this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
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You prefer GPL?
I know I do.
GPL forces mega corps to give back when they use community code.
MIT just lets companies take community code without giving anything back.
GPL code is code for the community by the community. Meta crops can use the code too but they have to give back.
Choosing MIT over GPL, LGPL, or MPL (all community oriented) in my book is pretty close to corporate bootlicking.
Lets list some GPL code developed on servers owned and operated by IBM (because they are the core developers):
Do you use any of those? About half of those projects were started by IBM. It was them that chose the GPL as a license. I wonder who forced them?
Who are the Top Contributors to the Linux kernel?
Ya, let’s keep those mega corps from using all that GPL code that YOU write.
FreeBSD just released a new version. It is entirely permissively licensed. It is clearly an anomaly that half the new features in this release have the names of companies that contributed them in the release notes. Who are these Netflix people?
I would say “how about gaming” but very little of that code is GPL. Any permissively licensed code used in gaming?
To your point, those projects must have been totally stolen by greedy mega corps right? I mean, X has been around for decades so there has been lots of time to push Xorg out of the market.
These Valve guys are big in gaming. Surely they must be stealing all our code and not giving back right? I mean, only the license would stop them (as you say). Obviously they took that MIT WINE thing and made Proton proprietary.
Right?
What are you yapping on about? You're making zero sense.
The GNU projects that people actually use are primarily hosted, maintained, and developed by Red Hat (IBM). They are the primary code contributors. Not just GPL, GNU specifically.
This is just a fact.
https://sourceware.org/ (Previously known as sources.redhat.com)
There is more permissively licensed code in most Linux distributions than there is GPL code. Not only is that permissive code not being “stolen” by “mega corps” but the majority of it is corporately funded.
Again, just facts. All pretty easy to verify if facts matter at all to you.
What part did not make sense? Just that the facts do not agree with your opinion?
The comment I responded to was stating things that sounded like facts that are not at all supported by the evidence. And if I ask for some, I am pretty sure the cherry-picked examples will be mostly companies “stealing” projects that they wrote to begin with.
The thesis that permissive licenses result in less Open Source code is wrong. In fact, they lead to greater corporate participation and employees write more code than unsponsored individuals. That is what the evidence shows.
Use whatever licenses you want. Not wanting companies to use code you wrote is a totally valid choice. But you should not have to misrepresent reality to convince other people to do the same.