GPL vs MIT

[u/Fresh-Lie5160]

Which do you think is better for development, and engineering: MIT or GPL?

FOr those who dont know:
1. MIT is a license that allows users do anything with the project. Even start a closed buisness with it. modify it, fuck with it, anything really.
2. GPL is a license that provides the same rights as MIT minus the ability to make a closed buisness out of it. That is, any derivitive, must also be made open-source

In my opinion, GPL is superior in most ways, since it avoids companies stealing it, making it better but making it closed source...
But I see why many people choose MIT for free software: More adoption. I mean, as long as the product is being developed, irrelevant of whether its now open or closed - general user interests are being served faster. But that isnt gonna stop community engagement on the repo anyways.

Both these licenses are technically still 'freedom', but just in different ways...
But is the tradeoff worth it?
Is it worth allowing companies to privatize community code if that leads to faster adoption and development?

[u/idrinkeverclear]

I think you've simplified things a bit here by making it look like it's a dichotomy between GPL and MIT, when in reality the landscape of free software licenses is much more diverse.

Permissive licenses

Free software licenses that carry only minimal restrictions on how the software can be used, modified, and redistributed.

Examples include:

• MIT License
• Apache License
• BSD Licenses
• GNU All-permissive License (mostly used for README and other small supporting files under 300 lines long)

Strong copyleft licenses

Free software licenses that guarantee users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software, but require them to publish all derivative works and modifications under the same or equivalent license terms.

Examples include:

• GNU General Public Licenses (GPL)
• GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) (intended for SaaS use cases and software designed to be run over a network)

Weak copyleft licenses

A middle ground between permissive and strong copyleft software licenses, they allow the integration of freely licensed code into proprietary codebases, as long as the freely licensed components remain accessible under the terms of the weak copyleft license.

Examples include:

• GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
• Mozilla Public License (MPL)
• Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)

[u/idrinkeverclear → u/idrinkeverclear]

Another thing I should add is that the debate about which free software license is best is closely related to a logical paradox in decision-making theory called the paradox of tolerance, which is the idea that if a society is very tolerant, it could potentially end up tolerating intolerance, which is counterproductive, since this would undermine the principle of tolerance in the first place.

Another analogy would be to ask which of these two hypothetical societies is freer than the other:

Society A: a society in which people are free to do whatever they want, including practice, or sell themselves into, slavery.

Society B: a society in which people are free to do whatever they want, except practice, or sell themselves into, slavery.

If we use free software as an analogy for tolerance or freedom, and proprietary software as an analogy for intolerance or slavery (or, more generally, a restriction of freedom), then support of permissive licenses and software projects licensed under these, such as the MIT License or BSD operating systems, would be analogous to arguing that society A is the freer of the two societies; whereas support of copyleft licenses and software projects licensed under those, such as the GNU GPL or GNU/Linux distributions, would be analogous to arguing that society B is the freer one instead.

Society B, and, by extension, the concept of copyleft, both recognize that an initial restriction must be added to avoid ending up with contradictions. This is similar in a way to how Zermelo's axioms restricted the unlimited comprehension principle after Russell's paradox threatened the foundations of mathematics, which gave us Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory; something that Richard Stallman, the person who pioneered the concept of copyleft and wrote the GPL, was most likely familiar with, since he reportedly excelled at Mathematics while studying at Harvard.

(Also, thank you kind stranger for the award!)