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Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

(arstechnica.com)
431 points dangle1 | 3 comments | 16 Oct 24 16:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.782s | source
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Communitivity ◴[17 Oct 24 13:26 UTC] No.41869468[source]▶
This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This whole debacle 'won' one battle for GPL licensing but set the war (and their stated ultimate goals) back by a significant amount. This event is a big topic among the devs where I work. It's reignited the 'we should make sure our policies state no use of GPL licensed code or libraries without the exception' (use of binary executables is unavoidable).

In any online population, some people like to build the world (Aces), some like to rule the world (Kings/Queens), some like to watch the world burn (Jokers), and some spend all their time fire-fighting (Jacks). Corollary: There will always be jokers.

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1. troad ◴[18 Oct 24 08:05 UTC] No.41877295[source]▶
> This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague.

This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.

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2. Communitivity ◴[18 Oct 24 20:32 UTC] No.41883209[source]▶
I thought one of the goals for the FOSS movement was to increase adoption of FOSS software by corporations. How is corporations avoiding GPL code a reason to use GPL when creating new software?
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3. troad ◴[20 Oct 24 02:24 UTC] No.41892422[source]▶
The FOSS movement is not a monolith. There are many individuals and organisations pursuing many different goals, many of which are at odds with or even antithetical to the goals pursued by Fortune 500 companies.

The kind of company that won't touch the GPL with a ten-foot pole is not the kind of company that's looking to be a good participant in the FOSS space. The purpose or merit of appeasing them by switching to a non-copyleft license like MIT is not at all clear to me.

Some of the most powerful people in the world are not entitled to the free labour of under-employed hackers building cool things in their spare time without any expectation of reciprocating, which is the only significant thing that the GPL mandates which MIT does not.

"We'd use this, were it not for the GPL" = "we'd use this, were it not for the obligation to give our improvements back", which is a massive red flag. Fear of the GPL boils down to the simple fact that these entities don't care about FOSS, they just want to build their proprietary castles on top of public beaches.