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> Some of the early Free Software ideologues specifically referred to copyleft as a way of using the copyright system against itself, but ultimately they would

> Some of the early Free Software ideologues specifically referred to copyleft as a way of using the copyright system against itself, but ultimately they would have preferred no copyright at all. If they really preferred no copyright as an ideal, they would have created a free software license that imitates the no-copyright state as far as possible in the given system: A license that does allow to distribute compiled code (executable binaries) without the necessity to provide the source code, but which also does not forbid any person to redistribute, modify, reverse-engineer, ... these binary files without having to ask for permission (with a virality in the latter conditions). Perhaps such a license would also contain clauses that by using the software, you give any other user of this piece of software for any applicable software patent (to handle the situation regarding software patents, which is a topic separate from copyright, but still relevant to FOSS). I am not aware of the existence of any such an open-source license.

zzo38computer 3y ago
I had also had a similar idea, and am also not aware of such a thing, nor about how to write such a thing. (I also want to not require attribution, to require that other distributions and derivative works that have been published must also provide the same permissions to anyone else (even if the license is not included), that you are only sued for violation of this license if you sue or otherwise use legal methods (e.g. lawsuits, DMCA, etc) to stop someone from exercising their rights under this license, and that (for practical purposes) you may relicense any derivative work by GNU GPL 3 and GNU AGPL 3 (or later versions) if you have what you need in order to do it (in this case, source code and attribution are needed to relicense it in this way).)
globular-toast 3y ago
The GPL uses copyleft to both disable copyright and turn software into something more like a book that doesn't have a distinction between binary and source code. So it effectively also disables arseholes who would refuse to share with the community they took from. It's brilliant!

zzo38computer 3y ago

I had also had a similar idea, and am also not aware of such a thing, nor about how to write such a thing. (I also want to not require attribution, to require that other distributions and derivative works that have been published must also provide the same permissions to anyone else (even if the license is not included), that you are only sued for violation of this license if you sue or otherwise use legal methods (e.g. lawsuits, DMCA, etc) to stop someone from exercising their rights under this license, and that (for practical purposes) you may relicense any derivative work by GNU GPL 3 and GNU AGPL 3 (or later versions) if you have what you need in order to do it (in this case, source code and attribution are needed to relicense it in this way).)

globular-toast 3y ago

The GPL uses copyleft to both disable copyright and turn software into something more like a book that doesn't have a distinction between binary and source code. So it effectively also disables arseholes who would refuse to share with the community they took from. It's brilliant!