4 ms·

Defaults can be important, but the game to win isn't software licensing. That's just a play in bigger games like end-user rights and developer autonomy and domi

Defaults can be important, but the game to win isn't software licensing. That's just a play in bigger games like end-user rights and developer autonomy and dominating a market niche. Means, not the end. Unless it's really all about righteous cred strictly within the software industry itself, for self-edification or advancement. Meanwhile, nearsightedness on licensing politics allowed the frame to move out from under licensing long ago. SaaS. Data control. App Stores. Developer SDKs. As for Parity, GPLv3 has already been enforced under both contract and copyright, and already goes further than derivative works. But a license matters because of its rules, not how they work. Legal implementation details are just that. As for toolchain and developer software, Parity intentionally sets out to do for those what the GPLs tried to do for libraries, frameworks, and applications. If there's a good reason only some kinds of software---and some kinds of software developers---and only those get a gold star for their copyleft, I haven't read it yet. What I have read boils down to fear or deprecation of copyleft itself: keep it penned in where it is. We only needed it to get where we are now.

JoshTriplett 7y ago
> the game to win isn't software licensing. That's just a play in bigger games like end-user rights and developer autonomy and dominating a market niche. Means, not the end. End-user rights and developer autonomy are intertwined with software licensing. If we start using licenses compromising those rights and that autonomy, we lose what we're trying to win. Let's not burn down the progress we have. It's not acceptable to give up freedom zero, the freedom to use the software for any purpose. > But a license matters because of its rules, not how they work. Legal implementation details are just that. The limits of copyright's reach are a useful Schelling point as well. To a first approximation, they're a good limit on license reach. > What I have read boils down to fear or deprecation of copyleft itself On the contrary, I very much like the idea of strong copyleft. But there's a limit. Would you favor a license that claims everything on the same disk must be open and compatible with it? Or a license that says if you ever distribute proprietary software you can't use it? Or a license that does the same but defines "proprietary software" as "everything incompatible with the XYZ license"? How about a license that prohibits developing permissively licensed software, or software you don't share? (See Parity's clause saying "You don’t develop, operate, or analyze other software with it for anyone outside the team developing it.") The "Parity" license goes much too far, throwing away freedom zero, and worse, it claims to be open source. Also, I find it interesting that Parity, while claiming to favor strong copyleft, specifically references an organization and license that's pro-permissive-licensing and anti-copyleft. > As for toolchain and developer software, Parity intentionally sets out to do for those what the GPLs tried to do for libraries, frameworks, and applications. Again, freedom zero: the freedom to use the software for any purpose. The GPL keeps libraries, frameworks, applications, toolchains, and developer software FOSS; it doesn't prevent using (as opposed to building upon) that software to develop software under incompatible licenses. If it had, people couldn't use Emacs to write software under the Parity license. ;)
- kemitchell 7y ago
  Whether in activism or negotiation, oversimplifying complex problems, then taking absolute positions and refusing to compromise, doesn't work. The only upshot of black-and-white positioning is a reputation for being uncompromising. RMS is and will always occupy that space. And as an activist he'll go down as largely unsuccessful on his own terms, beyond the threshold of popularizing his own ideas among his own kind within his own industry. The four (actually five) freedoms aren't a very good way to break down what people want to do with software. But RMS and other activists lauded for being uncompromising compromised several kinds of freedom for copyleft, no matter how you slice it. Parity isn't rescinding "run for whatever purpose" wholesale any more than GPLv2 rescinded "patch for whatever purpose". Parity applies share-alike to execution as GPL applied it to patching and extending and AGPL and OSL applied it to ... also execution. How come some freedoms have to be absolute, and others can be qualified with rules that require respecting others' freedom? Because that's how the open source marketers squared feel-good libertarian rhetoric with what RMS and those drafting off him actually wrote in their terms. Nobody outside the small community of wonks and FSF adherents even thinks in terms of the "four freedoms". As for leaning on copyright law: That law approximates what early FOSS activists opposed, not what they wanted. And we still don't know how far "derivative work" reaches in software under US law. Most FOSS activists aren't happy where the courts seem to be taking it, e.g. under Oracle v. Google. You don't have to ask me which kinds of copyleft rules I'd support. You can read Parity and API Copyleft for yourself. And I've never referred to those licenses as "open source" myself, though others have. I'm more and more tempted to start. Saying GPL is FOSS and Parity isn't because FOSS, and defining FOSS to draw the kind at GPL-style copyleft, is circular. That's typical of nearly all the homespun vocabulary, views, and theory of open software licensing. We're trying to apply after-the-fact justifications, theorizations, and rhetoric for what was in essence a marketing coup to new license terms, and they're predictably faltering. I don't know which pro-permissive, anti-copyleft organization you were referring to, but if it was Blue Oak, you might like to know that I facilitated the drafting processes for both Parity and the Blue Oak model.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    Taking nuanced positions does not require accepting yours. Compromises do not require moving towards your positions. People who disagree with you are not automatically absolutists just because they have different principles.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

> the game to win isn't software licensing. That's just a play in bigger games like end-user rights and developer autonomy and dominating a market niche. Means, not the end. End-user rights and developer autonomy are intertwined with software licensing. If we start using licenses compromising those rights and that autonomy, we lose what we're trying to win. Let's not burn down the progress we have. It's not acceptable to give up freedom zero, the freedom to use the software for any purpose. > But a license matters because of its rules, not how they work. Legal implementation details are just that. The limits of copyright's reach are a useful Schelling point as well. To a first approximation, they're a good limit on license reach. > What I have read boils down to fear or deprecation of copyleft itself On the contrary, I very much like the idea of strong copyleft. But there's a limit. Would you favor a license that claims everything on the same disk must be open and compatible with it? Or a license that says if you ever distribute proprietary software you can't use it? Or a license that does the same but defines "proprietary software" as "everything incompatible with the XYZ license"? How about a license that prohibits developing permissively licensed software, or software you don't share? (See Parity's clause saying "You don’t develop, operate, or analyze other software with it for anyone outside the team developing it.") The "Parity" license goes much too far, throwing away freedom zero, and worse, it claims to be open source. Also, I find it interesting that Parity, while claiming to favor strong copyleft, specifically references an organization and license that's pro-permissive-licensing and anti-copyleft. > As for toolchain and developer software, Parity intentionally sets out to do for those what the GPLs tried to do for libraries, frameworks, and applications. Again, freedom zero: the freedom to use the software for any purpose. The GPL keeps libraries, frameworks, applications, toolchains, and developer software FOSS; it doesn't prevent using (as opposed to building upon) that software to develop software under incompatible licenses. If it had, people couldn't use Emacs to write software under the Parity license. ;)

kemitchell 7y ago
Whether in activism or negotiation, oversimplifying complex problems, then taking absolute positions and refusing to compromise, doesn't work. The only upshot of black-and-white positioning is a reputation for being uncompromising. RMS is and will always occupy that space. And as an activist he'll go down as largely unsuccessful on his own terms, beyond the threshold of popularizing his own ideas among his own kind within his own industry. The four (actually five) freedoms aren't a very good way to break down what people want to do with software. But RMS and other activists lauded for being uncompromising compromised several kinds of freedom for copyleft, no matter how you slice it. Parity isn't rescinding "run for whatever purpose" wholesale any more than GPLv2 rescinded "patch for whatever purpose". Parity applies share-alike to execution as GPL applied it to patching and extending and AGPL and OSL applied it to ... also execution. How come some freedoms have to be absolute, and others can be qualified with rules that require respecting others' freedom? Because that's how the open source marketers squared feel-good libertarian rhetoric with what RMS and those drafting off him actually wrote in their terms. Nobody outside the small community of wonks and FSF adherents even thinks in terms of the "four freedoms". As for leaning on copyright law: That law approximates what early FOSS activists opposed, not what they wanted. And we still don't know how far "derivative work" reaches in software under US law. Most FOSS activists aren't happy where the courts seem to be taking it, e.g. under Oracle v. Google. You don't have to ask me which kinds of copyleft rules I'd support. You can read Parity and API Copyleft for yourself. And I've never referred to those licenses as "open source" myself, though others have. I'm more and more tempted to start. Saying GPL is FOSS and Parity isn't because FOSS, and defining FOSS to draw the kind at GPL-style copyleft, is circular. That's typical of nearly all the homespun vocabulary, views, and theory of open software licensing. We're trying to apply after-the-fact justifications, theorizations, and rhetoric for what was in essence a marketing coup to new license terms, and they're predictably faltering. I don't know which pro-permissive, anti-copyleft organization you were referring to, but if it was Blue Oak, you might like to know that I facilitated the drafting processes for both Parity and the Blue Oak model.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  Taking nuanced positions does not require accepting yours. Compromises do not require moving towards your positions. People who disagree with you are not automatically absolutists just because they have different principles.