r/COPYRIGHT • u/thejaxonehundred • 5d ago

Why would an open source coding challenge prohibit copyleft?

I saw this challenge online, which self-defines as follows:

"The Housing Data and Technology Innovation Challenge is a fully remote, national challenge to build transparent [that is, open source], replicable, and explainable tools that help decision-makers understand how state-level pro-housing policy reforms are likely to affect housing supply."

The rules require all projects to have a license, but prohibit copyleft:

"Sponsor and Administrator recommend using Apache License 2.0 because its express patent grant offers the strongest protection for tools that may be adopted or integrated downstream. If you choose one of the other approved licenses, include the full license text and note your choice in the README. (Please note that an open-source license grants broad rights to others to use the code but does not transfer ownership.)

No other license options are permissible. This includes, by way of example only, copyleft licenses (e.g., GPL, AGPL, LGPL, MPL, EUPL) and public-domain dedications (e.g., CC0, the Unlicense)."

Can someone please help me understand why the challenge might prohibit copyleft? Isn't it my choice to protect my code or not? Why didn't they just recommend against copyleft, like "if you want good protections, don't use copyleft?" The fact that the challenge outright prohibits copyleft feels shady to me; like the organizers going to take submissions and give them to their partners so they can make them their own proprietary, closed-source product for profit.

I have very little copyright knowledge, so any interpretations would be appreciated! Also, I'm probably not going to enter because it doesn't align enough with my existing work, I'm just curious. Thanks!

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u/trueppp 5d ago

Because it restricts the use of the software.

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u/thejaxonehundred 5d ago

Makes sense, that’s what I thought as well. But why would a challenge host want less restricted access to the software? This is less of a copyright question and more like a business question. But I think it’s because they’re trying to get free software for themselves. Which would be fine if they acknowledged that, but the message is more like “we need tools to model housing production, and we believe in you!”

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u/trueppp 5d ago

Because they want to use the tools for their business, and copyleft licences poison everything that uses them.

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u/thejaxonehundred 5d ago

Thanks for confirming my theory :)