On Copyleft…

I’ve been reevaluating my old rants against the GPL and realized where my stopping block was. I had long thought that I was put off by the Copyleft (all derivatives should be just as open as the original code), but when I was looking at Creative Commons licenses I decided on using the Copyleft clause (in CC terms: “share-alike”). In retrospect, my real concern was not with Copyleft, but with the other Creative Commons clause I choose: non-commercial. I’d love to have a GPL that allows me to restrict commercial derivatives like the CC by-nc-sa. I realize some of the arguments for/against this, but it would be nice to ask for even a minimal sum to license OS code for commercial use, instead of just hoping for charity.

But I realized that I now have much less resignation to write GPL code than I’ve ever had before. Perhaps as I grow older I indeed grow wiser, but I think in my case it is merely a matter of growing into less of an egotistical and greedy prick.