Stay with GPLv3?

[robla]

I haven't fully decided on the following on what the long-term license for abiftool.py will be. It's currently licensed under GPLv3), but as of this writing (in August 2023), I can probably be convinced to switch to an MIT, BSD, or Apache license of some sort. As other contributors contribute under GPLv3, it will become more difficult me to convince other contributors to change license. Stay with GPLv3, or change now while I can?

[nealmcb]

I love GPL and copyleft. But for tools that we want lots of people to pick up, I do tend to go with MIT or perhaps Apache, to avoid complications for anyone.

[robla]

I've gone back and forth on strong copyleft (e.g. GPLv2, GPLv3, AGPLv3) and very permissive (e.g. MIT, various BSD) over the years. I've thought about switching to AGPLv3, because if some mooch takes my code, builds their interactive website with it (maybe making a few private tweaks to my code), and doesn't bother to acknowledge my work or even contact me in any way, I want that decision to be complicated for them.

My goal with this tool is to facilitate conversations about interoperability with the ABIF format. My hope is that people will want the ABIF format itself to be stable (and to serve as an API to their software). Over time, I'm hoping that add many more input and output formats to this tool (and I'm hoping to get help doing so). If I have to change the license to get the help, I'm willing to do that, but I kinda need someone who offers "consideration" (to use lawyer speak) in some way. I'm a cheap date, so "consideration" in my book could be a promise to integrate my code into their published code that has much greater notability than my code (in a way that doesn't cut me out of the loop).

[nealmcb]

Well put.

I think AGPLv3 is a better choice than GPL since web sites are the sort of thing people want for format conversions.

And you can make it clear that you're very willing to dual-license for proper consideration if they're worried about AGPL and the rest of their web site.