“Permissive licensing is wrong?” – No it’s not! (2/2)
The previous post gave a short introduction into the topic of software licenses, focusing on the GPL vs. BSD discussion. This one is basically my response to some typical arguments I’ve seen from people who seem to loathe permissive licensing. I’ll write this in dialog style, hoping that this makes it a little lighter to read.
GPL fan: “BSD license? Really? You shouldn’t be using that!” BSD advocate: “Why not? I like it a lot.” Fan: “It’s a dumb decision. Don’t you even care about free and open source software?” Advocate: “Oh yes, I do!” Fan: “Then why not just use the license everyone uses? In contrast to BSD, the GPL ensures that code remains free.” Advocate: “No, not ‘everyone’ uses that license. You wouldn’t claim that e.g. the Apache foundation doesn’t do anything for open source now would you?” Fan: “Most of the important projects do. Apache and some others don’t, I’ll give you that. They should adapt the GPL, though.” Advocate: “Version 2 or 3?” Fan: “GPLv3, of course. It was updated for a reason after all! The current version offers much better protection for your code.” Advocate: “Well… I don’t feel any need for this kind of ‘protection’. But for now let’s assume that you convinced me. Changing the license would be quite a bit of work!”
Fan: “How’s that? Re-licensing stuff to GPL is pretty straight-forward.” Advocate: “Reading – and understanding! – the license alone takes quite some time… Which is one reason I prefer the much simpler BSD licenses, BTW.” Fan: “Nonsense! The GPL has been constructed carefully and is advocated by the FSF. You can read it, of course, but you could basically trust their judgement.” Advocate: “I strongly prefer to work with things that I do understand myself.” Fan: “The aim of the GPL is not hard to understand at all.” Advocate “It’s a complex monster. Sure, I understand what it’s all about. But in life in general – and even more so in law – the devil is in the details. Finding out what I am allowed to do and what not is not an easy task – and it got more complicated with every new version of the license.” Fan “It’s only as complex as it has to. You admitted that law is complicated and details are important. Of course it had to become more comprehensive over time! That’s for our own good.” Advocate “‘Of course’? I’d doubt that. The BSD license has seen updated versions as well – and it has been shortened with every new revision… Anyway, my focus is on the software. For that reason I prefer a license that doesn’t distract me for quite some time from what I actually want to do.” Fan: “You said that you care about your code? Fine. Then you really should avoid BSD licenses!” Advocate: “Uhm… What?” Fan: “Linus Torvalds put it this way: ‘Over the years, I’ve become convinced that the BSD license is great for code you don’t care about’. And he’s right.” Advocate: “No he isn’t. It completely depends on what you want to achieve!”
