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brabel • today at 12:00 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

It’s interesting how we feel unfairly treated when we publish software for free, with a license that clearly states that others can do anything with it, and others go and do whatever they want, like you said they could, but only when it involves monetary benefit to them. Thinking about it, it really makes no sense. Why do we feel upset about that? It feels like we’re lying to ourselves. We didn’t really mean you can do anything! Come on, read between the lines! Hm, sorry but I cannot condone this attitude. There is a license that says what you more likely meant, that’s called GPL. But people seem to rarely use that. Humans are intrinsically contradictory in their behavior.


Replies

rafterydj • today at 2:42 PM

Don't leave out the common pattern of licenses being completely ignored by for profit, closed source competitors - where the only recourse is through the courts (costing the open source team money and resources) or even worse, the competitor being a different nationality so there's no legal options for you.