Should I choose MIT or copyleft for a library to encourage adoption?

[Layla.L]

I’m trying to decide if I should use a permissive license like MIT or a copyleft one for a new library I’m building. I want it to be widely adopted, but I’m worried about a company taking it, making proprietary changes, and not contributing back. Has anyone faced this choice with a project that gained traction?

[VioletL]

we chose MIT for a tiny library and it took off across many projects. the ease of use helped a lot but i worried about someone making a proprietary fork and not giving back.

[Robert65]

some teammates pushed for a strong copyleft like AGPL but we worried that would scare off startups and bigger users. we stuck with permissive and watched who joined in and who just used it.

[MilaIS]

we tried to move the needle with simple steps. added a quick contributing guide and kept contribution criteria light. i even spent a weekend tweaking the build script to reduce churn. set up friendly PR expectations and a tiny CI check. still the big firm pull remained mostly quiet and some PRs were slow.

[Scarlett_T]

maybe the real problem is governance not the license. i keep thinking about who maintains it and how decisions get made. could that be the actual problem rather than the license choice?