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I would rather that norms not be injected where they do not need to be. The problem is that norms are often unclear, applied unequally, deter otherwise worthwhi

I would rather that norms not be injected where they do not need to be. The problem is that norms are often unclear, applied unequally, deter otherwise worthwhile things from being done, often exist for little reason other than "everyone else does it", and often could be eliminated with by explicitly writing more accurate rules. How many companies would be deterred from adopting open source if they saw it as a reputational risk in case the original developers decided that their particular use case was "not what was wanted"? I used to work for the government, where they require long support times. Someone randomly deciding to change a licence as they didn't really mean what the licence said in the first place would be a huge problem.

dalbasal 5y ago
IMO, this is impossible. Even really formal rules systems like law need a lot of interpretation (eg courts/judges) to bridge the gap between abstract and particular, and to adapt to culture. Even so, explicit laws and contracts can never really cover everything, for example, in employer/employee relationships, business/consumer relationships, etc. A more subjective cultural layer does most of the work. It's not as enforceable as the explicit, contractual layer. This example is, IMO, pretty normal and OK. There is the explicit license, which governs the legal side. There's the unenforceable request, which can still be made. There's recourse, relicensing. There is a subjective layer, which is what this article is doing. Should X have honoured the request? Was it ok for Y to make the request? Was reliscencing against the spirit of open source? We need the whole package. Society can't be written down, because we don't really have the full spec. Explicit, legible rules are important, but they're a cornerstone and a fall back.
soneil 5y ago
I’m not sure “norms” are avoidable. How many posts do we see to various github issues where people haven’t been “delighted” with the maintainer’s response? We are highly defensive of the rights that floss/copyleft licences grant us, but highly dismissive of the “no implied warranty” verbiage that goes with them. That appears to be this maintainer’s issue. And it does come at a cost. There’s a very strong chance his next project won’t be floss/copyleft.

dalbasal 5y ago

IMO, this is impossible. Even really formal rules systems like law need a lot of interpretation (eg courts/judges) to bridge the gap between abstract and particular, and to adapt to culture. Even so, explicit laws and contracts can never really cover everything, for example, in employer/employee relationships, business/consumer relationships, etc. A more subjective cultural layer does most of the work. It's not as enforceable as the explicit, contractual layer. This example is, IMO, pretty normal and OK. There is the explicit license, which governs the legal side. There's the unenforceable request, which can still be made. There's recourse, relicensing. There is a subjective layer, which is what this article is doing. Should X have honoured the request? Was it ok for Y to make the request? Was reliscencing against the spirit of open source? We need the whole package. Society can't be written down, because we don't really have the full spec. Explicit, legible rules are important, but they're a cornerstone and a fall back.

soneil 5y ago

I’m not sure “norms” are avoidable. How many posts do we see to various github issues where people haven’t been “delighted” with the maintainer’s response? We are highly defensive of the rights that floss/copyleft licences grant us, but highly dismissive of the “no implied warranty” verbiage that goes with them. That appears to be this maintainer’s issue. And it does come at a cost. There’s a very strong chance his next project won’t be floss/copyleft.