UPDATE: I found this issue explaining the relicensing of rust game engine Bevy to MIT + Apache 2.0 dual. Tldr: A lot of rust projects are MIT/Apache 2.0 so using those licenses is good for interoperability and upstreaming. MIT is known and trusted and had great success in projects like Godot.
ORIGINAL POST:
RedoxOS, uutils, zoxide, eza, ripgrep, fd, iced, orbtk,…
It really stands out considering that in FOSS software the GPL or at least the LGPL for toolkits is the most popular license
Most of the programs I listed are replacements for stuff we have in the Linux ecosystem, which are all licensed under the (L)GPL:
uutils, zoxide, eza, ripgrep, fd -> GNU coreutils (GPL)
iced, orbtk -> GTK, QT (LGPL)
RedoxOS -> Linux kernel, most desktop environments like GNOME, KDE etc. all licensed GPL as much as possible
Something being “the most popular” doesn’t make it the right license for everything. FOSS uses the GPL if it makes sense and often when it doesn’t but its not an end all be all for FOSS and its needs.
https://snyk.io/learn/open-source-licenses/
That doesn’t explain the preference for MIT tho
Mit is kind of the “I don’t care and I don’t want to think about it” license. I also suspect many will also just use the same license they see in other projects. So, if they’ve been using rust crates that are MIT, they’re more likely to pick that. But who knows.
That makes sense, it’s probably easier to just use MIT instead of learning the differences between GPLv2, v3, AGPL, LGPL, MPL etc
Preference for MIT and Apache is part of the culture of rust. Also, the lead dev behind Redox has mentioned that he chose MIT over GPL because it makes it easier to contribute, which he felt was important for getting Redox off the ground.
Interesting, do you have a source for this? I found a comment of him saying it is because MIT is compatible with more free software
I think I remember reading it in the FAQ, but I can’t find it now. It looks like the Redox book used to have a chapter called “why mit” but it’s not there now.
Alright, thanks for letting me know
It is, though. GPL forces all code using a GPL-licensed project to also be GPL-licensed. MIT is a cuck license allowing corporations to use your code for free without anything in return, the entire text of the MIT license could be replaced with “pls steal my code harder, daddy big corporation”.
A “cuck” license? I have 0 interest in engaging in any meaningful conversation around “we live in a society and rigidity of value measurement cannot be without context” because thats childish at best and a dog whistle of the anti-intellectual at worst.
I’m using cuck in the literal sense, not the MAGA fascist sense. Your code, someone else’s profit. GPL or bust. If corporations want to use the features of a FOSS project without contributing their changes, they can fuck off and rewrite it from scratch.