I can't speak for RMS. He can speak plenty well for himself! I do try to understand him. On use restrictions and the limits of copyleft, I haven't always bee

I can't speak for RMS. He can speak plenty well for himself! I do try to understand him. On use restrictions and the limits of copyleft, I haven't always been able to find answers: https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/14/free-to-take-freedom.html https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/14/free-to-take-freedom... I can speak about APGL. They limit commercial freedom, specifically the right to commercialize software incorporating AGPL code, and either distribute it or provide it as a network service without source or a similar license. In other words: the freedom to make and market software in the usual commercial way. A limitation on Freedom 3 (to share changes)? The FSF says so. A limitation on Freedom 0 (to run the software)? They don't say, but I think so. I also think you're right that software freedom doesn't depend on copyright. Copyright is merely a means to it, via copyleft. But if the law required freeing of software, that would restrict commercial freedom publicly in the same way AGPL does by private ordering. Unfortunately, that law would also have to require disclosure or publication of source code, and conformance on all the other fronts where AGPL fights: patent law and DRM, for example. That's a far more expansive legislative program than abolishing copyright. Abolish copyright, and I can keep my code secret. And lock others' code down with patents. And so on. Many laws affect software freedom! > I see no reason why your L0 ideas should not be discussed within the context of open source. I agree. In terms of open development as a production system, my point is largely here: https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/16/two-party.html#swing-voters https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/16/two-party.html#swing... If making software in the open made sense to more people, we'd get more of it. Many of those projects might start as source-available, and end up copyleft or permissive open source. But instead of paving that path, we shame it as proprietary, and lump it in with Windows. Open source orthodoxy is right about transaction costs and efficiency on the consumer side, but totally abdicates the supply side of software production. I've read on their mailing list that if you have to ask how you're going to make money making open source, you're the wrong person to be making open source, and that OSI doesn't owe any cycles on any business model. > And the question is different for an academic talking about larger society, vs. an individual business or developer who is choosing his/her/its own license. Obviously your duty as an attorney is to grapple with the latter question. I can't tell you how much it means to read that. Thank you for acknowledging. It gets lost.