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Those restrictions are intended to preserve others' freedom while cutting individual freedom. That's a Social Contract: we agree to apply some restrictions on o

by chewie 17y ago

Those restrictions are intended to preserve others' freedom while cutting individual freedom. That's a Social Contract: we agree to apply some restrictions on our individual freedom to ensure that, overall, freedom stands high. If Alice lives in a society where murder is permitted, and Bob doesn't, Alice may feel she is "free" whereas Bob is not. From her point of view she can go live with Bob only if she accepts restrictions on what she can do. But Alice is missing the fact that by exercising her right to murder she is depriving others of their rights. And what if Alice herself gets murdered? How "free" would that leave her? Defining concepts basing ourselves on "points of view" or "feelings" is pseudoscientific, leads to contradictions and is completely useless. So no, I don't think one should decide how free she is by merely substracting the number of things she is allowed to do from the number of things someone else is allowed to do. I'd try to grasp the big picture and figure out which set of rules will lead to a higher number of free and happy people.

apotheon 17y ago
That's absurd. Murder? Seriously? Are you really comparing the ability to use code with fewer restrictions with "murder"? Is "murder" the new "Nazi" or something? edit: . . . and I'd like to see your statistical evidence for the GPL actually resulting in "more free and happy people". I think the BSD License is a great and subtle fishhook for pulling people into the world of free and open source software, whereas the GPL is a gigantic barbed hook the size of my head with blood and gore dripping off it (at least in the eyes of many businesses), so obvious in its intent and the difficulty of getting unhooked after taking a nibble that many of them may never give it a chance. In short, I'm not convinced that the GPL helps. Maybe it results in a marginally higher rate of return among those who use the code. Maybe. Then again, maybe it also results in fewer people using the code, and maybe overall that results in a lower rate of return. 50% of 100 isn't as much as 20% of 1000, after all.
- SterlingCamden 17y ago
  I never use GPL'd code in any of my projects, because I publish code under a copyfree license (http://owl.apotheon.org http://owl.apotheon.org). My code often gets reused in proprietary software for resale -- and I'm happy with that, but the GPL simply cannot exist there.

by chewie 17y ago

apotheon 17y ago

That's absurd. Murder? Seriously? Are you really comparing the ability to use code with fewer restrictions with "murder"? Is "murder" the new "Nazi" or something? edit: . . . and I'd like to see your statistical evidence for the GPL actually resulting in "more free and happy people". I think the BSD License is a great and subtle fishhook for pulling people into the world of free and open source software, whereas the GPL is a gigantic barbed hook the size of my head with blood and gore dripping off it (at least in the eyes of many businesses), so obvious in its intent and the difficulty of getting unhooked after taking a nibble that many of them may never give it a chance. In short, I'm not convinced that the GPL helps. Maybe it results in a marginally higher rate of return among those who use the code. Maybe. Then again, maybe it also results in fewer people using the code, and maybe overall that results in a lower rate of return. 50% of 100 isn't as much as 20% of 1000, after all.

SterlingCamden 17y ago
I never use GPL'd code in any of my projects, because I publish code under a copyfree license (http://owl.apotheon.org http://owl.apotheon.org). My code often gets reused in proprietary software for resale -- and I'm happy with that, but the GPL simply cannot exist there.