Vitalik Buterin advocates ‘copyleft’ licensing in crypto
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin now backs open-source licenses, arguing they better promote open innovation as crypto becomes more “competitive and mercenary.”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has encouraged the crypto industry to adopt “copyleft” open-source licenses, amid concerns the industry is losing touch with its collaborative roots.
In a newly released blog on Monday, Buterin said he was previously a fan of a “permissive approach” to software licensing, which enables the free sharing with everyone, but has now started to favor a “copyleft” approach.
There is a subtle difference between the two. Permissive licenses allow the public to freely modify or distribute source code files. Copyleft licenses do the same, but require the user to also open-source any derivative work using the original code.