Post #3355132

2026-06-19 17:11 UTC

For instance, the MIT license being popular is pretty hard evidence that FOSS doesn’t necessarily mean anti-corporate, and for many users GitHub still more or less does what it says on the tin. I’m pretty sure that MIT license is that popular out of ignorance, instead of an informed decision to allow corporate to steal and make money out of their code.

Replies (3)

@tabular@lemmy.world 2026-06-19 17:28

I’d like to think that is so but some here will argue non-copyleft licenses are “more free”. Ime they don’t reply after I point out that’s the freedom to deny others freedom.

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@doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml 2026-06-19 19:36

I’ve known people IRL who talk about the GPL like it’s a virus infecting your code

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@CoryCoolguy@lemmy.myserv.one 2026-06-19 20:47

Respectfully disagree. I can only speculate why other developers choose MIT. But for small and medium-sized projects, a more restrictive license is unlikely to protect them from this scenario anyway. And if that’s true, one could argue it’s better to go down a road where corporate sponsorships are potentially more likely. Personally, I often choose MIT because I don’t care who uses my code and for what, and I’d prefer that it be easy to borrow from. I used to be concerned about how my code was used, but over the years I’ve developed a strong dislike for copyright as a concept in general so I fight it how I can. Some of my projects are so simple that even MIT seems like overkill. In those cases I use the Unlicense.

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