this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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I managed and maintained a known open-source project. GPL license.
4 guys in SKorea submitted patches back as required, which their company claimed was corporate espionage -- because they intended to violate the license?
Someone from the FSF took their case, but was unsuccessful. 4 guys went to prison because of them adhering to my license. Prison!
I've done BSD ever since. I can't prevent companies from being right sociopaths, but I can keep well-meaning and honest people out of prison.
Wait, so because a few execs violated the GPL and threw their employees under the bus, we should abandon copyleft entirely? That’s like ditching locks just because burglars exist. Companies that want to exploit software will do so, BSD or not. The GPL didn’t land those four guys in prison; their higher-ups did. Giving up and saying “ok big corp I’ll just do what you want“ just makes it even easier for corporations to profit at societies expense.
You do what you need to do.
That really sucks, but it does seem like just giving this company the win. I imagine it didn't break those guys out of jail either. Regardless, do you have an article or something on this subject? I've never heard of such a case but I'm interested!
Can't do it without doxxing myself.
I don't need validation of the facts. I'm just saying why I cannot go with an encumbered license for any new stuff. I can't put others in that kind of risk.
I don't know, thinking more about it, I frankly don't understand both why on earth you would feel responsible for this, and why do you think that this would ultimately be a lesser harm. It really sounds to me like you are not putting anyone at risk and ALSO that this change of license wouldn't actually help anyone.
I even understand the argument that copyleft might be detrimental to some projects because of big for-profits contributions, but this reads like a cop-out "for free". I would understand a change of license to protect your own ass (without advocating for others to do the same), but this is saying "I don't do copyleft because someone, somewhere, might be hurt by an abusive corporation or state for reasons vaguely related to my choice of license".
By this logic, knowing that your project benefits the interests of those who jailed innocent workers, shouldn't you just take your project offline altogether? Aren't you worried that you're actually taking agency away from both those workers AND from people trying to offer an alternative to those clearly evil corporations?
I'm sorry it's not even your decision that's driving me a bit nuts, it's your work and you license it however the fuck you want, it's the logic behind it.
Of course it's your right to choose, but I'm not convinced that's a good enough reason. The well-meaning and honest people can make their own judgements about their employer and decide whether or not to include GPL code. Even if you change your license there will still be GPL code out there and corporations don't need any more handouts.