License to Freedom
The basic concept of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is the ‘Freedom’- freedom to use, modify, distribute, and redistribute. Freedom has diverse meanings for different people (like Indian Democracy). There might be zero restrictions (infinite degree of freedom) or some restrictions(finite degree of freedom).
Let’s leave the ‘degree of freedom’ to be understood by scientists and statisticians. Focus on this- how much can you move when nothing is holding you vs. how much can you move when you are free except a long string tied to your leg.
How you want your work to be shared further is decided by a set of rules that you decide if it is your original work or you need to follow if you are using someone else’s work. This set of rules present in a document is called ‘License’- the long string that decides how your code moves.
The license defines how you or other community members use the work- do you want to let them use it anyway they want, maybe even generously allow it to be developed for a company who charges a nice amount for it without giving the developed code, or do you want it to be shared it freely in future, in the same way you had the privilege to obtain it from someone.
Based on these uses, several licenses are present in the FOSS space. I wish to focus on two famous licenses- GPL and MIT.
GPL:
GNU General Public License, developed by Richard Stallman, was the first used FOSS license. The Linux kernel, GNU Compiler, Audacity (sound editing software) are under GPL.
This license is popularly known as ‘copyleft’- a term describing an effect opposite to copyright. The dictionary definition of ‘copyright’ is a legal right for protecting the author’s work, the author’s rights. ‘Copyright’ allows no person other than the author to use this work, publish, modify, or distribute it without prior permission from the original author.
GPL wants to give the users the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute the work in any manner they want and make sure they share this freedom with others.
Hence, it protects the work with a condition that can be explained in easy terms as- ‘I am sharing this with you. However, whatever modification, derivation, and distribution you do using this code and sell a program to the public, you need to share the underlying code with it. You will also have to tell them the same thing that I told you.’
I think GPL as binding the entire community under oath to provide the same degree of freedom to the community, which enabled them to use this freedom to develop the code in the first place.
This condition prevents the user from including an open-source code inside a proprietary software, where it cannot be shared further.
You can imagine it as a chain of good deeds- you have to pass it on with the same goodwill that you received it.
A common question that arises with many GPL’d platforms, libraries is-
“I developed my original software and code using Linux and GNU. So now I have to license it under GPL?”
No, you don’t. The condition applies only to the derived, modified works of software components, libraries. For example, if you are using a GPL licensed platform (GNU compiler) for developing an independent code, you need not license your code under GPL. But if you want to modify the code of the GNU compiler to create a new compiler, yes, you will have to license it under GPL.
MIT:
Many of you must have read the above abbreviation as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Well, you are correct- this is the license developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Easy to remember, right! This license is popular among the developers because of one thing- it provides full freedom. You can use it under the same license, other licenses providing more restrictions than MIT, remove the MIT license altogether, and use it under proprietary software.
This license allows more than it restricts. Hence it is known as the ‘permissive’ license.
jQuery, Ruby on Rails, .NET Core (Microsoft), React(Facebook) use the MIT license. The text of this license is easy to understand, straight to the point, and short, as there are few restrictions to offer.
A trend of use can be inferred based on the above information-
Compatibility: A useful property of the licenses is that you can combine them with other licenses. A license that provides more freedom(permissive) can be combined with a license that adds some more restrictions(copyleft) on sharing it. However, a more restrictive license cannot be combined with a permissive license.
Thus, an MIT license is more compatible with other licenses than GPL since you can add more restrictions, but cannot remove the existing ones.
Collaboration: Programmers are artists too. Many people believe that creativity blossoms with the least restrictions. Such freedom allows the artist to focus more on the art than the rules s/he needs to follow. Thus, the number of developers contributing to MIT projects is more than those contributing to GPL projects. They find it easier to adopt, and it gives them a sense of maximum freedom. No strings attached.
Sources:
I want to cite these rich sources of information for you to gather more detailed information regarding these licenses. I would not have been able to compile this on my own without the blessings of the Internet.
- GNU official website
- OpenSource.org
- Github- Choose a License
- WhiteSource- Top 10 GPL questions answered
- WhiteSource- OpenSource Licenses in 2020-Trends and Predictions
- Wikipedia- GNU General Public License
- Wikipedia- MIT License
