Picking a license

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 19:10:09 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote:

> The broken window fallacy is about labor that could have been spent
> elsewhere if someone else had done something differently.  The only time
> that comes into play in my programming life is when I have to recode
> something that is nominally available under the GPL, so I'm not sure
> this is really making the point you think it is.

You've never had to recode something because it was nominally available 
under a proprietary licence that you (or your client) was unwilling to 
use? Lucky you!

The GPL ensures that once software has entered the commons (and therefore 
available for all), it can never be removed from the commons. The MIT 
licence does not. Now, you might argue that in practice once software is 
released under an MIT licence, it is unlikely to ever disappear from the 
commons. Well, perhaps, but if so, that's despite and not because of the 
licence.

In practice, I believe most MIT-licenced code never even makes it into 
the commons in the first place. I'm willing to predict that the majority 
of code you've written for paying customers (as opposed to specifically 
for open source projects) has disappeared into their code base, never to 
be seen by anyone outside of the company. Am I right?


-- 
Steven