From Permissive to Copyleft: A Shift in Open Source Licensing

The author reflects on their evolution of open-source licensing preferences, shifting from a preference for permissive licenses (like MIT) to prioritize maximal adoption to now favoring copyleft licenses (like GPL). This change stems from three key factors: open source has gone mainstream, making enterprise adoption easier; the crypto space has become more competitive and mercenary, making 'friendly' sharing insufficient; and Glen Weyl's economic arguments suggesting that actively promoting open source is optimal with increasing returns to scale. The author argues that copyleft, by mandating source code sharing of derivative works, effectively promotes knowledge diffusion and technological sharing, preventing resource monopolization by a few.