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MIT-like freedom is the "freedom to sell yourself as a slave". GPL is "your liberty ends where my nose begins". If you understand freedom as the removal of soc
by TuringTest 7y ago
MIT-like freedom is the "freedom to sell yourself as a slave". GPL is "your liberty ends where my nose begins".
If you understand freedom as the removal of social constraints, you won't understand the value of something like GPL software or Wikipedia.
If, on the other side, you think of freedom as the capability to do things, the accumulation of knowledge in copyleft projects creates possibilities that are less likely in a permissive project, where anyone can capture a version under a proprietary license at any time and evolve it as closed source (compare the ecosystems of Linux and Android for a practical example).
- munificent 7y ago> MIT-like freedom is the "freedom to sell yourself as a slave". I don't think this analogy is strictly wrong, but the tone is insensitive enough that it is unlikely to be persuasive to the people you are trying to persuade. (Also, some will feel that it diminishes the gravity of actual slavery.) I agree with your point, but I think you would be better off stating it in a different way.
- TuringTest 7y agoYou're of course right. I created that line for a different place, aiming for a provocative adage that would capture attention (by being aggresive) and make people think by getting straight to the point and highlighting the paradox of "pure freedom". For that purpose, being controversial and rough was a feature, even at the cost of causing initial rejection. I copied it here to deliver the basic idea as fast as I could, but it certainly is out of context as the starter of a calm conversation with more time to expose ideas and ponder them, as is the style of this forum.
- c0vfefe 7y agoThe classic dilemma of whether presenting the extreme version of your view will shock people towards, or away from your view.