason not to use GPL is to avoid attracting them.

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GPL advocates are still just copyright monopoly advocates. It's about control and enforcing values on people like the rest of it, not freedom. It's a restrictive license and no amount of convoluted logic is going to convince me otherwise after years of thinking about this.

Hurricane Ian McKellar

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It's about having a community of people who share certain values around software freedom. You don't have to join the community if you don't share those values. You *shouldn't* join the community if you don't share those values. There are other, lovely communities.

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From my perspective it's less of a community and more of a cult with shared cognitive dissonance. I never would have felt welcome as part of that and the past years of being harassed by those groups / people has pretty much sealed the deal on that.

2:24 AM · Oct 11, 2021Twitter Web App