Zed Shaw: " Why I (A/L)GPL"
Zed Shaw wrote a thought-provoking essay on why he now uses GNU licenses for his work instead of the more liberal licenses.
While I am a big fan of liberal licenses, I have to admit that he raises excellent points and this could influence my future decisions regarding licenses choices for anything that is not a trivial hack project.
Sadly, none of Mongrel’s success mattered for me. Even though everyone was using my software, the vast majority of firms using Mongrel were startups. The last thing a startup wants to admit is that they don’t own their intellectual property. They want everyone, especially the VCs and investors, to believe that they’re all geniuses who “innovated” everything they run.
(…)
When I looked around, companies had no problem admitting they used Ruby on Rails, hell that probably got them their funding. What I didn’t see was them saying they used anything else, which meant that when I would try to get work, it was impossible for me to explain the magnitude of Mongrel’s impact. To them it was just some simple web server that their system administrator had to use, “RoR” was the real money maker.
He now makes pay when the (A/L/GPL) licenses are “a problem”:
Now, given that there’s no incentive for a company to admit they use my stuff, and there’s no incentive for a programmer to give me credit, ask yourself this one question:
Why the fuck wouldn’t I charge people money who can’t use the GPL?
I know, I know, many of you freesoftware diehards are thinking that makes me a traitor, but think about it. You have the software, and it’s GPLed, and as long as you’re a rock solid open source project who releases their code you are free to use it and do what you want with it.
I love open source, but companies? Companies are going to have to pay from now on. That’s how economics works. If it’s good enough for you to use, why then it’s good enough for you to pay for it.
I kinda like the conclusion:
I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made.
Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.
Being myself the author of a nice tool that lots of people use, I sometimes feel exactly that.
