1007
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Context:

Permissive licenses (commonly referred to as "cuck licenses") like the MIT license allow others to modify your software and release it under an unfree license. Copyleft licenses (like the Gnu General Public License) mandate that all derivative works remain free.

Andrew Tanenbaum developed MINIX, a modular operating system kernel. Intel went ahead and used it to build Management Engine, arguably one of the most widespread and invasive pieces of malware in the world, without even as much as telling him. There's nothing Tanenbaum could do, since the MIT license allows this.

Erik Andersen is one of the developers of Busybox, a minimal implementation of that's suited for embedded systems. Many companies tried to steal his code and distribute it with their unfree products, but since it's protected under the GPL, Busybox developers were able to sue them and gain some money in the process.

Interestingly enough, Tanenbaum doesn't seem to mind what intel did. But there are some examples out there of people regretting releasing their work under a permissive license.

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Tannenbaum is fucking asshole. Isn't he the idiot that told Torvalds "you certainly would have failed my class if you submitted your OS as a final project?"

The guy deserves no respect.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Really?...

Just about every FOSS and Source-Available license that I've seen is perfectly valid. As a software developer, one has the option to choose how they wish to license their software. This can be based upon one's personal philosophical view or what seems most appropriate for the piece of software.

Not everyone is motivated by profit. Most software that I develop personally is permissively licensed because IDGAF as long as I have enough to get by. If I write some code that makes someone else's life better or easier, that's more than enough for me.

Wait. What am I saying? This is the Internet and, according to the rules of corpo social media, we're all supposed to be dicks to each other to further "engagement". WHICH ONE OF YOU SAVAGES IS USING TAB INDENTATION INSTEAD OF BLOCKS IN YOUR LICENSE FILES?!?;?!!!!111one

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Permissive License promoters are corporate trolls

[-] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Intel went ahead and used it to build Management Engine, arguably one of the most widespread and invasive pieces of malware in the world, without even as much as telling him.

Is that arguable because it's complete bunk? You may as well say the same about IPMI.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

IPMI isn't required to boot regular desktop

[-] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Apache and GPL should replace MIT

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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
1007 points (88.6% liked)

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