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> You can choose the most permissive software license, and people will still argue with you about your choice. The irony of people getting annoyed because of "

> You can choose the most permissive software license, and people will still argue with you about your choice. The irony of people getting annoyed because of "missing restrictions".

deleted 11y ago
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anc84 11y ago
It's about missing guarantee of future freedom rather but I am sure you know that.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  Go ahead and create an AGPL fork then ;-)
  - drdeca 11y ago
    Does that work? I guess, I hadn't much considered whether that was a thing one could do.
    - protomyth 11y ago
      Only on the new code you write, as I have not seen any license that allows removal of copyright or relicensing.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      I guess you can take code under a permissive license, fork it and release it under a less permissive license yes. IANAL though. That is my whole point: MIT and BSD code is free-er than GPL and AGPL because you can go from MIT and BSD to AGPL but not the other way around.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        But that’s exactly why it’s less free. With BSD code, the majority of devs can always sell out, and make sure all future modifications are purely proprietary. We’ve seen that happen on Android. Nowadays neither the launcher, nor the keyboard, nor the dialer, nor the contacts, nor the calendar, nor the device search is open source anymore.
        reitanqild 11y ago
        Could equally well happen if the code was released under GPL as long as all copyright holders agree?
        cyphar 11y ago
        In theory yes, in practice you couldn't even hope to get all of the copyright holders' permission. You'd have to surgically remove the code of everyone who didn't consent to the relicensing (good luck) and everybody would hate you for it.
        reitanqild 11y ago
        Well, then you have code written for a company on company and code written under a contributor agreement. A lot of code that ended up under free licenses has been proprietary first and while they cannot revoke the free licenses from already released code they can make their next release non-free as long as they haven't accepted outside contributions without a suitable contributor agreement.
        cyphar 11y ago
        > Well, then you have code written for a company on company and code written under a contributor agreement. Not all contributor agreements are equal, and I would recommend choosing which projects you will not contribute to based on their CLAs. If they ask you to give them copyright without good reason, they are preparing to fuck you over. Ironically, this is why I will not contribute to GNU because they require copyright assignment so they have a higher chance of winning conservancy cases (IANAL, but I have one in my family and this is bullshit in my country but may be true in the US, so I feel conflicted about it). > A lot of code that ended up under free licenses has been proprietary first and while they cannot revoke the free licenses from already released code they can make their next release non-free as long as they haven't accepted outside contributions without a suitable contributor agreement. The only example I can think of is OpenSolaris (which required contributors to sign a CLA that assigned copyright to Sun/Oracle). Most modern projects don't work like that, and if you have a copyleft license, a company could not legally create a proprietary fork and distribute it. Besides, if that happens you end up with free software forks (illumos in the OpenSolaris case) and everyone moves to using that.
  - webkike 11y ago
    Or just use the other licenses that have those restrictions? What's the joke?
    - mwfunk 11y ago
      The joke is that permissive licenses allow you to make less permissive forks, whether that's proprietary or copyleft or anything else. So it's hard to see what the problem is. Anytime someone complains about the license for this or that project being too permissive, it's ironic because: (a) it's someone trying to force their values on someone else in the name of "freedom" (in scare quotes because it's a very specific definition of the term that requires political buy-in to even see it as a form of freedom) and (b) as stated, the people complaining are free (no scare quotes) to take the permissively licensed code and incorporate it into their "free" code to their heart's content. The ability to do this is one of the reasons people choose permissive licenses in the first place. I don't care if people choose freedom or "freedom" or anything in between- that's their right as authors, and no one license is appropriate for all communities or goals or projects. I only object to anyone who claims that there is a One True Path that everyone should follow and that anyone who doesn't follow that path is somehow morally inferior, which is usually the template that these discussions follow.
      - cyphar 11y ago
        > So it's hard to see what the problem is. The problem is that allowing proprietary forks is shooting yourself in the foot if you believe in free software being a net benefit to society. Allowing proprietary forks of your software to exist means that you are fighting against yourself to produce free software. Not to mention that it means that users of your software might not have the freedom you intended them to have if someone else packaged your software. > "freedom" (in scare quotes because it's a very specific definition of the term that requires political buy-in to even see it as a form of freedom) Which of the four freedoms do you think are restricting users? If you're referring to copyleft (this is not the same thing as freedom), then please understand that copyleft software ensures that all users that receive the software will have the benefits of free software. That's the whole point. > ... The ability to do this is one of the reasons people choose permissive licenses in the first place. It also allows for proprietary forks, which is why some people have a problem with it. > I don't care if people choose freedom or "freedom" or anything in between- Seems like you do. I don't get why you quote the word "freedom" when referring to copyleft but don't quote it when referring to the "freedom" to make proprietary forks of free software. It should be the other way around IMO.
- legulere 11y ago
  Copyright owners can always decide to release future versions under whatever license they please.
  - mintplant 11y ago
    Not if sufficiently many contributions from the community are incorporated into the code.
  - quadrangle 11y ago
    A project that's copyleft and accepts contributions under copyleft without a CLI means that nobody has the power to unilaterally bypass the copyleft term for the whole project.
  - EvanPlaice 11y ago
    The thing is, contributors hold an implicit copyright to any work they produce. So, it's not possible to change the license without either extracting code contributions or gaining approval from all contributors. That's why many GPL/LGPL projects couldn't change licenses, even if they wanted to. Sufficiently unrestrictive licenses (ex MIT) allow anybody to use the code for whatever their purpose, commercial or otherwise. Even then, prior art limits others from seizing ownership and limiting access to the original creators/contributors. Disclaimer: IANAL but this is only my understanding from working in OSS.
- skybrian 11y ago
  It's kind of funny how people want guarantees about the licenses of future releases that don't actually exist. There's no guarantee that a random open source project will have any new releases at all. In that case, what good is a promise about its license? Or if they do happen, the code might change in a way that's backward-incompatible so you can no longer use it. The only guarantee you can count on is that if the code you actually have doesn't suit your needs, you can change it yourself.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    It also guarantees freedom no matter who packages the software. This is what I care about when making large projects.
JohnTHaller 11y ago
As anc84 said, it's about guaranteeing future freedom. Like making sure that the code I spent hours on to contribute to your project for free isn't going to be taken by another company and incorporated into their closed-source product to compete against the project I'm working on or just contributed to without the company contributing anything back. That's one of many reasons someone may take issue with you choosing a more permissive license and not wanting to contribute as a result. Like lots of open source folks I know, I'm personally a fan of the underpinnings of apps/servers as well as libraries being permissive (BSD/MIT) so that everyone can contribute/benefit but full applications being GPL. To each their own, of course, and there are many rationales for differing views. But please don't belittle others' takes on what they choose to do with the effort they put in.
cyphar 11y ago
I wish people would take the time to realise that the Linux kernel would not be anywhere near as reliable or widely used if Torvalds had used a more permissive license. The GPL means that all users of the software have freedom, no matter who packages the software. As a result, you end up having a single point of reference for Linux rather than 1000 proprietary forks that are all equally shit.
- schoen 11y ago
  ... although there are still proprietary forks, especially in embedded systems, because of limited resources (and apparently sometimes appetite) for GPL enforcement. (Conservancy, one of a tiny number of organizations that does this work, has been having a lot of financial troubles lately: https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/)
  - cyphar 11y ago
    > ... although there are still proprietary forks, especially in embedded systems, because of limited resources (and apparently sometimes appetite) for GPL enforcement. As you said the software freedom conservancy is having financial troubles (why the Linux foundation doesn't just cut them a cheque is beyond me). However, a lot of embedded systems use BSD and other such systems. And ultimately, that's not the point I was making. The point is that the GPL not allowing proprietary forks is a benefit (both from a freedom aspect, but also from a technical aspect) and has given us all much better technologies as a result. The "freedom" to make proprietary software (which is a misuse of the term) is a tiny "benefit" (I don't think it is a benefit) when compared to the end results of GPL software like Linux.
    - schoen 11y ago
      I agree with you about this, just noting that the benefits aren't as automatic or as universal as we might expect due to compliance problems. But it seems that more often than not it works as designed. (I guess another question is to what extent there are people actively scouting for useful stuff to merge upstream; are there kernel trees with useful fixes or enhancements that are published never merged into the mainline kernel because nobody notices?)

> You can choose the most permissive software license, and people will still argue with you about your choice. The irony of people getting annoyed because of "missing restrictions".

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

anc84 11y ago

It's about missing guarantee of future freedom rather but I am sure you know that.

reitanqild 11y ago
Go ahead and create an AGPL fork then ;-)
- drdeca 11y ago
  Does that work? I guess, I hadn't much considered whether that was a thing one could do.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    Only on the new code you write, as I have not seen any license that allows removal of copyright or relicensing.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    I guess you can take code under a permissive license, fork it and release it under a less permissive license yes. IANAL though. That is my whole point: MIT and BSD code is free-er than GPL and AGPL because you can go from MIT and BSD to AGPL but not the other way around.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      But that’s exactly why it’s less free. With BSD code, the majority of devs can always sell out, and make sure all future modifications are purely proprietary. We’ve seen that happen on Android. Nowadays neither the launcher, nor the keyboard, nor the dialer, nor the contacts, nor the calendar, nor the device search is open source anymore.
      - reitanqild 11y ago
        Could equally well happen if the code was released under GPL as long as all copyright holders agree?
        cyphar 11y ago
        In theory yes, in practice you couldn't even hope to get all of the copyright holders' permission. You'd have to surgically remove the code of everyone who didn't consent to the relicensing (good luck) and everybody would hate you for it.
        reitanqild 11y ago
        Well, then you have code written for a company on company and code written under a contributor agreement. A lot of code that ended up under free licenses has been proprietary first and while they cannot revoke the free licenses from already released code they can make their next release non-free as long as they haven't accepted outside contributions without a suitable contributor agreement.
        cyphar 11y ago
        > Well, then you have code written for a company on company and code written under a contributor agreement. Not all contributor agreements are equal, and I would recommend choosing which projects you will not contribute to based on their CLAs. If they ask you to give them copyright without good reason, they are preparing to fuck you over. Ironically, this is why I will not contribute to GNU because they require copyright assignment so they have a higher chance of winning conservancy cases (IANAL, but I have one in my family and this is bullshit in my country but may be true in the US, so I feel conflicted about it). > A lot of code that ended up under free licenses has been proprietary first and while they cannot revoke the free licenses from already released code they can make their next release non-free as long as they haven't accepted outside contributions without a suitable contributor agreement. The only example I can think of is OpenSolaris (which required contributors to sign a CLA that assigned copyright to Sun/Oracle). Most modern projects don't work like that, and if you have a copyleft license, a company could not legally create a proprietary fork and distribute it. Besides, if that happens you end up with free software forks (illumos in the OpenSolaris case) and everyone moves to using that.
- webkike 11y ago
  Or just use the other licenses that have those restrictions? What's the joke?
  - mwfunk 11y ago
    The joke is that permissive licenses allow you to make less permissive forks, whether that's proprietary or copyleft or anything else. So it's hard to see what the problem is. Anytime someone complains about the license for this or that project being too permissive, it's ironic because: (a) it's someone trying to force their values on someone else in the name of "freedom" (in scare quotes because it's a very specific definition of the term that requires political buy-in to even see it as a form of freedom) and (b) as stated, the people complaining are free (no scare quotes) to take the permissively licensed code and incorporate it into their "free" code to their heart's content. The ability to do this is one of the reasons people choose permissive licenses in the first place. I don't care if people choose freedom or "freedom" or anything in between- that's their right as authors, and no one license is appropriate for all communities or goals or projects. I only object to anyone who claims that there is a One True Path that everyone should follow and that anyone who doesn't follow that path is somehow morally inferior, which is usually the template that these discussions follow.
    - cyphar 11y ago
      > So it's hard to see what the problem is. The problem is that allowing proprietary forks is shooting yourself in the foot if you believe in free software being a net benefit to society. Allowing proprietary forks of your software to exist means that you are fighting against yourself to produce free software. Not to mention that it means that users of your software might not have the freedom you intended them to have if someone else packaged your software. > "freedom" (in scare quotes because it's a very specific definition of the term that requires political buy-in to even see it as a form of freedom) Which of the four freedoms do you think are restricting users? If you're referring to copyleft (this is not the same thing as freedom), then please understand that copyleft software ensures that all users that receive the software will have the benefits of free software. That's the whole point. > ... The ability to do this is one of the reasons people choose permissive licenses in the first place. It also allows for proprietary forks, which is why some people have a problem with it. > I don't care if people choose freedom or "freedom" or anything in between- Seems like you do. I don't get why you quote the word "freedom" when referring to copyleft but don't quote it when referring to the "freedom" to make proprietary forks of free software. It should be the other way around IMO.
legulere 11y ago
Copyright owners can always decide to release future versions under whatever license they please.
- mintplant 11y ago
  Not if sufficiently many contributions from the community are incorporated into the code.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  A project that's copyleft and accepts contributions under copyleft without a CLI means that nobody has the power to unilaterally bypass the copyleft term for the whole project.
- EvanPlaice 11y ago
  The thing is, contributors hold an implicit copyright to any work they produce. So, it's not possible to change the license without either extracting code contributions or gaining approval from all contributors. That's why many GPL/LGPL projects couldn't change licenses, even if they wanted to. Sufficiently unrestrictive licenses (ex MIT) allow anybody to use the code for whatever their purpose, commercial or otherwise. Even then, prior art limits others from seizing ownership and limiting access to the original creators/contributors. Disclaimer: IANAL but this is only my understanding from working in OSS.
skybrian 11y ago
It's kind of funny how people want guarantees about the licenses of future releases that don't actually exist. There's no guarantee that a random open source project will have any new releases at all. In that case, what good is a promise about its license? Or if they do happen, the code might change in a way that's backward-incompatible so you can no longer use it. The only guarantee you can count on is that if the code you actually have doesn't suit your needs, you can change it yourself.
- cyphar 11y ago
  It also guarantees freedom no matter who packages the software. This is what I care about when making large projects.

JohnTHaller 11y ago

As anc84 said, it's about guaranteeing future freedom. Like making sure that the code I spent hours on to contribute to your project for free isn't going to be taken by another company and incorporated into their closed-source product to compete against the project I'm working on or just contributed to without the company contributing anything back. That's one of many reasons someone may take issue with you choosing a more permissive license and not wanting to contribute as a result. Like lots of open source folks I know, I'm personally a fan of the underpinnings of apps/servers as well as libraries being permissive (BSD/MIT) so that everyone can contribute/benefit but full applications being GPL. To each their own, of course, and there are many rationales for differing views. But please don't belittle others' takes on what they choose to do with the effort they put in.

cyphar 11y ago

I wish people would take the time to realise that the Linux kernel would not be anywhere near as reliable or widely used if Torvalds had used a more permissive license. The GPL means that all users of the software have freedom, no matter who packages the software. As a result, you end up having a single point of reference for Linux rather than 1000 proprietary forks that are all equally shit.

schoen 11y ago
... although there are still proprietary forks, especially in embedded systems, because of limited resources (and apparently sometimes appetite) for GPL enforcement. (Conservancy, one of a tiny number of organizations that does this work, has been having a lot of financial troubles lately: https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/)
- cyphar 11y ago
  > ... although there are still proprietary forks, especially in embedded systems, because of limited resources (and apparently sometimes appetite) for GPL enforcement. As you said the software freedom conservancy is having financial troubles (why the Linux foundation doesn't just cut them a cheque is beyond me). However, a lot of embedded systems use BSD and other such systems. And ultimately, that's not the point I was making. The point is that the GPL not allowing proprietary forks is a benefit (both from a freedom aspect, but also from a technical aspect) and has given us all much better technologies as a result. The "freedom" to make proprietary software (which is a misuse of the term) is a tiny "benefit" (I don't think it is a benefit) when compared to the end results of GPL software like Linux.
  - schoen 11y ago
    I agree with you about this, just noting that the benefits aren't as automatic or as universal as we might expect due to compliance problems. But it seems that more often than not it works as designed. (I guess another question is to what extent there are people actively scouting for useful stuff to merge upstream; are there kernel trees with useful fixes or enhancements that are published never merged into the mainline kernel because nobody notices?)