> To write software and not license it opens the door for corporations or businesses with money (more money than you) to take your source code, redistribute it with their name on it, removing credit from you (the developer), and profiting off of your work.
In the US at least, if you don't apply a license to your work the default license does not allow anyone else to use it without your permission.
If no license then there is no license, which is equivalent to all rights being reserved, which means what Saagar said: no one can redistribute, modify, or duplicate it for any purpose (unless there is some fair use involved, and with the proviso that you assuredly aren't going to have an issue with the temporary copy made by your browser as there are going to be some implied rights involved with that other person having gone out of their way to publish it in a place where you came across it knowing full well how browsers operate).
> The main difference between these two licenses is the LGPL license can be freely modified by anyone, and doesn't require the modifications (i.e. modified source code) to be re-distributed. It's perfectly legal to only distribute the binaries from your changes, and never share your source code. Why is this dangerous? Because it allows proprietary versions of your software to be released, and thus you no longer have a "free" software product.
> The main selling point of GPL (over other licenses) is your code can be freely modified by anyone, and even redistributed by anyone, but any public release of any version of your software (by anyone) must make the source code available. It's also perfectly fine for someone to sell a version of a GPL software product, however they must make the source code available, and they must not charge extra for the source code.
This is just straight up not true. As a commenter on the original site put it:
> I don't believe this to be accurate. Here's an example case that I think correctly shows the difference between these two licenses:
> Suppose someone writes a shared code library, say to do XML parsing or something. Then suppose I write a program that makes use of this library.
> If the original library was licensed with LGPL, my obligations I are pretty limited. If I make code changes to the library itself, I have to release that code back under the LGPL license, but my main application can be licensed however I see fit.
> In contrast, if the library was released under the GPL, my entire application written using that library is forced to be licensed also as GPL. (This is why the GPL is often considered to be "viral".)
Very little of this article is accurate. For a basic understanding, check out, e.g., https://choosealicense.com/.
Take my software, don't pay me, then extend it to build an expensive platform I get locked into. Really loving those fancy new proprietary time sharing systems you've built, portable stuff like lambdas, and the new serfdom you've created for us all.
Looks like you own computing now. Good job.
Crazy how we went from being a locked down, proprietary industry in the 70's and 80's, to a free and open paradise in the 90's and 00's, and then went right back to thin clients and SaaS/PaaS.
Doesn't have the GPLv2 compatibility problem that Apache 2.0 has. Unlike most copyleft licenses it's file-based, and doesn't restrict linking in any way. Unlike most permissive licenses it provides protection from patent litigation and trademark violation, and provides some "weak" copyleft protections.
Really the only downside is that it's "new" by comparison with most other licenses (9 years old instead of 35+), and that most people don't know anything about it.
Unfortunately, MPLv2 has section 10 that means Mozilla Foundation has the ability to arbitrarily create new versions of the license, and it can be used with any MPLv2 licensed code. It's similar to the "GPLv2 or later" clause, but hard-coded. While I currently trust them, there is way to ensure that will always be the case.
> You may distribute the Covered Software under the terms of the version of the License under which You originally received the Covered Software, or under the terms of any subsequent version published by the license steward.
So yes, you can use MPLv2 for your software; whoever receives at can, _at their discretion_, use it under MPLv3 instead. You can, of course, still use MPLv2, if you're also okay with people choosing to use MPLv3 for your software instead.
I believe they have this clause because the original NPL wasn't GPL compatible, and they had to go through some effort to relicense the Mozilla source code, and figured they never want to go through that again.
In the US at least, if you don't apply a license to your work the default license does not allow anyone else to use it without your permission.