On MIT and addressing other Licenses

Motivations

I wrote a Document (conveniently, in good old LaTeX) addressing reasons for why I prefer the MIT License over GPL (Specifically, GPLv3). However, I felt that it was poorly written and wasn't exactly getting my point across. I'll link the paper here if you want to check it out, but it's not 'quality' stuff by any stretch of the imagination. You'll also have to forgive my ignorance on mistaking GPLv3's terms for GPLv2. I write this in hopes that this will be an improved 'billet-doux' to the paper.

Luke's take on GPLv3 and Permissible Licenses

I write this article mostly as a response to Luke's Article. Which for the sake of context and understanding the counter-argument, I highly recommend you go check out his Writeup on this. His entire argument comes down to this:

"Permissible Licenses are the equivlant of being cucked in a relationship by some 8ft tall dude that just recently scammed you out of your whits." [1] Luke Smith: "Why I Use the GPL and Not Cuck Licenses" Section: "Why 'Cuck Licenses'"? Paragraph: 2

Okay, most of these are my words not his. But, cuck is the actual term he uses to describe any Licenses that are permissible to the degree in which BSD is. The argument is that MIT, BSD, and all these other licenses allow for Corporations to steal your code and use it however way they please. Therefore, your giving these mega billion dollar corporations an advantage, therefore you should be guilty. He cites a few other notable people that have had their code used by such corporations in which I'll definitely be going over.

My counter-argument to the argument

My argument boils down to this:

Under GPLv3 software is free but only under accepted terms.

Free software should be (In Stallman's terms) 'As is' but no strings attached.

And, you are not responsible for the actions of other individuals therefore any other intellectual propertie(s) that do use your code.

One Post that Luke addresses in order to make his point is: An Open Letter to Intel. [2] If you're not a complete troglodyte, you may know who Tanenbaum is. Otherwise, he's the founder of the most widely influential operating systems and Development: Minix. The Project was originally written to be a teaching tool for his Textbook: Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" Andrew S Tanenbaum - ACM Software Award [3]

"The only thing that would have been nice is that after the project had been finished and the chip deployed, that someone from Intel would have told me, just as a courtesy, that MINIX was now probably the most widely used operating system in the world on x86 computers. That certainly wasn't required in any way, but I think it would have been polite to give me a heads up, that's all."

"If nothing else, this bit of news reaffirms my view that the Berkeley license provides the maximum amount of freedom to potential users. If they want to publicize what they have done, fine. By all means, do so. If there are good reasons not to release the modfied code, that's fine with me, too."

Now, you don't have to be a high-IQ sentiment analysis processing AI model to tell that Andrew has some mixed ideas on Intel's treatment of Minix. Commentators have suspected that it was a possible backdoor and guess what, it indeed was.

Luke's response to this:

"If Tanenbaum had released MINIX under the GPL, we wouldn't be at the mercy of Intel's business decision. They would've had to release the source code for the microprocessor, keeping user privacy ensured and irradicating the permanent spyware liability all computers have nowadays. If they wouldn't want to do that, they'd have to just write an operating system themselves. Tanenbaum is right, they obviously could've taken the time and money to write an OS themselves if they had to, but they didn't have to, because a BSD license cuck wrote it for them. Thanks a lot, sucker! Now our computers are being monitored at a lower start-up cost and we have you to thank."

And to be frank, I feel that this was a bit of an immature response. Now, I will not justify Intel's actions and treatment of Andrew's work but I will say this. Nobody is responsible for the actions of other people. It is a completely illogical choice to take some sort of accountability for someone else's thought process. Andrew chose to allow others to take his work and use it to their heart's content, and Intel made their own choice. Nobody is at fault at the whims of others. Now, I won't rewrite it because I think there is where my paper does shine through and make's the point.

"Corporations are run by their own individual person(s) involved. This mean’s that each and every action that is done on their end is simply just that, on their end. There is no reason for you to take responsability for changes and actions that were done by a different party. This is like shaming a person for what their ancestors did 200 years ago because they have the same bloodline. It’s silly, childish, and utterly embarrassing. Not only does this argument not belong in the basics of logical reasoning, it also make’s sense of a legal standpoint. Companies are legally acknowledged as people (Take that for what you will), and as such, you legally don’t have a responsibility for their choices This is besides acknowledging the established permissions and rights in the MIT License."

"On MIT, and addressing other licenses: The LATEX way" Section: "3.3 “If you use GPL2, wouldn’t you be able to just sue companies that inappropriately use your works?” [4]

If a company wants spyware, they're gonna get spyware. With minix as a base, or not. Overall, I think Luke's argument to calling Permissible 'Cuck Licenses' are just quite frankly, poor.

Why MIT over GPLv3

MIT stands for what free-software should be. That is, Free software that is provided as is without any strings attached. Maybe I should write a Richard Stallman stylized speech on that. And, for the record, Linus Torvalds agrees with me! Linus Torvalds says GPL v3 violates everything that GPLv2 stood for

References

[1] Luke Smith's article, the Backbone of this Article.
[2] ACM Software System Award - Andrew S Tanenbaum
[3] A Quick Guide to GPLv3 - gnu.org
[4] Torvald's take on GPL v3
[5] My Previous Paper on my choice of Permissible licenses (Read the "Motivation" section to get the full disclaimer)
[6] Tanenbaum's Letter to Intel