Why I Choose The MIT License

Published 09/21/2024

Originally when I first started releasing my code (in 2010) - I was worried others would profit off of it. So I released the majority of my code under GPL.

GPL essentially means if you make any changes to my code, you have to share those changes. You can sell GPL code, but who would pay for it when it’s completely free, source wise? - Generally you would instead charge for support.

Now, as I release software, I try to release it under MIT. The choice behind this is purely from a legal standpoint. I would put it public domain if I could.

MIT is essentially the legal way of saying public domain, in a way companies trust. Public domain by itself isn’t inherently enforceable, at least major software companies feel that way. The idea is MIT covers everything public domain would, but in a completely legal way.

When I first started to open source my core libraries (sometime in 2020), I originally put everything under public domain. I’ve changed a lot from the time when I first started to open source my code, and I feel software should be shared freely. Use my code as a building block, honestly I should have felt honored back then. I am in retrospective.

However, upon further investigation I realized Public Domain was not enough. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s not respected like the MIT license is. This is when I had the idea for Dual Licensing my code.

Dual Licensing is essentially the act of providing two licenses - pick the one you want to work with is the idea. If you need MIT, you have the MIT license. If you’re more into the concept of public domain, then you can pick the Public Domain license.

I thought this would be a good solution, but it felt overly complicated for no reason. Licensing in my opinion should be simple and straight forward, zero ambiguity. So, I decided to keep it simple, and stick with MIT.

And that’s why I choose the MIT license. My previous work will continue to be GPL, and some future work may even continue to use GPL. But for now, the majority of my work is MIT licensed.