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hn_throwaway_99today at 6:05 AM1 replyview on HN

> They're just leaches on an open source license.

This mentality drives me bonkers. If you don't want other people doing what they want with open source code, then don't open source it, at least not under a permissive license.

People are upset with Matt (though not necessarily the commenters you were replying to - TBH I thought it weird you posted your comment implying they were "attacking" Matt when they were simply pointing out the actual reality of the court ruling) because he wants to have his cake and eat it to: he wants to get all the benefits of open source (i.e. faster adoption and ecosystem creation) but then thinks he can be arbiter of some rules he made up in his head about "how much" someone who makes money off WordPress needs to give back.


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kimixatoday at 6:17 AM

So many times I've seen people complain about situations that would have been solved by choosing the license that actually matches how they intend others to use their work.

Some engineers seem stuck to the idea that if they choose a permissive license, people will still contribute back for some idea of "community" or "goodwill" - while really the license itself is the declaration of expected behavior.

By choosing a license, you're explicitly setting how you intend that code to be used - if you want don't /really/ want other people to monetize your work with no feedback, for example, that is what the license is for. If you don't want people to "leech" on your work, then choose one of the (many) licenses that disallows that.

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