> in reality Apple would still lockdown their gadgets and just write the software themself if no permissive licence [were] available
This is a common opinion, but seems uninformed to me. The free code helped them get started. They are Goliath now, but the benefitted from not having to do the R&D earlier.
I don’t know if they could have done the R&D. I definitely imagine it would not have been as good as the product they got from using BSD.
Anyway, I believe this kind of thinking is a shallow dismissal of the value that companies receive from starting from Libre software.
"Anyway, I believe this kind of thinking is a shallow dismissal of the value that companies receive from starting from Libre software."
It is a dismissal of the idea, that using a different licence will magically transform the whole industry.
If the code is open, the profit orientated companies don't need to do R&D from scratch. They just take the copyleft source code and make it closed, either by simply not publishing it, or if they care about whistleblowers by rewriting it. Which is easy if you have sources of something working. Even more so today with LLMs.
That is why I am a fan of permissive licences. It is a working compromise for companies who would never consider copyleft code in critical parts of their product.
Compromise for me is, the concept of open source gets more widewspread. There is no must in giving back.
And if you try to force it with copyleft .. you won't get far. I believe history is on my side here.
This is a common opinion, but seems uninformed to me. The free code helped them get started. They are Goliath now, but the benefitted from not having to do the R&D earlier.
I don’t know if they could have done the R&D. I definitely imagine it would not have been as good as the product they got from using BSD.
Anyway, I believe this kind of thinking is a shallow dismissal of the value that companies receive from starting from Libre software.