Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to copyleft-next)

[Theodore Tso]

On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 10:25:39PM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> Me too. I've thought for some time that weak copyleft is a failed (or
> now-irrelevant) paradigm, if only because of the political success of
> noncopyleft FOSS licenses. There is clearly an audience for copyleft
> in general, which I think means something like strong (or at least
> "non-weak" as the copyleft-next README eventually put it) copyleft,
> but who really wants weak copyleft nowadays?

When you are referring to "weak copyleft", are you referring the
various "file-based" weak copylefts, such as the MPL, EPL, and CDDL?
Or are you also including the LGPL?  I agree that the file-based weak
copyleft licenses aren't particularly interesting at least to me.  But
library use case is one that I think is still can be relevant today
and moving forward.

						- Ted