What is the decision behind the MIT license for this project?

[serialrf433]

I searched around a bit and could not find any public information about the reason why RadioLib got the MIT license.

I see most of the other projects from years ago also had the MIT license like for example: https://github.com/jgromes/LoRaLib

My imagination why MIT have been chosen would be: To reach the goal One radio library to rule them all! a non copyleft license was required to replace also all the radio libraries in closed source projects.

[jgromes]

I think you might be taking our tagline a bit too seriously ... it is mainly a joke ;)

The reason I chose MIT license for my first projects 9 (!) years ago and still keep it even for recent stuff is that it is clear, simple, short and permissive. I really don't see the need to complicate things with things like GPL.

[StevenCellist]

I've recently published the files for my sensor boxes and was also looking at licenses.. while I'd he happy to make some money off of it or force others to open source their stuff as well, this is exactly the reason why I ended up with MIT as well. I don't have the capacity nor will to enforce GPL.

[serialrf433]

@jgromes
I know the wording One radio library to rule them all! have been chosen like that to be fun. I like it the same i like Rockin' the airwaves without ham license since 2017 . Using such fun wording further can be even more fun. If you do not like it when people use those lines to find the answer to all questions in the world(replacement for 42), i can stop using the lines.

clear, simple, short and permissive

This is the clear answer to the question. Thanks.

If you like to chat around about licenses: I would like to know if you would make a different license choise for end user applications (with GUI and all the stuff).

General: GPL is making things more complicated with the goal to prevent taking freedom-stuff and creating non-free things out of it. GPL in the Linux kernel is forcing companies who just want to make money out of the freedom to contribute back their changes to the public. They get forced to contribute their part to the freedom in the world we live in. I personal think its worth the hassle.
Yes, of course you should not have to study law and fight on your own against such companies. That is why there are non profit organizations that do this work for many open source projects out there.

Specific: With RadioLib there is for example the GPL based Meshtastic. But there is also MeshCore without copyleft license. Here is now a closed source MeshCore product with RadioLib build in asking for money: https://store.meshcore.co.uk/

@StevenCellist

while I'd he happy to make some money off of it

👎

or force others to open source their stuff as well

👍

I don't have the capacity nor will to enforce GPL.

Maybe you would like to take a look at the non profit organizations enforcing GPL to open source the stuff from the others who just took it.

[jgromes]

GPL is making things more complicated with the goal to prevent taking freedom-stuff and creating non-free things out of it

That is indeed correct - and in my exprience it can easily become a good reason against using a specific piece software. Especially for smaller projects like this one, a company may just decide that it is less risky to rewrite everything from scratch, because then there is no chance someone down the line will start pushing them to release the result. There might not even be a profit motive or attempts to save money by reusing open-source: for example in research organizations, depending on the type of funding used you might not be allowed to release the results publicly, or there will be a lengthy, formal process to do so (guess how I know :D). For small projects, all of this primarily limits adoption.

If any entity (regardless of whether it is an individual or a for-profit company) wishes to upstream fixes and improvements, that's great! If they don't, then to be honest, I don't want them - and forcing them to do so is not productive IMO.