3 ms·

I think we can agree that businesses have the right to "fire" their customers, for (pretty much) any reason try like. Of course, as with any "subjective" behav

I think we can agree that businesses have the right to "fire" their customers, for (pretty much) any reason try like. Of course, as with any "subjective" behavior right, there can be regulatory implications (Christian cake shops selling wedding cakes to gay couples springs to mind.) I'm not aware of any regulations though that would force RH to keep customers that broke their source-distribution-embargo. Clearly RH is not impinging on the users rights to distribute the source. They are impinging on the "privilege" of being a customer. Does that second-order effect fall under the GPL? Smarter lawyers than me will decide, but it seems like a tough sell. Of course we may not -like- that restriction, but its a long way from there to -legal- requirements. It's hard really to see how one can mandate an OSS company to -have- to do business with "any customer" when the moral-principle-premise is so high in OSS. I'm not sure that a regulation against RH would be a win for OSS in general.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> I think we can agree that businesses have the right to "fire" their customers, for (pretty much) any reason try like. Unless of course the business is subject to a contract which prohibits firing customers for that reason. For instance, if it uses the words > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. then no, they certainly don't have the right to fire customers for exercise of the rights granted therein. (your next few paragraphs say the same thing in different words, so I'm going to skip them) > It's hard really to see how one can mandate an OSS company to -have- to do business with "any customer" when the moral-principle-premise is so high in OSS. I don't know what you mean by "moral-principle-premise", so forgive me if this isn't what your saying, but I think it's really easy to see how one could mandate that RH honor the GPL; if they retaliate against a customer for using their rights, then RH no longer has a license to use GPL software and get to be sued into oblivion. This would be much like how employees are protected against retaliation under assorted circumstances; you can fire an employee who alleged sexual harassment, but that had better not be the reason and you'd better have a very good paper trail to prove as much.
- bruce511 3y ago
  >>> You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. RH is not imposing any restriction on the rights granted herein. They are laying out consequences for exercising those rights. That's not the same as a restriction.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    That is absolutely a restriction, just not implemented via technical measures; it is a behavior that is intended to prevent customers from exercising their rights. If you impose "consequences" for a behavior, you're obviously acting to stop people from doing it.
cjbprime 3y ago
By coming up with the comparison to wedding cakes, you came very close to working out the intuition supporting the argument you're challenging. Companies can discriminate against you for any unprotected reason. Whether the license claims are protection is exactly the question here.
- bruce511 3y ago
  I agree, there are protected reasons. People may -want- distribution of source code to be a protected reason, but there is no language supporting that in OSS or Free licenses, and not court or legislation has ruled that it is protected. Since the default for all reasons I "unprotected", it follows this is unprotected until a court / Congress rules otherwise. "Wishing" is not a legal strategy, and in the area of licenses it's the law that matters.
  - cjbprime 3y ago
    This seems nitpicky. You can't appeal to the fact that something is not yet settled law during a discussion of whether it will become settled law later.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> I think we can agree that businesses have the right to "fire" their customers, for (pretty much) any reason try like. Unless of course the business is subject to a contract which prohibits firing customers for that reason. For instance, if it uses the words > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. then no, they certainly don't have the right to fire customers for exercise of the rights granted therein. (your next few paragraphs say the same thing in different words, so I'm going to skip them) > It's hard really to see how one can mandate an OSS company to -have- to do business with "any customer" when the moral-principle-premise is so high in OSS. I don't know what you mean by "moral-principle-premise", so forgive me if this isn't what your saying, but I think it's really easy to see how one could mandate that RH honor the GPL; if they retaliate against a customer for using their rights, then RH no longer has a license to use GPL software and get to be sued into oblivion. This would be much like how employees are protected against retaliation under assorted circumstances; you can fire an employee who alleged sexual harassment, but that had better not be the reason and you'd better have a very good paper trail to prove as much.

bruce511 3y ago
>>> You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. RH is not imposing any restriction on the rights granted herein. They are laying out consequences for exercising those rights. That's not the same as a restriction.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  That is absolutely a restriction, just not implemented via technical measures; it is a behavior that is intended to prevent customers from exercising their rights. If you impose "consequences" for a behavior, you're obviously acting to stop people from doing it.

cjbprime 3y ago

By coming up with the comparison to wedding cakes, you came very close to working out the intuition supporting the argument you're challenging. Companies can discriminate against you for any unprotected reason. Whether the license claims are protection is exactly the question here.

bruce511 3y ago
I agree, there are protected reasons. People may -want- distribution of source code to be a protected reason, but there is no language supporting that in OSS or Free licenses, and not court or legislation has ruled that it is protected. Since the default for all reasons I "unprotected", it follows this is unprotected until a court / Congress rules otherwise. "Wishing" is not a legal strategy, and in the area of licenses it's the law that matters.
- cjbprime 3y ago
  This seems nitpicky. You can't appeal to the fact that something is not yet settled law during a discussion of whether it will become settled law later.