I’m active in circles associated with FSF and I often hear them saying research or academic software or programs must be licensed under GPL to prevent the work from being used in proprietary software.

But as a researcher I think that’s just involving politics in scientific work. I like BSD or MIT for research because it gives more flexibility for the users to use my work in anyway they see fit.

I think restricting my research work removes the point of it if it can’t be used freely by any person for any kind of work.

What do you people think?

  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    2 days ago

    Yeah I find GPL to be ironically non-free because it removes the right for anybody to use the code as they see fit, basically adding a restriction on the developer.

    Sometimes, in order to protect everyone’s freedom, you have to put some restrictions on freedom. Like ‘you should not stab people’, or ‘don’t drive on the wrong side of the road’. I guess this is similar.

    But also check who legally ‘owns’ your work. It could be the government, your university, or whoever funds your work. They might have rules on licencing.