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> Stallman’s point (which I largely think is a cop out, fwiw) is that the goal should be that the software remains free, and that making small compromises to fu
by cxr 3y ago
> Stallman’s point (which I largely think is a cop out, fwiw) is that the goal should be that the software remains free, and that making small compromises to further that goal is ok.
Mm, that doesn't really summarize (or engage with) Stallman's thinking on the matter.
Stallman's position is that if it is perfectly ethical for someone to license their research under e.g. BSD, MIT/X11, or a license that is similarly permissive, and it is (of course) ethical to license it under GPL, then it is not more unethical to go with something which sits in between the two (copyleft for some, permissive for others).
To put it another way: if Alice picks a GPL-compatible, free software license like Apache 2.0, and then Goog makes something proprietary out of it, then Goog is being unethical, not Alice. If Goog does the same thing and gives Alice money, then nothing changes except the bad actor has less money and the good actor who created the software and made it libre has more money.
- saagarjha 3y agoThis doesn't make sense, though, because Alice could just pick a permissive license and claim that everyone who uses it to make something proprietary is being unethical. The whole point of the GPL existing is to prevent people from doing this, because going "oh it's on them for ruining things" doesn't actually work.
- cxr 3y agoWhat?
- saagarjha 3y agoYour claim, if I understand it correctly, is that selling an alternate license is OK because you're not doing anything unethical directly; after all, you're offering your version with the code. If they don't provide their source, they're the ones being unethical, not you. I don't think this actually works, because if you look at the reason GPL exists in the first place, it's to prevent precisely this kind of move. It is "immoral" to release your code under a permissive license, not because you are doing something wrong, but because you are enabling someone else to come in and take that code and make proprietary changes. So selling a license to let someone do this seems like the same thing to me.
- cxr 3y agoMy claim is that my characterization of how Stallman thinks about this is an accurate characterization of how he thinks about this. > It is "immoral" to release your code under a permissive license That doesn't jibe with the FSF philosophy at all. I get the feeling that I'm interacting with someone who "knows" more about the FSF and Stallman based on what they've heard or imagined rather than actually reading what either Stallman or FSF have to say. Permissive licenses like the X11 license are free software licenses and have the FSF's (and Stallman's) approval.
- saagarjha 3y agoI called Stallman's point a cop out, so I quite frankly do not care very much about his position here, because I think it explicitly goes against what he espouses elsewhere.
- cxr 3y agoI think the real cop-out is wading into a discussion with a comment purporting to explain/address a public figure's "point", and then when it is explained that you haven't portrayed it accurately, declaring you don't actually care about what their position is.