this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
536 points (93.8% liked)
Technology
59466 readers
3450 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There are some cases where it’s just not possible to release the source code, even if you wanted to.
For example, if you’re developing a Nintendo switch game, you aren’t allowed to release any code that uses Nintendo’s sdk, so that means you also can’t use any copyleft libraries.
Maybe MPL-licensed libraries would be ok though. Idk, I’m not a lawyer.
Why would open source code be released with the intention of helping people who wont or can't give back?
Why not?
I’ve been in situations where I couldn’t release the code to a project, but I was able to use some decent libraries because they were MIT licensed.
So I’m happy to do the same for libraries I write so that others in similar situations could also receive the same benefit I did.
I see it as an act of public goodwill, like paying it forward for the times you can’t directly contribute to another project.
Just my personal view on it, anyway.
I’m not claiming it’s a bulletproof solution or that it isn’t open to being ‘abused’.
It's an act of public goodwill to rich corporations who could get the same privilege by paying for a separate license.
It’s an act of goodwill for all developers.
You’re free to believe it’s a simple black/white “us vs them” issue, but I choose to see the world as more nuanced then that.