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[–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You know this is actually kind of funny, cause I think it might be very possible that the roles between Tanenbaum and Intel could hypothetically be reversed.

There was a controversy a couple of years ago, with Wizards of the Coast and D&D, where they were planning on making a bunch of really bad and sweeping changes to the Open Gaming License. One of the controversies had to do with the license not having language for irrevocability, which Wizards believed allowed them to go ahead and deny people the right to make use of the old OGL moving forward, forcing everyone who publishes their OGL content to adhere to their new, more restrictive, license terms.

They never moved forward with the bullshit because the backlash was that bad, but supposedly licenses are not irrevocable by default, and so any license that lacks explicit language granting irrevocable rights can be susceptible to the same rug pull that WotC almost pulled.

And the last time I checked, guess which super permissive license does not grant irrevocability?

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago (1 child)

    It'd only work if someone did it with some PITA dependency that no company wants to actually throw resources at, but it would be hilarious to see Intel or Amazon make a big hissy fit over a random MIT project used in millions of systems getting revoked lmao.

    Bonus if it affects Amazon because they already refuse to use AGPL software lol.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago

    The thing that concerns me is the precedent it can set. At least according to this source, MIT is about the 3rd most popular open-source license. If one rightsholder decides to pull a WotC, how many will follow suit? Honestly think that license is a potential minefield.

    (And just want to point out, this is not a matter of permissive vs copyleft. I think it's more a question of competency. The MIT license is just not a very rigorously written license from a legal standpoint. If you are a dev who wants similar features to the MIT but more carefully crafted, then the Apache 2.0 license is probably what you want. Otherwise if you want the closest thing to opting out of Copyright all together, then the Creative Commons Zero public domain pledge is your best choice).

    And lastly, the Hippocratic License is worth looking into if other ethical considerations are something you need as well.

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