this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Free and Open Source Software
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Personal opinion, but the license is fine, and this is a sensationalist headline. The author's claims are not proven correct, and they even write:
They are not certain because they are incorrect.
As it stands, it sounds like a variant of GPL which they're using to make sure they don't get sued if it's used maliciously, along with ~~ensuring companies don't try to profit on what they give away~~ (read comment below for better details).
I'm open to changing my mind, but it would need to be changed.
That's a common misunderstanding of FLOSS software: it isn't about "not letting others profit", it's about "you need to give back in order to profit".
If a company wants to profit from someone else's GPL licensed software, they can do it in exchange for letting the original company profit from the second one's changes to the software.
If you don't want to profit from other people's changes to your software, then by all means, use a more restrictive license, there won't be changes in the first place.
If you're a user expecting the software to work after the original company got bored with it or gone under, then you want either a different company to take over, or you're SOL.