Picking a license

[Ed Keith]

--- On Fri, 5/14/10, Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> 
> 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.

Why is MIT licensed code any more likely to dispersal from the common that GPLed code? Does using the GPL somehow grantee that my server will never crash?


> 
> 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?

Yes, but it was licensed to the client, and never enter into the commons, That which never enters into the commons can never be removed.

Any MIT licensed code that I may have used is still in the common. My using it did not reomove it from the common. 

Has the fact that Python has been used for many commercial/propitiatory projects reduced your ability to make use of it? If so how?

   -EdK

Ed Keith
e_d_k at yahoo.com

Blog: edkeith.blogspot.com