SPECIMEN No. 045 · Binding paperwork
Open-Source Licenses
The text file that decides whether your code is a gift, a business model, or a finding in due diligence.
🌱 Perennial- 🏠 Habitat
- LICENSE, at the repo root, unread since the first commit
- 🦈 Natural predator
- Due diligence
- 🤒 Common symptom
- A spreadsheet column titled “copyleft?” with 2,311 rows
THE DEBATE
The room is split
If the whole team walked into the review, who would reach for Open-Source Licenses, and who would push back.
💖 Copyleft is a feature
ChrisThe Sovereign“AGPL means whoever hosts it publishes their changes; nobody gets to close what he opened.”
RuthThe Maintainer“The GPL code from 2009 still compiles, is still free, and still has its mailing list.”
GregThe Hedger“AGPL for everyone, commercial for whoever wants out: copyleft is what makes the second door worth buying.”
🛑 Copyleft is a risk
PatThe Enterprise Adult“Legal has an approved list, and copyleft is the page that triggers a meeting with outside counsel.”
MayaThe Visionary“Half the companies that would try it this week ban AGPL; copyleft is an adoption tax.”
JoThe Cowboy“MIT is one paragraph she can paste in ten seconds; anything longer needs a lawyer she does not have.”
RileyThe Minimalist“Copyleft is a compliance process, and he would rather have zero processes and one paragraph.”
IN THE WILD · 1 TAKE
