FUSE is generally shipped as a separate executable, which requires no modifications.

So no, GPL would have changed nothing. Companies would still have been able to ship it unmodified for free without contributing anything.

They could have kept their own code that uses FUSE secret, but even if they had had to release that code, that code is often useless to anyone else. It would not have helped or supported the author of the original code in any way whatsoever.

> They could have kept their own code that uses FUSE secret

If they had linked against FUSE they’d need to provide code.

But then they would not have used FUSE.

Or better from a funding PoV: dual licensed. AGPL by default, with non-FOSS licences available for a price.

That way companies or other projects that won't touch *GPL for whatever reason have an option that allows them to use the code while helping the project.

Of course this could make the code incompatible with other open licence (or the licensing policies of some larger projects) so isn't a perfect solution. I'm not sure a perfect solution exists when the project maintainer(s) need income to be able to justify the time to continue their work and have not found some other form of sponsorship.

If it were GPL-licensed, they'd have to give back the whole Happy meal, not just the FUSE fries. Perhaps you're thinking about LGPL, or a linking exception of some kind?

Alternatively, he totally could have gone and dual-licensed GPL and a permissive commercial license as a monetization strategy, like the author pointed out.

You cannot pay rent with 3rd party code contributions.

But you might be able to pay rent with it if those not wanting to feed back their work wanted the code enough to negotiate a paid licence under other terms.

That can be messy for projects with many past maintainers where the licence options at the time of individual contributions did not explicitly allow this or arbitrary relicensing, but in this case (single current maintainer, other contributions made under a licence that allows him to do this) it needn't be.

I'm not sure how that works, legally. If I understand you, you're suggesting that you can GPL your work to create leverage in a future negotiation with a potential user who wants to modify it privately and/or integrate it into proprietary software.

Can you un-GPL your work for a single entity? Doesn't that mean that you yourself are violating the GPL? I'm legitimately asking, not being rhetorical.

If you're the sole author of the code (or own the copyright or have the ability to relicense), then you can. It's not "un-GPL"ing the code because whatever you GPL'd will continue to be available under the GPL forever.

But you can say, hey, I'm ALSO releasing this code under a separate commercial license that costs $X dollars to get.

You can't infringe on your own copyright!

Well, that's pretty cool actually. I was unaware that was an option, and I'm pretty sure that many other people don't know that's an option either! It seems eminently fair to ask for money from people who are making money from your thing (and if they aren't, to not ask for anything).

The point he is making is that FOSS as an idea is independent from OP's post and thus not necessarily influenced by it.

No, you can't. That is true. But if my choice is between zero dollars, and 100 lines of code, I'll take the code, because at least it is something.