zlacker

>>jashke+(OP)
This is an excellent depiction of the distinction between "free software" and "open source" as ideological frameworks. As licensing schemes, they're the same - but open source ends at the licensing scheme, as the author correctly points out. If you want to use it for a side project, great. If you want to use it to make money, great. If you want to use it to commoditize the operating system for your worldwide advertising infrastructure, great. If you want to embed it in your iOS app or in iOS itself (and the license permits doing so), great.

The free software movement, however, says things like this (from https://www.debian.org/social_contract ):

Our priorities are our users and free software.

We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities.

We will give back to the free software community.

In other words, free software is about you.

I would quibble with the claim that the open-source process is what produced Clojure in the first place. The open source movement has benefited from sailing in the same direction as the free software movement and using the same tailwinds. Without the free software ethos (which was behind GNU as well as a lot of the Lisp work at MIT), would Clojure have been able to stand on the same shoulders, and would it have attracted the community of users and the ecosystem of libraries it has?

>>geofft+S8
This is why my code is licensed MIT. It is a gift, you owe me nothing, I owe you nothing. It might not work, it might not compile, it might delete all your files.

>>thomas+xb
I could have written the same last sentences as you, but using a GPL license. No difference. Licensing is not related to this. (PS: When you choose "GPL", if someone modifies your software, they don't "owe" you those modifications; they only owe those modifications to their users, and only in case they have users. Again, no community-management here involved, just distributing the sources.)

>>knocte+5c
I would argue that the condition that you provide sources to your users is something you owe the author. But perhaps I'm over-philosophical.

>>thomas+5k
> I would argue that the condition that you provide sources to your users is something you owe the author. But perhaps I'm over-philosophical.

No, I think you're right.

But you only owe it to the author if you're a "distributor". If you're a "user" (=a human who interacts with an application), you don't owe her anything.

The GPL keeps the distinction between the "users" and the "distributors".

This is important, because they have different interests ; They can't both simultaneously have complete freedom to do what they want.

If the "distributors" have the freedom not to redistribute the source code, then the "users" lose their freedom to study and modify the program (or to have it studied/modified by anyone competent - even software companies sometimes hire consultants to modify free software they don't feel like modifying themselves).

Basically:

- the GPL says to the users "do what you want", and says to the distributors "let the users do what they want (which implies: let them have the source code)".

- The MIT says to everyone "do what you want" (I'm omitting the copyright notice stuff here for brevity)

Thus, the MIT blurs this distinction "user"/"distributor" - which is fine, but creates lots of confusion when people try to understand the rationale behind the copyleft (leading to nonsensical reasonning like "there are things I can't do so GPL is less free!").