On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Tyler Romeo <tylerromeo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This entire conversation is a bit disappointing,
mainly because I am a
supporter of the free software movement, and like to believe that users
should have a right to see the source code of software they use. Obviously
not everybody feels this way and not everybody is going to support the free
software movement, but I can assure you I personally have no plans on
contributing to any WMF project that is Apache licensed, but at the very
least MediaWiki core is still GPLv2, even if it makes things a bit more
difficult.
You're implying that Apache2 licensed software is somehow not part of the
free software movement and that's absurd. Apache2 is technically a freer
license than GPLv(anything). Like GPL3, it also provides patent protection.
In practice it doesn't matter if software is forked and closed if the
canonical source isn't. The org that forks must maintain their fork and all
of their modifications without help. It's onerous and generally
unmaintainable for most orgs, especially if their core business isn't based
on the software, or if the canonical source is fast moving.
It's your choice to not participate in any project for any reason, but try
to understand that some people (such as myself) much prefer to work on
software that's truly free, rather than virally free.
- Ryan