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Is the FOSS world in danger of a corporate takeover, thanks to pushover licenses? (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I ask this because I think of the recent switch of Ubuntu to the Rust recode of the GNU core utils, which use an MIT license. There are many Rust recodes of GPL software that re-license it as a pushover MIT or Apache licenses. I worry these relicensing efforts this will significantly harm the FOSS ecosystem. Is this reason to start worrying or is it not that bad?

IMO, if the FOSS world makes something public, with extensive liberties, then the only thing that should be asked in return is that people preserve these liberties, like the GPL successfully enforces. These pushover licenses preserve nothing.

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[–] 2 points 9 months ago

I was not trying to brush away the differences for GPL 2 vs 3. My point was just that I don't think a more permissive license on Coreutils would have caused every company to want to steal the code, get everyone using it and force out the GPLed version. But a more restrictive license (say one that infects other binaries on the system) would have meant fewer companies using it and thus fewer distros and everyone else using it.

But for other projects the balance is different and a more permissive license would cause issues. There are some projects that even the GPLv2 or even v3 is too permissive for.

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