fc-updates

Proposing a copyleft license for Snapchain 

We need to release Snapchain under an open source license for people to be able to use the code safely. We're proposing using GPL v3, which is a copy left license. 

This means that you can use, modify and redistribute it freely as long as any changes are also made public and available to all.

On permissive vs copyleft open source licenses: https://shazow.net/posts/permissive-vs-copyleft/

I break down all the ways copyleft licenses fail to achieve their state goals, and explain why permissive licenses succeed where copyleft fails.

It's a beast of an article, but I wanted to be comprehensive.

I cosign @shazow.eth's retort to @vitalik.eth's (well intentioned) blog, and would vouch for MIT :

A doodler and computerer. I like permissive/permissionless open source, smart contracts, p2p systems, room-scale VR, and NixOS.

shazow.net

Currently: WhatsABI

Ethereum

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

Wrapped Ether

I cosign @shazow.eth's retort to @vitalik.eth's (well intentioned) blog, and would vouch for MIT :
https://farcaster.xyz/shazow.eth/0x6d80e52e

Software Engineer @ Cadence Design Systems. B4: Stanford EE / Illinois ECE

dfern

Optimize for making it easier for snapchain to succeed, pick a permissive license. 🙏

I do think that your premise is correct, that permissive licenses produce more open-source and create a larger pool of authors. 

But also allows more companies to shape the future of a project, the idea of copyleft is to limit the control of capital, copyleft by design is ment to reduce capital power in software, and that many times might be the desired outcome, especially if the project is of large importance, for smaller projects a copyleft or permisive license does not matter so much.

Also, to be honest, while copyleft licenses will affect capital interests, the Linux ecosystem is full of copyleft, and we can hardly say that the Linux ecosystem is a failure; in fact, it’s the backbone of what powers most of the online world.

Software developer, open source enthusiast, privacy advocate.

Clear Wallet Open-source privacy focused wallet: https://clear-wallet.flashsoft.eu/

> if it had 0 effect on for-profit entities, then there would have been no meaningful difference between a copyleft and permissive license. 

I argue it has *negative* effect on almost everyone, not just for-profit entities. Especially the project itself. It's sparkling self-sabotage at this point.

I'm not saying a copyleft project can't succeed today, but all it's doing is making it harder on themselves if their metric of success is adoption and impact.

Some people have a different metric for success! If your metric of success if value alignment with 90s era FLOSS movement regardless of efficacy, then yes copyleft is the best way to get there. It will exclusively recruit people from that subset, and they may all be happy working together, no need to dominate the market or whatever. I've seen this many times and I'm happy for them.

And again I acknowledge that the 2025 landscape is very different from the one in the 90s, but it is very hard not to determine that copyleft licenses limit for-profit companies from being involved, all evidence point to that.  

Even in your article, you argue that it will limit contributions by people who want to use the product commercially, if it had 0 effect on for-profit entities, then there would have been no meaningful difference between a copyleft and permissive license. 

As you said in the first reply to this post, it’s an optimization issue. I already stated that I also think that, at least in the initial stages, copyleft will for sure have drawbacks, such as a lower number of contributions and interest, but at the same time, many for-profit entities will stay away. 

I don’t pretend to know what is better for this project, but it’s my opinion that there are scenarios where success can exist with a copyleft license too.

Copyleft fails to do any of that in 2025. I address the Linux scenario at the end, the 90s was a very different landscape.

It’s just speculation. IMO, saying that Linux failed just because it does not have a significant market share on the desktop is a huge fallacy.

You can reverse that and say that Win and Mac have failed because their server share is even lower than Linux’s share on desktops.

You can find a plethora of reasons why Linux is a success, from the number of authors, contributions, companies involved etc, there’s no premissive license project by a mile to compare with those stats yet your premise is that a premissve license would have been better.

I fail to see any evidence, again, Linux is an absolute success, while I am not claiming that the copyleft is the reason, it is under a copyleft license, so that disproves that copyleft-licensed projects can't be successful.

Again, once a project gets successful, the license just dictates what you optimize for. Both permissive and copyleft licenses are better than proprietary code, and both can advance open-source goals, but they optimize for different outcomes.

I think the point is that the Linux kernel would have been even more successful if it had been permissive. Linux has failed on personal computers, Win+Mac are still larger to this day.