Why I Use the GPL and Not Cuck Licenses
Every piece of software I write I license under the GNU Public License Version
3 (GPLv3) unless I have
forked it from something else.
The GPLv3 is the premiere copyleft license, meaning that it not only allows
users to run, modify and distribute their own versions of what I write, but it
also requires that no one in that chain of development restrict and close-source
that software: it and software deriving from it must forever remain open,
usable and sharable. Richard Stallman, one of the minds behind the GPL has
described it as a "hack" of the copyright system because it uses the legal
infrastructure of copyright to ensure software is free rather than restricted.
But occasionally I get asked why I don't use so-called permissive licenses
like BSD or MIT. These are free software licenses, but they do not require
that forked versions of the code be free and open source software. In other
words, you can take something written with a BSD or MIT license, put it in the
next version of Windows and no one will ever know. If you did that with GPL
code, you'd be in for big legal trouble if found out.
I and others have recently taken to calling these permissive licenses Cuck
Licenses.
Why "Cuck Licenses?"
Why be mean and bully BSD and MIT licenses calling them "Cuck Licenses?"
Quite simply, using them is precisely analogous to being cuckolded. When you
really look at it, the similarity is uncanny.
I understand GPL free software and its ethical vision for software. I also
understand that desire for people and businesses to not release their source
code for commercial and monetary benefits. What I don't understand is
simultaneously releasing free code with no requirement that it remain free. It
can now be used against you and others—if you had moral qualms about that, you
could've at least made money off of it yourself.
Using a Cuck License especially for "ethical reasons" or "because I like
open source software" is beyond absurd. You're simply writing code and
effectively abandoning the privileges of intellectual property while allowing
any large corporation to come and close-source and monetize your software and
sell it back to you without any other obligations. You have also abandoned your
ability to ever complain about IBM, Microsoft, Apple or any other tech giant
because you are literally writing their proprietary software. These
companies even sometimes take very simple code from minor projects and use it to
save a buck and a little effort.
[![{map[alt:Timnolet Twitter screencap caption:When you license with a
permissive license, you don't have a say anymore. class:resright
link:/pix/timnolet.png mouse:'Noooo! You can't use my heckin' code that I
legally gave you the right to use!' src:/pix/timnolet.png] /home/luke/work/code/
lukesmith.info/content/articles/why-i-use-the-gpl-and-not-cuck-licenses.md
<nil> img true 0 {{} {{} 0} {{} {0 0}}} {{} {{} 0} {{} {0 0}}} 2832 { 0 0
0} <nil>}](https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/timnolet.png "'Noooo!
You…](https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/timnolet.png)When you license with a permissive
license, you don't have a say anymore.
At the end of the day, using a Cuck License is little different from either
releasing software in the public domain or just not licensing it (in some
jurisdictions, at least). It has the pretense of a license, but for no real
function. I suppose depending on which you use, you at least get your name on
the license, but I hardly think that that's how internet fame and glory is
actually distributed anyway. As far as I'm concerned using a Cuck License is
worse for user freedom than just releasing it in the public domain. This is
because at least public domain software can be taken and later additions can be
protected by the GPL. The legal case for doing that with a Cuck License is not
so clear.
No whiners!
The funniest thing is when Cuck Licensers complain that people are abiding
by their licenses. They will complain that people took their code and made
money off of it. They will complain when they don't get some social credit
they feel like they deserve when their code is used in a project. They will
complain if people fork their project and it becomes more popular than the
original. They will complain when some tech giant takes their code and makes
spyware out of it.
If they were serious about stopping any of this, they easily could've by
licensing their project as anything other than a code giveaway. If you want
praise for some contribution, put it in the license. If you don't want your
software used for proprietary software, use the GPLv3.
A Cuck Licenser gets what he deserves (and we all pay the price).
One of the funniest and saddest horror stories of Cuck Licenses I can think of
is Andrew Tanenbaum, who released MINIX, an operating system, under a BSD
license. Intel silently took this software (thanks to its license) and
unbeknownst to him, used it for their Intel Management Engine, making it the
OS of the spyware microprocessor/backdoor now running in all Intel CPUs. We
all have a permanent NSA backdoor because of the Intel Management Engine—all
made possibly by Cuck License cuckery.
Only many, many years later was this even revealed to
Tanenbaum. Read that blog post of his as he
slowly externalizes his mixed feelings, tinged with guilt. After all, on the
"bright" side, he says:
"I guess that makes MINIX the most widely used computer operating
system in the world, even more than Windows, Linux, or MacOS."
Wow, what a proud achievement. But regardless, Tanenbaum already feels some
regret about the fact that his permissive license allowed Intel to withhold
this:
"This was a complete surprise. I don't mind, of course, and was not
expecting any kind of payment since that is not required. There isn't
even any suggestion in the license that it would be appreciated.
"The
only thing that would have been nice is that after the project had
been finished and the chip deployed, that someone from Intel would
have told me, just as a courtesy, that MINIX was now probably the most
widely used operating system in the world on x86 computers. That
certainly wasn't required in any way, but I think it would have been
polite to give me a heads up, that's all."
![{map[alt:CIA Nigger class:resright mouse:A glow-in-the-dark CIA gamer
src:/pix/cia.png] /home/luke/work/code/lukesmith.info/content/articles/why-i-us
e-the-gpl-and-not-cuck-licenses.md <nil> img true 1 {{} {{} 0} {{} {0
0}}} {{} {{} 0} {{} {0 0}}} 6331 { 0 0 0}
<nil>}](https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/cia.png "A glow-in-the-dark CIA gamer")
You can feel the regret. With Cuck Licenses, you get the worst of two
worlds: You get no credit for your work, nor money for licensing fees like
other proprietary software and your software will be used to violate your and
other users' privacy when it is used in closed-source environments. Oh, no...
copes incoming:
"Many people (including me) **don't like the idea of an all-powerful
management engine in there at all** (since it is a possible security
hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's
business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A
company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had
to." emphasis added
If Tanenbaum had released MINIX under the GPL, we wouldn't be at the mercy
of Intel's business decision. They would've had to release the source code for
the microprocessor, keeping user privacy ensured and irradicating the permanent
spyware liability all computers have nowadays.
If they wouldn't want to do that, they'd have to just write an operating system
themselves. Tanenbaum is right, they obviously could've taken the time and
money to write an OS themselves if they had to, but they didn't have to,
because a BSD license cuck wrote it for them. Thanks a lot, sucker! Now our
computers are being monitored at a lower start-up cost and we have you to thank.
It would've been a lot more respectable to not use a permissive license
and instead license it proprietarily if he has no moral issues with proprietary
software: he could've at least gotten Intel to pay him to use his operating
system. Heck, if he had used the GPL and if they took it anyway, he could
become an insta-millionaire by suing them right now.
The moral of the story is perhaps lost on Tanenbaum, who finishes up his blog
post with:
"If nothing else, this bit of news reaffirms my view that the
Berkeley license provides the maximum amount of freedom to potential
users."
"Maximum amount of freedom to potential users" is somehow mass-surveilance of
every computer user thanks to the BSD license. Thanks for your contribution to
"freedom."
The Freedom that Cuck Licenses "preserve"
"Freedom" is an incoherent buzzword if you don't define it. There are some
people who might argue that the fact that they can't kill and steal freely is a
violation of their "freedom." That's very true in some sense.
In the same way, the GPL (unlike Cuck Licenses) "violates" the freedom of all
people to close-source code and hide it from the public and (in effect) do
annoying or privacy-violating things with it.
The goal of the Free Software Movement, defended by copyleft licenses like the
GPL is for all software writers and users to live in an environment of publicly
auditable, editable and exchangable code. The goals of the Open Source movement
have a similar goal, albeit often guided by practical considerations.
![{map[alt:Janny caption:He does it for free. class:resright src:/pix/janny.jpg]
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{0 0}}} 9375 { 0 0 0} <nil>}](https://lukesmith.xyz/pix/janny.jpg)He does
it for free.
Cuck Licenses, however, undermine those goals. They will say that they
maximize freedom by placing no requirement on those who distribute When you
release any code under a Cuck License, you are simply writing free commercial
code for corporations that will inevitably use it against you. You might as well
just actually get a job with them so you can get paid for what you do
instead of just getting cucked. When you release code under the GPL, you write
free software that benefits other people who write free software.
The Free Software Foundation and the GPL people have correctly realized that
just being "permissive" with licenses is unworkable in the current environment.
The legal infrastructure incentivizes and defends proprietary software and gives
it a systematic financial advantage. The GPL is a viral antidote to that.
Obviously if all software were free and no laws protected "intellectual
property" in publicly obtainable software, everything would be "permissively
licensed." We don't live in that world. The GPL and other "copyleft" licenses
are ways of undermining and disincentivizing and making impossible the
close-sourcing of software. Not using the GPL and using a cuck license is just
the same as writing proprietary because you literally are because all of
your software can be snatched up and proprietarily licensed.
B...buut the GPL isn't enforceable!
I've heard some people pass around the idea that somehow the GPL is
unenforceable. After all, if you have close source software, how can anyone
really tell what's going on? In some cases, that might be true if you have
perfect op-sec. That wouldn't be the case for the Intel Management Engine above,
and that wouldn't be the case for Windows XP, whose source code recently
leaked.
I have known people in industry writing proprietary software and worrying about
the GPL is real. The "virus" of GPL taking over everything and making it free is
something people have to take heed of. I'm sure there is some level of
GPL-violation going on in some places at least, just because lifting simple
routines or copy-and-pasting some things from GPL with significant enough
changes could go unseen even if leaked, but integrating larger GPL programs
would be nearly an impossibility.
At the end of the day, though, what does it matter? What is a totally unenforced
GPL? It's just a Cuck License—Isn't that what license cucks want? So why should
they care? At their very best, BSD and MIT licenses are only what GPL might be
at its very worst.
The GPL is a permanent liability for any company that crosses it. Some companies
might be so bold to lift GPL code and hide it, but there is always a risk and a
worry that prevents its general violation.
Addendum
Are copyleft licenses always best even for freedom?
No!
Here's a question I got about this article that I'll reproduce here because it
touches on something good.
[personal details omitted for anonymity]
However, I read your article, and I can see your point. I have an idea for
an
Operating System and due to your arguments, I would definitely license that
under the GPL, as well as any new programs I write. I might even change most
or
all of my current programs to GPL, with the exception of that bc, which
needs
to remain BSD since it is default in FreeBSD now.
That said, I have a library I am working on, and my experience is that
libraries under the GPL do not get used, unless a commercial license is
offered
as well, and often, not even then. You can see this with glibc, which has a
special linking exception and the fact that the LGPL is fairly popular for
libraries.
First question: what is your opinion on the linking exception and the LGPL?
Are
they Cuck Licenses? I mean, they do require that the library and any
modifications be put under the LGPL, which means that the library remains
libre
software. However, they can also be put into proprietary code, which is the
entire reason you call MIT and BSD licenses Cuck Licenses.
Basically, it seems as though you are correct when it comes to licensing
programs themselves. But it gets murkier when talking about libraries.
[other personal details omitted]
This was my response to this email explaining this finer point.
Yeah. There are sometimes times when it is tactically better to license
things under a permissive license if for institutional reasons:
mass-adoption is required and companies and such might be unnerved by
the GPL. Libraries might often be like that. So it's not necessarily a
purity-spiralling point.
RMS actually advised that ogg/vorbis should use a cuck license to
maximize adoption (it originally used the LGPL, but switched to BSD):
https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3
It's thanks to this that it has now become a usable and wide-spread
format, used now on nearly every proprietary web service because of its
small-size, good fidelity and general superiority.
So yeah, if you're writing a standalone program, I'd use the GPL, but I
would choose licenses ultimately in terms of which would maximize the
possibilities for users of using free-software. In some circumstances,
that means using a cuck license. Same is true of the LGPL. I think
GNU/FSF recommend LGPL only to be used when it is competing with a
proprietary library, and if that's usually what you are writing, you
might end up writing a lot in the LGPL.