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Why I used to prefer permissive licenses and now favor copyleft

Vitalik Buterin · 7 Jul 2025

A change of mind in this piece

Permissive licences are the better way to release free software and free content, because they maximise adoption.

Historically, I was a fan of the permissive approach (eg. my blog is under the WTFPL). More recently, I am warming up to the copyleft approach.

Read the piece on vitalik.eth.limo ↗

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  1. Historically, I was a fan of the permissive approach (eg. my blog is under the WTFPL). More recently, I am warming up to the copyleft approach.

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