I ask this because I think of the recent switch of Ubuntu to the Rust recode of the GNU core utils, which use an MIT license. There are many Rust recodes of GPL software that re-license it as a pushover MIT or Apache licenses. I worry these relicensing efforts this will significantly harm the FOSS ecosystem. Is this reason to start worrying or is it not that bad?
IMO, if the FOSS world makes something public, with extensive liberties, then the only thing that should be asked in return is that people preserve these liberties, like the GPL successfully enforces. These pushover licenses preserve nothing.
I gotta say I’m a bit concerned about this whole corporate takeover thing goin on in FOSS land. If companies start slapdin’ MIT or Apache licenses on GPL software that’s supposed to be all about freedom and whatnot, it does seem like a bit of a cop-out and it could have some pretty serious consequences for the community.
Permissive license offer greater freedom to users of the code that already exists. The only benefit of copyleft is that it lets you demand future code that you did not write and that the authors do not want to Open Source. It is about restricting their freedom, not enhancing yours.
Permissive licenses provide all of the “4 freedoms” that the Free Software Foundation talks about. You cannot really talk about the differences between cooyleft and permissive as a “freedom” because they are not.
The name “permissive” kind of gives it away that permissive licenses offer more freedoms about what you can do with the code you were given.