As someone who has spent a fair amount of time developing open source software, I will say I genuinely dislike copyleft and GPL.

For those who are into freedom, I don't see how dictating how you use what you build in such a manner is in the spirit of free and open.

Just my opinion on it, to each their own on the matter.

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myrmidon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I had a very similar view once, and have since understood that this is mainly a difference in perspective:

It's easy as a developer to slip into a role where you want to build/package (maybe sell) some software product with minimal obligations. BSD-likes are obviously great there.

But the GPL follows a different perspective: It tries to make sure that every user of any software product is always capable of tinkering and changing it himself, and the more permissive licenses do not help there because they don't prevent (or even discourage!) companies from just selling you stripped and obfuscated binary blobs that put you fully at the vendors mercy.

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dmezzetti 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand people want to control what happens once they build something. Too often do you see startups go with a permissive model only to go to a more restrictive model once something like that happens. Then it ends up upsetting a lot of people.

I'm of the opinion that what I build, I'm willing to share it and let others use it as they see fit even if it's not to my advantage.

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myrmidon 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the GPL mainly suffers with startups because it makes monetization pretty difficult. Some "commercial" uses of it are also giving it somewhat of an undeserved bad taste (when companies use it to benefit from free contributions while preventing competitors from getting any use out of it).

My view is that every project and library where I can peruse the source is a gift/privilege. GPL restrictions I view as a small price to "pay it forward", and to keep that privilege for all wherever possible.

	▲	dmezzetti 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Fair enough. You'd like to hope that there is a voluntary "pay it back and forward" mentality. But I understand that is a leap of faith with a lot of blind trust.

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amenhotep 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not dictating how you use what you build? It's dictating how you redistribute what you build on top of other people's work.

	▲	dmezzetti 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ok but I just have no interest in imposing restrictions on how people distribute what I build in such a manner either. That's just me.

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cdelsolar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I disagree as someone who has also spent a huge amount of time on open source software. It’s all GPL or AGPL :)

	▲	dmezzetti 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's your prerogative. It's just not for me and GPL is basically something I avoid when possible.

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pessimizer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As somebody who thinks that people currently own the code that they write, I wonder why you're in people's business who want to write GPL'd software.

Are you complaining about proprietary software? I hear the restrictions are a lot tighter for Photoshop's source code, or iOS's, but for some reason you are one of the people who hate GPL as a hobby. Please don't show up whining about "spirits" when Amazon puts you out of business.

	▲	dmezzetti 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not in anyone's business just sharing my opinion on GPL. I understand why people go GPL / AGPL just not for me. To each their own if they want to go down that path.