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VPenkov 4 hours ago

The comparison section says the MIT license is not "free" because it's not copyleft. How come is more permissive considered less free?

Hasnep 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This seems to be a misunderstanding by the author, a licence doesn't have to be copyleft to be free software. Even the FSF describes the MIT licence as a free software licence (they prefer calling it the Expat licence).

> Expat License (#Expat) > > This is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.

https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Expat

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
sublinear 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's not what it says.

It's a table comparing Olive to Vanilla. In the "feature" column there is a row for "Free Software".

It's not saying one is less free than the other. It's saying what you already know: MIT license is not copyleft.

echoangle 2 hours ago | parent [-]

But it’s saying that tailwind isn’t free software because it is MIT licensed. Why doesn’t MIT license count as free software?

stvltvs 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because it's not Free Software™.

https://www.osweekly.com/free-software-vs-open-source-why-th...

Hasnep 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

You're right, open source and free software are not the same thing, but software licenced under the MIT licence is still free software. Even the FSF describes the MIT licence as a free software licence (see my other reply in this thread).

sublinear 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah I'm still not following the loaded premise of this question. It's just a table telling people what the project is about.

An MIT-licensed project trying to not scare people away might have the same comparison table in their readme. They'd just flip around the green checkmark and red X.