3 ms·

> I guess overall I'd see this as actively harmful. What's important is the rights of users; the rights of software developers to harm users are not rights wort

> I guess overall I'd see this as actively harmful. What's important is the rights of users; the rights of software developers to harm users are not rights worth saving. Is freedom of economic value? If it is, then a proprietary spinoff must offer enough value to not only make up for the license cost (vs free download) but also to make up for the loss of freedom. If freedom is of economic value, then end users can protect their own interests. With the GPL you have a very different danger, which IMO is actually worse regarding loss of freedom. It goes something like this: 1. Company offers GPL software and sells license exceptions. 2. To do this they require code contributions be signed over to them with exclusive rights and ownership. 3. One day they decide that the GPL version isn't benefitting their business anymore, and they go fully proprietary. They release a new and improved version with compelling features under a purely closed source model. With BSD-licensed software this can't happen because you can't start at #1.

_delirium 13y ago
> Is freedom of economic value? In general, I think it doesn't have any realizable economic value. Large numbers of users have neither enough control over capital, nor enough organization amongst themselves, nor enough knowledge about software, to wield effective market power. They may realize much later that something they wanted to do is now illegal, and retrospectively regret it or even lobby politicians to do something about it, but they probably won't realize up front that by going to walled gardens there are significant problems. (This is speaking mainly of regular end-users, not users of specialized software that appeals to techies.)
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > In general, I think it doesn't have any realizable economic value. Then this is where our disagreement is. > Large numbers of users have neither enough control over capital, nor enough organization amongst themselves, to wield effective market power. Why is organization required? If you were building a new piece of software, would you prefer to start with open components or closed ones? If you had a business and needed a tool, would you prefer one that could be customized to support your unusual business processes or one where you must structure your business around the software? In some areas, maybe freedom is not that important (consumer entertainment, for example), but I think you greatly underestimate the value that freedom brings to any productive endeavor.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    If you were building a new piece of software, would you prefer to start with open components or closed ones? If you had a business and needed a tool, would you prefer one that could be customized to support your unusual business processes or one where you must structure your business around the software? You still seem to be speaking almost entirely about developers and companies. I care about regular people who use computers, and their freedom to do so. When Apple encumbers OS X, to me that's important, and impacts many people, and to a large extent how society operates. Whether some company building a webapp has a problem with the AGPL, I generally don't care; that goes in the same category of two companies disagreeing over whether a proposed license fee is too high, business details. As an example of why organization is required: in states which don't ban it, companies are generally able to insert non-compete clauses into employment contracts. This is because individual employees signing employment contracts usually have a mixture of too little individual market power, and too little legal knowledge. The only real way to do away with noncompetes, despite very wide agreement that they're bad, is to either: 1) organize into a union that negotiates better contract terms on your behalf (done in some fields and countries, not in American tech); or 2) pass laws that ban the onerous terms entirely (what California did with noncompetes). Generally, individual contract-signing does not maximize welfare.
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      > You still seem to be speaking almost entirely about developers and companies. I am speaking about people making things. It could be someone building computers and combining software, someone developing software, or a company doing things. However I don't really see a difference here between a company and a household. Besides, what goal is served by the end user for the right to study or modify code which is applicable to those you seem to believe will never be developers?

_delirium 13y ago

> Is freedom of economic value? In general, I think it doesn't have any realizable economic value. Large numbers of users have neither enough control over capital, nor enough organization amongst themselves, nor enough knowledge about software, to wield effective market power. They may realize much later that something they wanted to do is now illegal, and retrospectively regret it or even lobby politicians to do something about it, but they probably won't realize up front that by going to walled gardens there are significant problems. (This is speaking mainly of regular end-users, not users of specialized software that appeals to techies.)

einhverfr 13y ago
> In general, I think it doesn't have any realizable economic value. Then this is where our disagreement is. > Large numbers of users have neither enough control over capital, nor enough organization amongst themselves, to wield effective market power. Why is organization required? If you were building a new piece of software, would you prefer to start with open components or closed ones? If you had a business and needed a tool, would you prefer one that could be customized to support your unusual business processes or one where you must structure your business around the software? In some areas, maybe freedom is not that important (consumer entertainment, for example), but I think you greatly underestimate the value that freedom brings to any productive endeavor.
- _delirium 13y ago
  If you were building a new piece of software, would you prefer to start with open components or closed ones? If you had a business and needed a tool, would you prefer one that could be customized to support your unusual business processes or one where you must structure your business around the software? You still seem to be speaking almost entirely about developers and companies. I care about regular people who use computers, and their freedom to do so. When Apple encumbers OS X, to me that's important, and impacts many people, and to a large extent how society operates. Whether some company building a webapp has a problem with the AGPL, I generally don't care; that goes in the same category of two companies disagreeing over whether a proposed license fee is too high, business details. As an example of why organization is required: in states which don't ban it, companies are generally able to insert non-compete clauses into employment contracts. This is because individual employees signing employment contracts usually have a mixture of too little individual market power, and too little legal knowledge. The only real way to do away with noncompetes, despite very wide agreement that they're bad, is to either: 1) organize into a union that negotiates better contract terms on your behalf (done in some fields and countries, not in American tech); or 2) pass laws that ban the onerous terms entirely (what California did with noncompetes). Generally, individual contract-signing does not maximize welfare.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    > You still seem to be speaking almost entirely about developers and companies. I am speaking about people making things. It could be someone building computers and combining software, someone developing software, or a company doing things. However I don't really see a difference here between a company and a household. Besides, what goal is served by the end user for the right to study or modify code which is applicable to those you seem to believe will never be developers?