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Non-FSF Copyleft Usage

24 Mar 2021

The Free Software Foundation has decided they'd rather hang out with a sex pest than have an ounce of credibility, so fuck em. Let's look at the copyleft licenses they didn't write and see how they're used.

I'll be using the Blue Oak Council's list of copyleft licenses here, because I don't know of a good other way to find specifically copyleft licenses. I'll be searching GitHub for `filename:LICENSE "<some snippet from the license>"` or checking Wikipedia and then seeing if anything notable turns up.

Blue Oak Council's list of copyleft licenses

Maximal Copyleft

Cryptographic Autonomy License: almost entirely cryptocurrency bullshit
Parity Public License: maintains its own list of users, including some work from substack (original author of browserify, prominent in the node.js scene, name stolen by a shitty newsletter startup) and some Git hook manager with 22.2k stars on GitHub (although it's only Parity licensed while it's in early access, and it'll revert to MIT later on). so there's a notable person and a notable project using this license, which is neat.
Reciprocal Public License: well, there's "the most popular service bus for .NET", but that appears to be basically it.

its own list of users

basically it

Network Copyleft

Affero GPL: fuck GNU, fuck the FSF, fuck RMS, fuck you
Apple Public Source License: unsurprisingly, the only use I've seen is for stuff derived directly from Apple releases
Common Public Attribution License: apparently it was invented by some startup that hasn't existed since 2012, and I could only find one nontrivial use of it
European Union Public License: well, there's "`dig` but i rewrote it in rust" and there's Pi-hole (actually neat!) but that's about it. i think being the pi-hole license (plus having a metagovernment behind it) would probably be enough to ensure its longevity.
Non-Profit Open Software License: GitHub can't find any usage of it!
Open Software License: it's got Magento (WordPress for ecommerce) and that's about it
RealNetworks Public Source License: ehhhhh I am officially ignoring any license with a mostly-defunct vendor in the title now

well,

and

GitHub can't find any usage of it!

Strong Copyleft

BSD Protection: nothing uses this
CC BY-SA: that's not a software license, you can't fool me
GPL: fuck that
Q Public License: this name has aged poorly and i can't find use of it
Sleepycat License: adorable! but not used by anything

Weak Copyleft

Common Development and Distribution License: apparently this is popular with enterprisey bullshit because it started at Sun but it seems like it's mostly enterprisey bullshit
Common Public License: this one's IBM's, so there's even less usage
Eclipse Public License: well, there's Eclipse, but also a lot of other non-enterprise-bullshit (mostly Java) stuff apparently
Erlang Public License: even Erlang doesn't use it anymore lol
IBM Public License: ehhhhhhhh
LGPL: fuck that
Mozilla Public License: lots of users, probably not going anywhere anytime soon
Microsoft Reciprocal License: not really widely used, unsurprisingly
Sun Public License: apparently it's the older, worse CDDL

even less usage

a lot of other non-enterprise-bullshit (mostly Java) stuff apparently

lots of users

not really widely used

apparently it's the older, worse CDDL

Summary

for maximal copyleft ("must publish source, even if only changing for internal use"), Parity is probably the most promising future license.

Parity

for network copyleft ("must offer source to users even across a network"), the European Union Public License is already seeing some adoption.

European Union Public License

for "strong" copyleft ("must offer source to users even if just linking as a library"), there are no good options because the GPL has been the only game in town for ages.

for "weak" copyleft ("must offer source to users"), the Mozilla Public License looks like it has a good chance of continuing to exist and be used by actual projeccts for a nice long while.

Mozilla Public License