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Cake day: July 11th, 2023

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  • Further to this, I heard Cory Doctorow talk about open source licensing being a Ulysses Pact. Basically Ulysses wanted to hear the sirens song. Normally, hearing it would drive you mad and you would wreck upon the rocks. Ulysses ordered his men to bind their ears with wax so they would not be affected by the sirens song. He also ordered them to tie him to the mast.

    In the moment, he knew he would not be strong enough to resist the sirens song and because he was bound to the mast, he could not jump overboard. In the same way, people that use open source licenses on their projects are binding themselves to the open source license so that if a large temptation was to present itself (such as investors wanting to give them life changing money in exchange for mistreating their customers) they are already bound by that license and cannot break that bond.