Comment by phkahler
2 months ago
Love the MIT license. If this were further along we could use this as the foundation of our business without having to "give back" device drivers and other things.
2 months ago
Love the MIT license. If this were further along we could use this as the foundation of our business without having to "give back" device drivers and other things.
This should be the sort of red flag to take note of. There’s an LLVM fork for every esoteric architecture now and this sort of thinking will lead to never being able to run your own software on your own hardware again. A reversion to the dark ages of computing.
Great, an MIT license to accelerate planned obsolescence and hardware junk. Truly a brilliant move
Linux magically solves this problem how? GPL isn't magic. It doesn't compel contributing upstream. And half of modern driver stacks live in userspace anyways.
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> There’s an LLVM fork for every esoteric architecture now
Can you provide examples of these? I'm aware of temporary forks for things like Xtensa, but these typically get merged back upstream.
Infineon tricore compiler from hightec. Compilers are actually, IMO, one of the things that are the most easy to have GPL because you can use it internally however you want without releasing the source outside. You could build whatever you want and you don't have to ship it on the final HW. A kernel does not afford you such a thing, you MUST ship it with your product.
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Seriously.
To the author: kudos for the interesting project, but please strongly consider a copyleft license moving forward.
Seriously: stop it. It's none of your business what the author's license choice is. You don't know what the author is trying to accomplish by their choice of license. It could be a mindless choice, or it could be an informed choice. Perhaps the author wants to build interest and later plans to switch licenses (it's not like others are likely to fork _and_ do an excellent job of evolving and maintaining the fork). Perhaps the author is looking to get hired. Perhaps the author believes that BSD/MIT licensing is more free than the GPL. You really don't need to be shaming the author for not making the choice you made.
MIT licensed code is a gift. A gift indeed doesn't require the recipient to give back anything related to the gift.
A "gift" requiring GPL-like conditions isn't really a gift in the common sense. It's more like a contractual agreement with something provided and specific, non-negotiable obligations. They're giving while also asserting control over others' lives, hoping for a specific outcome. That's not just a gift.
People doing MIT license are often generous enough where the code is a gift to everyone. They don't try to control their lives or societal outcomes with extra obligations. They're just giving. So, I'm grateful to them for both OSS and business adaptations of their gifts.
While the FSF's vision for the GPL is clear, the GPL itself is not so powerful that it is more than a "gift" that has some terms if you want to do certain things you are not obligated to do. It is like a grant that enforces some reasonable conditions so the money isn't just misappropriated. I wouldn't give that to a friend for their birthday, but I think it's reasonable that powerful organizations should not be free to do whatever they want. Not that the GPL is perfect for that use, but it's good.
> It's more like a contractual agreement with something provided and specific, non-negotiable obligations.
The obligation is not to the author of the code, it is to the public. MIT-style licenses are gifts to people and companies who produce code and software, copyleft licenses are gifts to the public.
I don't give a shit about the happiness of programmers any more than the happiness of garbage collectors, sorry. I don't care more that you have access to the library you want to use at your job writing software for phones than I care that somebody has access to the code on their own phone. You're free to care about what you want, but the pretense at moral superiority is incoherent.
It is non-negotiable. GPL is basically proprietary software. It's owned by the public, and all of the work that you do using it belongs to the public. If you steal it, you should be sued into the ground.
I get what your saying but I think it’s not the best way to describe it - “GPL is property”? Hardly - it’s a societal common good that can be used by anyone interested in helping that common good.
Are parks “proprietary”? I can’t run my car dealership from one, so it’s …proprietary? No. So using the terminology of “proprietary” doesn’t do justice to what it actually is.
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A gift is when you do something without expecting anything in return, esp compensation.
If I use GPL'd code, I have to keep releasing my modifications for free because it's mandated. I have to do that even if I do 1000 hours of labor but they gave me 30 min of it. So, it's also near-infinite work required in return for finite work they did. And I have to bind others to this with my own work.
That's not someone giving me a gift. I'm not sure what to call that except a collective work with permanent obligations for all parties. It's more like a job or corporate charter or something. I like another person's claim that it's creating property with requirements for those using it (which copyright certainly does).
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MIT is throwing a free party where food and drinks are paid for, and copyleft is where food is paid for but you BYOB. Both are fine, so what's the problem?
That's my question. Why is this thread full of license choice flamewar? Do we have nothing of substance to contribute?
Here, I'll make a substantive contribution. I hope this succeeds and causes a lowest-common denominator Linux ABI to exist that user-land can target, thus freeing us all from the Linux kernel as the only viable option. Solaris/Illumos, the BSDs, and even Windows have all gone through one or two phases of attempting Linux ABI compatibility, ultimately giving up because the Linux ABI is such a fast-moving and underdocumented target.
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I agree, and even if a company doesn't give back, they further the popularity and sustainability of the project. Isn't Python an MIT-like license (PSFL)? As well as React and Godot? And Tensorflow is also permissive with Apache 2.0, corrrect?
Godot is meant to be used for commercial games, so it should have an MIT, BSD, or LGPL license.
I'm done with proprietary operating systems and IMHO everyone should be. There's no reason to support that.
A gift where the recipient can remove the freedoms that they've been enjoying themselves is a bad deal for ensuring those freedoms are available to everyone. A permissive license is a terrible idea for a F/LOSS kernel.
This is the paradox of tolerance, essentially.
Also, seeing F/LOSS as a "gift" is an awful way of looking at it.
They can't remove it. They gave it to you. They just don't have to keep giving you more stuff. Many people think they're owed more software, including fixes to software, without compensating the laborer. That worldview is the real problem.
So, we have a variety of licensing styles that meet various goals. People can pick what suits their needs and wants. That's a good thing.
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Thay "holier than thou" attitude from BSD/MIT proponents seems like some kind of ego talking. Freedom to deny others the freedom you had is not noble.
GPL is a gift that keeps giving.
Using the legal system to force other people to do what you want and perpetually isn't freedom: it's controlling others by force to make them live the way you want them to. You're taking away their personal freedoms, like sharing or not sharing their work, to promote or force compliance with a goal of yours. Again, that's control, not freedom.
Would you want people controling your property based on their current and future desires? And dictating what you do with your property enhancements? Would you call that giving you more freedom? Or denying you freedom to force you to support their goals for your property?
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Do you think soup kitchens and food banks should only serve food to those who volunteer? MIT is a perfectly fine FOSS license.
No, but if someone takes the free food and builds a business by selling it to others, without giving anything back to the original places, it harms everyone other than the person doing that.
F/LOSS is not a charity or a gift, so your analogy is not appropriate. It is a social movement and philosophy with the goal of sharing knowledge and building software for the benefit of everyone. It invites collaboration, and fosters a community of like-minded people. Trust is an implicit requirement for this to succeed, and individuals and corporations who abuse it by taking the work of others and not giving anything back are harmful to these goals. Copyleft licenses exist precisely to prevent this from happening.
MIT is a fine license for many projects, but not for an operating system kernel.
This feels eerily close to having someone try to convince me to be join their religion. You don't need to force your opinions into others. Let them choose. If folks agree then the license will hold them back in terms of building a community. There are plenty of great open source kernels that don't use GPL, including freebsd. I think most embedded os kernels are not gpl (zephyr, freertos, etc). I would argue that Linux does well in spite of its license not because of it.
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yes
I take this as an oblique critique of TFA's choice of license. What's it to you? Why must we all use the GPL always in order to satisfy busybodies?
>> I take this as an oblique critique of TFA's choice of license. What's it to you? Why must we all use the GPL always in order to satisfy busybodies?
Thank you for reading it correctly. I originally had a </sarcasm> to make sure nobody thought I liked the license choice. What's it to me? Well someone posted it to HN here so we could comment on it, so I did.
I think the MIT license has its place, but IMHO it does not belong on an OS like that. Reason is indicated in my original comment.
Glad the author disagrees with you. So do I.
You just described android.