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Non-FSF Copyleft Usage

24 Mar 2021


The Free Software Foundation has decided they'd rather hang out with a sex pest than have an ounce of credibility, so fuck em. Let's look at the copyleft licenses they didn't write and see how they're used.


I'll be using the Blue Oak Council's list of copyleft licenses here, because I don't know of a good other way to find specifically copyleft licenses. I'll be searching GitHub for `filename:LICENSE "<some snippet from the license>"` or checking Wikipedia and then seeing if anything notable turns up.


Blue Oak Council's list of copyleft licenses


Maximal Copyleft


Cryptographic Autonomy License: almost entirely cryptocurrency bullshit

Parity Public License: maintains its own list of users, including some work from substack (original author of browserify, prominent in the node.js scene, name stolen by a shitty newsletter startup) and some Git hook manager with 22.2k stars on GitHub (although it's only Parity licensed while it's in early access, and it'll revert to MIT later on). so there's a notable person and a notable project using this license, which is neat.

Reciprocal Public License: well, there's "the most popular service bus for .NET", but that appears to be basically it.


its own list of users

basically it


Network Copyleft


Affero GPL: fuck GNU, fuck the FSF, fuck RMS, fuck you

Apple Public Source License: unsurprisingly, the only use I've seen is for stuff derived directly from Apple releases

Common Public Attribution License: apparently it was invented by some startup that hasn't existed since 2012, and I could only find one nontrivial use of it

European Union Public License: well, there's "`dig` but i rewrote it in rust" and there's Pi-hole (actually neat!) but that's about it. i think being the pi-hole license (plus having a metagovernment behind it) would probably be enough to ensure its longevity.

Non-Profit Open Software License: GitHub can't find any usage of it!

Open Software License: it's got Magento (WordPress for ecommerce) and that's about it

RealNetworks Public Source License: ehhhhh I am officially ignoring any license with a mostly-defunct vendor in the title now


well,

and

GitHub can't find any usage of it!


Strong Copyleft


BSD Protection: nothing uses this

CC BY-SA: that's not a software license, you can't fool me

GPL: fuck that

Q Public License: this name has aged poorly and i can't find use of it

Sleepycat License: adorable! but not used by anything


Weak Copyleft


Common Development and Distribution License: apparently this is popular with enterprisey bullshit because it started at Sun but it seems like it's mostly enterprisey bullshit

Common Public License: this one's IBM's, so there's even less usage

Eclipse Public License: well, there's Eclipse, but also a lot of other non-enterprise-bullshit (mostly Java) stuff apparently

Erlang Public License: even Erlang doesn't use it anymore lol

IBM Public License: ehhhhhhhh

LGPL: fuck that

Mozilla Public License: lots of users, probably not going anywhere anytime soon

Microsoft Reciprocal License: not really widely used, unsurprisingly

Sun Public License: apparently it's the older, worse CDDL


popular with enterprisey bullshit because it started at Sun

even less usage

a lot of other non-enterprise-bullshit (mostly Java) stuff apparently

lots of users

not really widely used

apparently it's the older, worse CDDL


Summary


for maximal copyleft ("must publish source, even if only changing for internal use"), Parity is probably the most promising future license.


Parity


for network copyleft ("must offer source to users even across a network"), the European Union Public License is already seeing some adoption.


European Union Public License


for "strong" copyleft ("must offer source to users even if just linking as a library"), there are no good options because the GPL has been the only game in town for ages.


for "weak" copyleft ("must offer source to users"), the Mozilla Public License looks like it has a good chance of continuing to exist and be used by actual projeccts for a nice long while.


Mozilla Public License

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