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Comment by tbirdz | Hacker News Reader

>Can’t some random person fork the project and attempt same thing? Yep. Worse, they can fork the project, and create a proprietary version and start selling it.

If you released it under the GPL, then they would not legally be allowed to make a proprietary version and start selling it. Also, the GPL does not prevent you from selling your software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

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Seeing as how this beverages web technologies (although it installs locally right now), AGPL might be a better choice. As long as he retains copyright, he'll be free to also sell commercial licenses if that becomes interesting/viable.

That said, having the legal right to something, and being able to enforce it, isn't the same thing (just ask Adobe).

That's only because Adobe isn't in the movies business.

Yeah, that's right. Movies aren't subject to illegal downloads. /s

(On a more serious note, while I'm not a supporter of the draconian DRM schemes that have been enacted into law -- and while the studios make completely ridiculous claims for damages -- implying that films aren't being copied in a way that conflicts with their licensing terms is clearly wrong)

I REALLY hope he already knows this, as he's putting his career and saving on the line here.

Although I don't think he should go GPL, he should at least know about the license differences.

I'm aware of the GPL, of course. I'm not a big fan of the political views behind the license.

Mh. Could you expand on that point? I know we are not supposed to discuss politics too much here, but I really see only benefits to the GPL, particularly in your case, and I wonder what are the opinions which make you say that.

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