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Well, so does a law that prevents you from selling your labor as a slave, but I don't think you would see that as bad. For the fact of 'owning' the software...

by klez 14y ago

Well, so does a law that prevents you from selling your labor as a slave, but I don't think you would see that as bad. For the fact of 'owning' the software... well, as long as you don't redistribute it, who cares. And if you do restribute it, why should you take away from your users the same freedom that was given to you? (by making your software proprietary or by limiting the use they can make)

parasubvert 14y ago
What does slavery have to do with this? There's ample discussions over the past 10 years over why many people disagree with the approach the GPL takes as being too restrictive and freedom-restricting, and not actually in the spirit of "open". I don't have to even argue that, it's been done before ad nauseum. Of course many support the GPL and it's approach. The point on GPL is that "freedom is a feature", it's all in the eye of the beholder of what's more important - free to use & redistribute, or free to use but only redistribute under certain circumstances. The choice has massive implications for people using that software - I've seen many a review of weeding all GPLv3 or AGPL dependencies out of a product for this very reason. The original point is that Cory seems to think that protecting user's freedoms first requires securing device owner's freedoms, though the two come into conflict regularly, and he doesn't have clear answers of how to resolve that. I'm suggesting that he's not looking at ownership broadly enough.
- klez 14y ago
  Fair enough, as you say it's in the eye of the beholder. What I'd like is a precise use of terms. Saying (as most do) that GPL is restrictive is imprecise. As you better put it, GPL is restrictive on redistribution. As for ownership, I'd like you to expand on what you think about it. As you say Cory didn't look broadly enough, so I'd like to read further opinions about it.

by klez 14y ago

parasubvert 14y ago

What does slavery have to do with this? There's ample discussions over the past 10 years over why many people disagree with the approach the GPL takes as being too restrictive and freedom-restricting, and not actually in the spirit of "open". I don't have to even argue that, it's been done before ad nauseum. Of course many support the GPL and it's approach. The point on GPL is that "freedom is a feature", it's all in the eye of the beholder of what's more important - free to use & redistribute, or free to use but only redistribute under certain circumstances. The choice has massive implications for people using that software - I've seen many a review of weeding all GPLv3 or AGPL dependencies out of a product for this very reason. The original point is that Cory seems to think that protecting user's freedoms first requires securing device owner's freedoms, though the two come into conflict regularly, and he doesn't have clear answers of how to resolve that. I'm suggesting that he's not looking at ownership broadly enough.

klez 14y ago
Fair enough, as you say it's in the eye of the beholder. What I'd like is a precise use of terms. Saying (as most do) that GPL is restrictive is imprecise. As you better put it, GPL is restrictive on redistribution. As for ownership, I'd like you to expand on what you think about it. As you say Cory didn't look broadly enough, so I'd like to read further opinions about it.