6 ms·

No True Scotsman then, eh?

by Smudge 13y ago

pessimizer 13y ago
No. By definition, advocates of free software are advocates of the GPL.
- chc 13y ago
  I don't see why. The "permissive" licenses like BSD and Apache are also free software licenses — they're even certified as such by the FSF.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    The GPL is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others.
    - nkuttler 13y ago
      BSD is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others. It all depends on pespective. GPL has more freedom for users, BSD for developers. Both are valid licenses that do different things. Calling one restrictive just shows that you view this from one side only.
      - asdasf 13y ago
        >BSD is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others. It is objectively and unequivocally less restrictive than the GPL. All it restricts is your ability to claim it is your own code. The GPL adds several more restrictions. Thus it is more restrictive. Arguing that you think those restrictions serve a purpose does not mean you can claim they are not restrictions. Lame straw man crap like pretending anyone ever said the GPL wasn't "valid" doesn't belong in a reasoned conversation.
        nkuttler 13y ago
        > All it restricts is your ability to claim it is your own code. Neither of those licenses allows you to claim some code is "your own". Copyright still applies. > The GPL adds several more restrictions. I can easily rephrase that as GPL adds more freedoms. Your restriction is somebody else's freedom. A matter of perspective. > does not mean you can claim they are not restrictions I can claim anything I like, and I provide a reasoning. > Lame straw man crap like pretending anyone ever said the GPL wasn't "valid" doesn't belong in a reasoned conversation. Except that I never said that. Oh the irony.
        asdasf 13y ago
        >Neither of those licenses allows you to claim some code is "your own" This is a completely irrelevant statement. What was your intended purpose for making it? >I can easily rephrase that as GPL adds more freedoms You could, but it would what is known as "lying". I could easily say that the sky is green too, but that doesn't mean it is. >Your restriction is somebody else's freedom No, restrictions are restrictions. Words have meanings, and you don't get to just pretend they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. The GPL imposes additional restrictions. You like those restrictions because of their consequences. That is fine. But that does not make them cease to be restrictions. >I can claim anything I like Sure, but you can't expect anyone to treat you like a rational adult if you make obviously false claims and say "I can do whatever I want!" as a rationale for it.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        belorn 13y ago
        That is a false statement. Please try understand copyright law when making statements about it. Copyright impose restrictions, and GPL gives permission where you do not have any. If you get sued for copyright infringement, its your job to waive the GPL as your permission to distribute. The legal permission granted in the GPL is what protect your distribution, and without it, anything requiring copyright permission is illegal. Words have meanings indeed, and the word restrictions is thus wrong, plain and simple. The GPL provide permission under a set of requirements. This is true for any software license, including BSD/MIT. So the obviously false claims are yours here, Im sorry to tell you. If you don't want to be granted permission under the license, all you need to do is stop infringing the copyright of the author. That and possible pay compensation for any current act of infringement.
    - drcube 13y ago
      The thirteenth amendment to the US constitution is also restrictive. It protects the right of people to not be owned, at the expense of our right to own others.
      - burntsushi 13y ago
        Not every possible action is a freedom. There is no right to own others in any cohesive ethical framework. (It would violate the principle that all humans ought to have the same rights.)
        dllthomas 13y ago
        Why is that necessarily a principle that has to hold for an ethical framework to be "cohesive"?
        burntsushi 13y ago
        Because it otherwise implies that one group of humans has different rights than another group of humans. I'm sure such a framework could be constructed, I just wouldn't call it cohesive.
        dllthomas 13y ago
        I think we need to unpack "cohesive" to meaningfully communicate further, here...
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Because "free software" is a term made up by the inventors of the GPL, and defines it. Supporting BSD and Apache licenses as compatible with free software is something done in addition to supporting the GPL.
    - jordigh 13y ago
      No, the term "free software" was not invented by RMS. He's certainly championed it the most, but back then there simply was no other common term for this kind of software. People were already using it long before he started using it or wrote the GNU manifesto or uttered a word about the topic. The term "open source", however was coined Eric Raymond and the Open Source Initiative. Nobody before OSI ever said "open source" to refer to software. The term was coined during a brainstorming session prior to the release of Mozilla. There is an unrelated, older occurrence of the term in "open source intelligence" which is about how to spy on people using publicly available sources, but nothing about software nor all the other things people mean with "open source" nowadays. As a marketing term, open source has met its goal admirably: it is a far more popular term than "free software", being used to describe many things and situations other than software, and many of them almost completely unrelated to anything that OSI originally intended.
- jordigh 13y ago
  No, OpenBSD also likes to advocate for free software, e.g. grep for instances of "free software" here: http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html However, as you well know, all BSDs really hate the GPL.

No True Scotsman then, eh?

by Smudge 13y ago

No True Scotsman then, eh?

pessimizer 13y ago

No. By definition, advocates of free software are advocates of the GPL.

chc 13y ago
I don't see why. The "permissive" licenses like BSD and Apache are also free software licenses — they're even certified as such by the FSF.
- stcredzero 13y ago
  The GPL is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others.
  - nkuttler 13y ago
    BSD is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others. It all depends on pespective. GPL has more freedom for users, BSD for developers. Both are valid licenses that do different things. Calling one restrictive just shows that you view this from one side only.
    - asdasf 13y ago
      >BSD is restrictive. It protects certain freedoms at the expense of others. It is objectively and unequivocally less restrictive than the GPL. All it restricts is your ability to claim it is your own code. The GPL adds several more restrictions. Thus it is more restrictive. Arguing that you think those restrictions serve a purpose does not mean you can claim they are not restrictions. Lame straw man crap like pretending anyone ever said the GPL wasn't "valid" doesn't belong in a reasoned conversation.
      - nkuttler 13y ago
        > All it restricts is your ability to claim it is your own code. Neither of those licenses allows you to claim some code is "your own". Copyright still applies. > The GPL adds several more restrictions. I can easily rephrase that as GPL adds more freedoms. Your restriction is somebody else's freedom. A matter of perspective. > does not mean you can claim they are not restrictions I can claim anything I like, and I provide a reasoning. > Lame straw man crap like pretending anyone ever said the GPL wasn't "valid" doesn't belong in a reasoned conversation. Except that I never said that. Oh the irony.
        asdasf 13y ago
        >Neither of those licenses allows you to claim some code is "your own" This is a completely irrelevant statement. What was your intended purpose for making it? >I can easily rephrase that as GPL adds more freedoms You could, but it would what is known as "lying". I could easily say that the sky is green too, but that doesn't mean it is. >Your restriction is somebody else's freedom No, restrictions are restrictions. Words have meanings, and you don't get to just pretend they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. The GPL imposes additional restrictions. You like those restrictions because of their consequences. That is fine. But that does not make them cease to be restrictions. >I can claim anything I like Sure, but you can't expect anyone to treat you like a rational adult if you make obviously false claims and say "I can do whatever I want!" as a rationale for it.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        belorn 13y ago
        That is a false statement. Please try understand copyright law when making statements about it. Copyright impose restrictions, and GPL gives permission where you do not have any. If you get sued for copyright infringement, its your job to waive the GPL as your permission to distribute. The legal permission granted in the GPL is what protect your distribution, and without it, anything requiring copyright permission is illegal. Words have meanings indeed, and the word restrictions is thus wrong, plain and simple. The GPL provide permission under a set of requirements. This is true for any software license, including BSD/MIT. So the obviously false claims are yours here, Im sorry to tell you. If you don't want to be granted permission under the license, all you need to do is stop infringing the copyright of the author. That and possible pay compensation for any current act of infringement.
  - drcube 13y ago
    The thirteenth amendment to the US constitution is also restrictive. It protects the right of people to not be owned, at the expense of our right to own others.
    - burntsushi 13y ago
      Not every possible action is a freedom. There is no right to own others in any cohesive ethical framework. (It would violate the principle that all humans ought to have the same rights.)
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        Why is that necessarily a principle that has to hold for an ethical framework to be "cohesive"?
        burntsushi 13y ago
        Because it otherwise implies that one group of humans has different rights than another group of humans. I'm sure such a framework could be constructed, I just wouldn't call it cohesive.
        dllthomas 13y ago
        I think we need to unpack "cohesive" to meaningfully communicate further, here...
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Because "free software" is a term made up by the inventors of the GPL, and defines it. Supporting BSD and Apache licenses as compatible with free software is something done in addition to supporting the GPL.
  - jordigh 13y ago
    No, the term "free software" was not invented by RMS. He's certainly championed it the most, but back then there simply was no other common term for this kind of software. People were already using it long before he started using it or wrote the GNU manifesto or uttered a word about the topic. The term "open source", however was coined Eric Raymond and the Open Source Initiative. Nobody before OSI ever said "open source" to refer to software. The term was coined during a brainstorming session prior to the release of Mozilla. There is an unrelated, older occurrence of the term in "open source intelligence" which is about how to spy on people using publicly available sources, but nothing about software nor all the other things people mean with "open source" nowadays. As a marketing term, open source has met its goal admirably: it is a far more popular term than "free software", being used to describe many things and situations other than software, and many of them almost completely unrelated to anything that OSI originally intended.
jordigh 13y ago
No, OpenBSD also likes to advocate for free software, e.g. grep for instances of "free software" here: http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html However, as you well know, all BSDs really hate the GPL.