There’s a fair bit of bias in the terms “restrictive” and “permissive”, which make MIT seem like a ‘better’ choice than a give-and-take license like GPL.

The truth is, MIT is risky for developers. Using just one line from an MIT-licensed project will automatically allow others to exploit your work without giving back. I’d prefer to advocate for balanced licenses that protect both user and developer interests.

We are at risk

of losing many developers who would otherwise choose a license like the GPL. Fortunately, I’m glad to be surrounded by people, just like you, who care about licenses like GPL. By uploading this type of content and engaging with it, be show our commitment to it. I wish to suggest how we can deal with this threat.

We will lose developers who choose GPL if we use words that suggest GPL is “restrictive”. Sure, the word “restrictive” was avoided in this meme by using the word “copyleft”, but the cognitive jump from “permissive” to “restrictive” is minimal: just add an “opposite” and you’ve got “permissive is the opposite to restrictive”. It really is that simple. That’s how brain works (check out Relational Frame Theory to see how that works).

So what can we do about it?

Well, we can approach this with science. There is a historical global trend towards people being more meta-cognitive. That means that people are becoming more aware of how our thoughts interpret everyday reality and how to be intentional with our relationship with our thoughts so that we live better lives. We know this trend is happening to virtually everyone everywhere because of the work of brilliant sociologists like Anthony Giddens and Christian Welzel. Heck, even the history of psychology —going from noticing and changing behaviors (behaviorism) to noticing and changing behaviors and thoughts (cognitive-behaviorism), to noticing and changing the context and function of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (functional contextualism)— reflects this trend.

We can use meta-cognition in our favor; we can use the meta-cognitive tool of framing to change how we think about GPL and MIT licenses. Effective communicators like influencers, political campaign experts, and influential activists use framing all the time. For example, instead of using the dangerous framing that suggests GPL is ‘restrictive’, we can use another one that truly displays the virtues of the license.

What would this other frame look like? I may not have a perfect answer, but here are some

ways of framing (thinking about) the relationship between licenses like GPL and MIT:

(ironically!!!, these were ‘suggested’ by an LLM; I wonder if these frames already existed)

• “Investment-Protecting Licenses” vs. “Investment-Risking Licenses” (as in developers invest by working on projects that they could (not) lose the ability to contribute to)
• “Community-Resource-Guarding Licenses” vs. “Exploitation-Vulnerable Licenses”
• “Give-and-Take Licenses” vs. “Take-and-Keep Licenses” ⭐
• “Freedom-Ensuring Licenses” vs. “Freedom-Risking Licenses” ⭐
• “Contribution-Rewarding Licenses” vs. “Contribution-Exploiting Licenses”
• “Open-Source-Preserving Licenses” vs. “Closed-Source-Enabling Licenses”

I’d be happy to hear what you think, including suggestions!

The article’s “valuing your time” argument is problematic in certain contexts. My brother has had so much trouble with his dual-boot (Windows and Linux). Yes, he could learn how to solve something in Linux every time a problem arises, but he also has to deliver his projects on time. Because of that, he mostly spends time on his Windows dual boot. Yeah, it sucks ethically and has its own pragmatic issues, but he has never had issues resolving dependencies or hunting down the most recent version that can actually be run in NixOS.

I don’t doubt these will become issues that will not be as problematic in the future, but right now my brother cannot use Linux reliably for his assignments.

Edit: My brother has tried what I use: Fedora and NixOS. He has also tried PopOS.

In Fedora, he found some of his software didn’t exist as .deb, and struggled to make .tar files work smoothly for him.

He tried NixOS afterward. He really liked the whole immutability thing, as well as the idea that apps would have their own dependencies.

His dependency problem happened in PopOS. If I remember correctly, it was a code editor that required a version of something that was different to what a package he used in his software was.

I think the order he tried was Fedora -> NixOS -> PopOS -> NixOS -> ? (Haven’t talked to him about it recently)

I agree. And that’s exactly my point 😅

1. I am scared of the amount of data that they hoard without being transparent with their code.

2. I am also scared of their contribution to hacker honey-pots by giving our data to American mass surveillance systems, something we learned with the Snowden leaks. I mention the honey pot because I assume you trust politicians and bureaucracies more than hackers. Right now there are NSA employees that can look at all of your Google data. While you may trust them, the fact is, they created a honey-pot for hackers. This is Bruce Schneier’s point.

3. I am scared of Google’s capacity to shape public opinion, usually to favor whoever pays the most money. This is Jaron Lanier’s point.

4. I am frustrated at how large they are, stifling competition. This is the point of the antitrust suits that have come up.

Sure, I like that there are cool people there working on Android and open standards for pictures and video. But I do not want to support a publicly owned company that will ultimately serve its investors. I do want to support institutions that are incentivized to care about something other than investors, institutions that are incentivized to care about where the world is going, about you and I.

Frame challenge: to avoid mass surveillance, a good FLOSS E2EE app ✌️😎

Wow. I didn’t know this. Are there GUIs to convert images with mozjpeg?

Ah. This makes sense! Thanks!

I’m not sure adblockers change the OS they report. Other tools I know for a fact do it.

Edit: However, as @aebletrae@hexbear.net mentions, adblockers don’t have to change what OS is reported to change the overall statistics. They explain how in a comment below.

You could check out NixOS :)

Veloren is written in Rust and is inspired by Zelda Breath of The Wild. Both of those are relatively recent.

I’m glad your “good and well-refined stuff” is in your actual Github, PeterPoopshit