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We strongly believe in software freedom. See the following (sadly https) links for more information:
A number of people have made this point better than I possibly can in this post. The distinction between Free Software and Open Source Software is an important one. Both have a place and are important in the current world order. The latter gives us a development model that allows for collaboration and (usually) higher-quality software that is often 'gratis'. That is to say, users can use it without a cost. Free Software, on the other hand, is concerned about user freedom - sometimes called Libre software. Such software does not necessarily need to have the source code available gratis. It can be sold, however the entity distributing such software needs to follow the 4 basic freedoms:
Given these 4 freedoms, the user can take something that was sold to them (and something the entity that sold it to the user claims the user owns) and in fact use it as if they own it. Should the software not behave how the user wants (e.g. missing a simple uncommon function in something like LibreOffice Calc), they can add it and redistribute the copy to their friends who also may need it. This is also true with malicious software, gathering and selling user data. If it were Free Software, the user could modify it to not collect their data. For more information on this topic, see:
While we support the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation in its goals, there are certain points on which we disagree. A lot of Free Software projects and organizations are caught up in license compatibility debates which tends to harm Free Software. Here are some examples of such disputes:
Software Freedom Conservacy on ZFS
and many others. CDDL is a Free Software license (and a copyleft one, at that!). These statements are often hostile in nature and hinder the adoption of high-quality Free Software. These discussions would be better served trying to figure out how the software could be combined in order to make the Free Software ecosystem of higher quality. Instead, they have only served to spread FUD about Free Software, which resulted in people calling it proprietary and calling for its boycott.
Another point which we disagree with is the fact that many projects under the GNU umbrella view Free Software as: "everything must be 100% free or you must throw your computer away". Many users and developers revolving around the GNU umbrella come off as incredibly judgmental towards users that need to run one piece of proprietary software/firmware on THEIR computers. This is not only wrong (see Freedom #0, which is the freedom to run the program as you wish, not as mandated by others, including the ones who develop the Free Software you are using), but it is actively hurting the GNU Project and Free Software as a whole. Please stop doing this.
There are many Free Software licenses to choose from. Roughly, they can be separated into 'Copyleft' and 'Permissive' licenses. The former usually requires that any change to the software that is being redistributed to others also be made Free, while the latter is, as the name suggests, permissive in that regard.
For examples of copyleft licenses, see:
Examples of permissive licenses include:
... and many others.
Ultimately, the choice of your license depends on your usecase. Nobody should choose the license for you (unless you are employed and you don't own your copyright, or you are on a grant, ...). But you may be wondering, why would you pick a license that doesn't require that any changes and redistribution of your code doesn't need to be made Free Software? That means a company could take your code, add gathering of personal information and sell it for ads. Indeed, that is a valid concern. If that is your main concern, you should pick a copyleft license that suits your needs. However, the answer as to why you might want to pick a permissive license is a simple one. It is either for altruistic reasons -- you wrote some awesome code: "Please use it, world!" or you are actively trying to push for adoption of something new and innovative. In the latter case, copyleft might be a barrier for adoption.
-- tdg