Analysis: The Declining Relevance of Copyleft Licensing and GPL in Modern Software Development
By
bananamogul
Crisp on the outside, thoughtful on the inside. A keeper.
Summary
The article argues that the GNU Public License (GPL) and copyleft licensing are losing relevance in the software industry. It claims commercial developers dislike GPL due to its complexity and legal requirements, and suggests that as software reimplementation becomes easier, copyleft is becoming obsolete. The article predicts the Linux kernel may eventually shift to MIT licensing, signaling the decline of copyleft within five years.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledThe GNU Public License is popular with many developers, but it's lost a lot of its momentum over the years.
Commercial developers hate it, because it imposes complexity into license management.
The 'GPL virus' is a bit exaggerated, but the reality is that the moment you include some GPL code, you've got to have a link where people can download the source.
Now that reimplementing software is so easy to do, copyleft is crumbling. The Linux kernel may well be next.
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