4 ms·

Thing is though that the BSD and GPL license have absolutely nothing to do with slavery. So I have no idea why you and the other poster keep bringing up slavery

Thing is though that the BSD and GPL license have absolutely nothing to do with slavery. So I have no idea why you and the other poster keep bringing up slavery in the context of open source licensing.

belorn 8y ago
The reason is that some people use the word freedom and liberty as synonymous, while others put clear distinctions between them and argue that GPL do not fit their definition. Thus people who disagree have to take clear examples to explain why liberty laws restricts freedom in order to create liberty. If you prefer to use philosophy terms, conditions are negative rights. Those are similar to things like "I have the right to not get assulted, I have to right to not get enslaved, I have the right to not get robbed, I have the right to not get murdered, I have the right to not get recorded in the shower, and so on. Negative rights is freedoms to not have things happen to you by restricting what other people may do. Positive rights is things like I have the right to health care, I have the right to be on public ground, I have the right to social security, or I have the right to ask the government in the Freedom of information act and so on. Positive rights usually but not always demand something from others. Most constitutional laws tend to be negative rights. Combining negative and positive rights is how liberty is created. Its a balance between freedom to do things and restrictions to not do things to others, with the goal of maximizing free will and personal agency for society. GPL give freedom to do anything but with conditions that limit what you can do to other people. Just like with liberty the GPl tries to maximizing free will and personal agency and uses negative and positive rights to reach a balance. One could ask why the free software movement picked freedom when they intended to say liberty, and the reason is historical and localized. RMS did not want to associate the movement with the libertarian political platform. Maybe they thought that most people don't really distinguish between freedom and liberty, but now days liberty is generally favored over freedom.
- 2trill2spill 8y ago
  What are you talking about? A previous poster said... "The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom that one protects. I believe there was a little thing called the civil war where that point was made." This was said in the context of the BSD and GPL licenses and GPL advocates not liking closed source software being made from BSD software even though its perfectly within the license to do so. This has nothing, and I repeat absolutely nothing to do with enslavement.
  - belorn 8y ago
    "GPL supporters are all about liberty -- until someone advocates to make a restrictive product on top of the open source base." "The liberty to restrict others is not a liberty. Laws [insert common law here] restrict behavior and it not against liberty to have such law." Is that simple enough for you?

belorn 8y ago

The reason is that some people use the word freedom and liberty as synonymous, while others put clear distinctions between them and argue that GPL do not fit their definition. Thus people who disagree have to take clear examples to explain why liberty laws restricts freedom in order to create liberty. If you prefer to use philosophy terms, conditions are negative rights. Those are similar to things like "I have the right to not get assulted, I have to right to not get enslaved, I have the right to not get robbed, I have the right to not get murdered, I have the right to not get recorded in the shower, and so on. Negative rights is freedoms to not have things happen to you by restricting what other people may do. Positive rights is things like I have the right to health care, I have the right to be on public ground, I have the right to social security, or I have the right to ask the government in the Freedom of information act and so on. Positive rights usually but not always demand something from others. Most constitutional laws tend to be negative rights. Combining negative and positive rights is how liberty is created. Its a balance between freedom to do things and restrictions to not do things to others, with the goal of maximizing free will and personal agency for society. GPL give freedom to do anything but with conditions that limit what you can do to other people. Just like with liberty the GPl tries to maximizing free will and personal agency and uses negative and positive rights to reach a balance. One could ask why the free software movement picked freedom when they intended to say liberty, and the reason is historical and localized. RMS did not want to associate the movement with the libertarian political platform. Maybe they thought that most people don't really distinguish between freedom and liberty, but now days liberty is generally favored over freedom.

2trill2spill 8y ago
What are you talking about? A previous poster said... "The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom that one protects. I believe there was a little thing called the civil war where that point was made." This was said in the context of the BSD and GPL licenses and GPL advocates not liking closed source software being made from BSD software even though its perfectly within the license to do so. This has nothing, and I repeat absolutely nothing to do with enslavement.
- belorn 8y ago
  "GPL supporters are all about liberty -- until someone advocates to make a restrictive product on top of the open source base." "The liberty to restrict others is not a liberty. Laws [insert common law here] restrict behavior and it not against liberty to have such law." Is that simple enough for you?