In the past 28 years of publishing software, I’ve had 3 chopped eras of package licensing. All of my caller worldly is disposable nether the European Union Public License 1.2, and I thought to explicate why.
Midgard was each LGPLv2. This was a simpler time, and location weren’t that galore free package licenses around. Since Midgard was a web framework, utilizing a anemic copyleft licence felt for illustration the correct point to do. The illustration website shipping pinch Midgard was X11 licensed.
When I started moving much seriously pinch JavaScript astir 2011, I switched to the MIT license. This was a “do immoderate you like, conscionable don’t writer me” benignant of a elemental matter favored by the NPM package ecosystem. Easy interoperability, nary hooks attached.
After we closed Flowhub, location were a fewer years of hiatus wherever I published almost nary software. Either because it wasn’t feasible owed to my activity situation, aliases because I was engaged pinch the boat.
Enter EUPL
This twelvemonth I decided to move my “default license” to EUPL-1.2. This is an OSI-approved free package licence created and published by the European Union. And it is rather a divergence from the licenses I’ve utilized successful the past. EUPL is simply a beardown copyleft licence that closes the “SaaS loophole” by requiring reciprocal licensing sloppy of really the package is distributed.
Over the years it has been clear that we successful the “open source” campy (as opposed to the “free software” camp) were incorrect each along. We won the debate, and gained small for users aliases developers. All that our efforts did was to make it easier for large corporations build things much cheaply and for billionaires to go trillionaires.
And truthful it is clip to extremity messing astir pinch permissive licenses. If corporations don’t want to usage our package nether our terms, they are free to walk the effort aliases tokens to build their own.
The truth that EUPL has legally valid charismatic translations to 23 languages besides doesn’t wounded successful a world wherever astir of package is built and utilized successful the wider world extracurricular of the Valley.
Here are immoderate things I’ve already published nether EUPL:
- reticulum-js: JavaScript implementation of the Reticulum mesh networking protocol
- dacar: decentralized authorization strategy built connected Reticulum
- signalk-energy-predictor: prediction strategy for boats powered by renewable energy
- offshore-blogging-system: instrumentality for publishing blog posts and downloading upwind information complete InReach outer matter messages
In summation the caller rewrite of NoFlo Development Environment is being made nether EUPL. NoFlo itself will stay MIT-licensed, arsenic it is simply a pre-existing task pinch plentifulness of 3rd statement contributions.
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