MangoCats

The whole legal/courts system is pretty dysfunctional at the low end of the economic spectrum (like: license fees that a group of 10s of developers might charge...) We have a shared well with our neighbor, put there by the previous owner of both properties. When he tried to sell to a previous potential buyer, they tried to hammer out a legal agreement around the shared well, and it just wasn't feasible. The cost of anything approaching a legal agreement about sharing maintenance of the well cost more than putting in two new wells.

We didn’t want to control or manipulate people, using our code to extort a particular behavior out of them.

The FOSS community, and even the community of developers on single large FOSS projects, is large and diverse... The royal "We" doesn't really apply at all, even in the case of Linus and the kernel - sure, he's a clear leader, but he's hardly in control of the larger community and their wants.

I think the current state of open source licensing is much as it should be... MIT has its place, as does GPL, and if we're going to pretend that intellectual property is about protecting creators, then it's the creators who should get to choose.

In the world I live in, intellectual property is a barrier to entry that's primarily used by organizations with a lot of power (money) to prevent others from disturbing their plans of making more money. MIT seems most appropriate for individual creators to assure that that world doesn't come crashing into their bedroom with CDOs and lawsuits. GPL is "cute" - but I think most practitioners of GPL licensing don't have any clue how far out of their depth they are if they should ever seek actual enforcement of their self-declared license terms. That's not to say GPL is toothless. It gives small players a tool to amplify the trouble they can make for those who would violate their license (primarily mode of violation being by use of the code so licensed.) But, other than making minor trouble for the bigger players, thus discouraging the bigger players from entangling with them, GPL isn't going to "make" the bigger players do much of anything other than stay away.

GPL does shape the community, it has its effects, I just get tired of hearing about the specific immediate legal language of it, because that's far from the actual effects it has.

Of course, shit-for-neighbors can make all kinds of trouble out of anything. I was thinking more along the lines of MIT free nuts, take 'em, eat 'em, sell 'em, just don't sue me over 'em. As opposed to GPL "free nuts," must be consumed on the property. If you take a dump while you're here be sure to bury it at least 3" deep along with any TP used. Bring your own privacy screening.

In the corporate world, they have a lot to lose. So, they have lawyers - expensive lawyers - who, in theory, protect them from expensive lawsuits. One of the easiest ways to stay out of lawsuits over GPL and friends is to not use GPL software, so... that's why it's radioactive. Just having the parasitic lawyers review possible exposure is hellishly expensive, better to re-develop in-house than pay lawyers or even begin to think about the implications of entering into an agreement with a bunch of radical FOSS types.

It sucks, but it's also how it is. Some corporations (like Intel) do heavily support and contribute to FOSS, when they feel like it.

GPL has certainly failed time and time again, openly in the case of FFmpeg and their clones all over Eastern Europe and elsewhere. FFmpeg made a lot of noise and resorted to "public shaming" mostly because the courts weren't working for them. And they have a very visible product... so many GPL licensed things are lurking inside proprietary products where they'll never be seen.

It's like putting a license on COVID to prevent it from spreading... it just doesn't work in the real world.

The point of all of this is that you really should, no matter what it is.

That's like saying: I have a pecan orchard, I like my trees and I don't mind if people collect the nuts as they walk by. Oh, but the point is: you really should, those are your nuts, you pay the taxes on the land, you care for the trees, YOU should be the one to sell them, not give them away to some randos passing by.

Yeah, sure. You do you.

without my consent or their assuredly begrudging reciprocation. This should not be controversial. The GPL accomplishes this

In legal theory. In corporate practice, MIT and similar "pushover" licensed software, especially FOSS libraries, is more readily adopted by corporate users - and through this adoption it is exercised, tested, bug reported - sometimes the corporate trolls even crawl out from under their rocks and publish bug fixes and extensions for it. By comparison, GPL stuff is radioactive, therefore less used.

Then we can talk about how successful you are likely to be in enforcing GPT on any large entity, particularly those in foreign countries.

I'm just wondering about basic functionality - can it play through without a crash or is it still Windows only for a smooth UX?

But, what's the user experience playing the MYST humble bundle on it?

There's only one way to be sure: nuke it from orbit.

Had a friend who used to put his super-workstation laptop in his backpack. It would randomly turn itself back on and get HOT in there at times, like firestarter hot.

Battery lore has been cargo-cult woo since the NiMH days... most of it feels like manufacturers saying "oh, I'm sorry you didn't get our advertised life, you must have done something wrong."