3 ms·

You can have an end goal of increasing freedom and just disagree that coercing people in any way shape or form to spread that freedom is either wrong or counter

You can have an end goal of increasing freedom and just disagree that coercing people in any way shape or form to spread that freedom is either wrong or counterproductive. Especially if you have a belief that simply sharing knowledge is a way of increasing freedom and human advancement, "do whatever you want with this shit I just wrong for fun" can be just as powerful. Really when you get down to it, the battle is still open source (however you want to define it) vs non open source, and squabbles between copyleft vs permissive can miss the larger picture.

phillmv 13y ago
They really don't. I have almost zero control over my phone (a situation that only slightly improves with Android) and even then limited control over my workstation. You're not even allowed to use GPL'd code on Apple app stores. It'd be great if the distinction were merely academic.
zanny 13y ago
The GPL operates under a spectrum: Proprietary software takes away your rights <----> permissive <----> free software guarantees your rights It is about the user, not the developer. The free software movement for the most part sees the power of the developer to take away a users rights as unethical, and does what they can (via copyright) to correct that.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  Proprietary software does nothing as drastic as 'take away your rights'. There is no inherent right to browse source code. At best, you entered into an agreement when you started using it that doesn't grant you as many benefits.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - zanny 13y ago
    We are talking about copyright here, and in court that extends to decompiling binaries as well. Copyright is a forceful transfer of natural rights (do what you want with what you have) to the creator of information, with that entire hayday of logistics and reasoning, which is depriving you of your ability to modify and redistribute said information. Source code is an oddity, sure, because you can distribute binaries that aren't modifiable and keep the source private yet still have no copyright on anything, but you aren't practicing software freedom. The source code availability is absolutely an extension, but it is no more so one than saying it is unethical to give you a car and never let you see the instruction manual if you wanted to try modding it.

phillmv 13y ago

They really don't. I have almost zero control over my phone (a situation that only slightly improves with Android) and even then limited control over my workstation. You're not even allowed to use GPL'd code on Apple app stores. It'd be great if the distinction were merely academic.

zanny 13y ago

The GPL operates under a spectrum: Proprietary software takes away your rights <----> permissive <----> free software guarantees your rights It is about the user, not the developer. The free software movement for the most part sees the power of the developer to take away a users rights as unethical, and does what they can (via copyright) to correct that.

cobrausn 13y ago
Proprietary software does nothing as drastic as 'take away your rights'. There is no inherent right to browse source code. At best, you entered into an agreement when you started using it that doesn't grant you as many benefits.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- zanny 13y ago
  We are talking about copyright here, and in court that extends to decompiling binaries as well. Copyright is a forceful transfer of natural rights (do what you want with what you have) to the creator of information, with that entire hayday of logistics and reasoning, which is depriving you of your ability to modify and redistribute said information. Source code is an oddity, sure, because you can distribute binaries that aren't modifiable and keep the source private yet still have no copyright on anything, but you aren't practicing software freedom. The source code availability is absolutely an extension, but it is no more so one than saying it is unethical to give you a car and never let you see the instruction manual if you wanted to try modding it.