3 ms·

The Cooperative Non-Violent Public License, specifically limiting use to worker-owned cooperatives is wonderful. We should all switch.

HideousKojima 6y ago
So that only the tiny fraction of the world that are part of co-ops can use them, and thus only that tiny fraction of the population will have an interest in contributing to/maintaining such software? RMS wrote an article years ago explaining why such licenses are ultimately detrimental to software freedom: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... Some key arguments from the article: >I've stated some of my views about other political issues, about activities that are or aren't unjust. Your views might differ, and that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music. >The result would be a system that you could not count on for any purpose. For each task you wish to do, you'd have to check lots of licenses to see which parts of your system are off limits for that task. >How would users respond to that? I think most of them would use proprietary systems. Allowing any usage restrictions whatsoever in free software would mainly push users towards nonfree software. Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a long, soft, straight piece of spaghetti.

HideousKojima 6y ago

So that only the tiny fraction of the world that are part of co-ops can use them, and thus only that tiny fraction of the population will have an interest in contributing to/maintaining such software? RMS wrote an article years ago explaining why such licenses are ultimately detrimental to software freedom: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... Some key arguments from the article: >I've stated some of my views about other political issues, about activities that are or aren't unjust. Your views might differ, and that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music. >The result would be a system that you could not count on for any purpose. For each task you wish to do, you'd have to check lots of licenses to see which parts of your system are off limits for that task. >How would users respond to that? I think most of them would use proprietary systems. Allowing any usage restrictions whatsoever in free software would mainly push users towards nonfree software. Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a long, soft, straight piece of spaghetti.