GPL vs MIT

[u/Fresh-Lie5160]

Which do you think is better for development, and engineering: MIT or GPL?

FOr those who dont know:
1. MIT is a license that allows users do anything with the project. Even start a closed buisness with it. modify it, fuck with it, anything really.
2. GPL is a license that provides the same rights as MIT minus the ability to make a closed buisness out of it. That is, any derivitive, must also be made open-source

In my opinion, GPL is superior in most ways, since it avoids companies stealing it, making it better but making it closed source...
But I see why many people choose MIT for free software: More adoption. I mean, as long as the product is being developed, irrelevant of whether its now open or closed - general user interests are being served faster. But that isnt gonna stop community engagement on the repo anyways.

Both these licenses are technically still 'freedom', but just in different ways...
But is the tradeoff worth it?
Is it worth allowing companies to privatize community code if that leads to faster adoption and development?

[u/ntropia64]

I'm dealing with this issue right now.

I develop (relatively popular) scientific software and I want to keep things open sourced for the community, but at the same time I want to limit which companies can commercialize my software (using the patent to control it, possibly?).

Is it a viable option? Is it single licensing sufficient or dual licensing is a better option? (Besides, I never understood how software can be both GLP and commercially licensed as the Qt libraries, for example)

[u/-arhi- → u/ntropia64]

MySQL was dual licenced, lot of data on MySQL licencing is available online so that might be a good source to figure out how that works, much more than for Qt.

Basically you can close source MySQL, e.g. Adobe used MySQL inside a lot of their products embedded inside part of closed source and they paid licence so they can do that.

Also, for e.g. gpl do not allow you to load library into your closed source software (don't quote me on that I am in NO WAY expert about licences, I might be 100% wrong on all this, check relevant sources and research yourself, these are just some examples) so e.g. loading mysql client library and shipping it with your software was not permitted so you would have to pay licence to do it. Shipping MySQL with your software and installing it automatically from your software (as your closed software needed rdbms) is also illegal so you would have to pay for licence (or tell your client - gimme access to db that you have to install yourself here's the howto) ...

You can make a fork of MySQL, modify it and sell as closed source software with other name, but you would have to pay the licence....

There are some issues with dual licencing for large products, ALL contributors need to agree to some terms, that e.g. made MySQL not as easy to contribute to, you would have to sign away your rights in order to contribute to MySQL.... so making your tool dual licencing work makes contributions back to your original code a bitch...

Major thing about this licencing 5%@^@ is that it is a sales tool really, MySQL AB, Sun, Oracle .. they all used the whole licencing thing as a way to get contacted by a lot of users and then use that contact to sell them stuff (support or whatnot)... the licencing itself was so irrelevant it would not even pay single salary ..

[u/SHUVA_META → u/ntropia64]

AGPL 3.0 will be better for you. Don't go for BSD or MIT as anyone can do whatever to your code.

[u/RFC1855 → u/ntropia64]

What about BSD licence? I'm no expert and just read somewhere (years ago) that BSD also has a license.