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> [...] so necessarily that imposes limits on what you can create (in this case no mp4). This is a bad example. I guess you could just encode the video twice,

> [...] so necessarily that imposes limits on what you can create (in this case no mp4). This is a bad example. I guess you could just encode the video twice, no? Your GPL example I like a lot though; I never heard that argument before. One problem I have with it is that the line between users and developers can be a little blurry, or, in my case doesn't exist at all. I'm also not sure why you'd need the GPL license to ensure the users' freedom. Say OpenOffice is MIT licensed. I'm a developer, I fork it and make changes that I don't publish because I don't have to. How does that relate to your (the user's) freedom? I can take OpenOffice away from you, or un-MIT-license it, or whatever.

edwintorok 12y ago
You are right about the video, demanding to have it available in at least one free codec would suffice. About the software: Lets say you stop updating your fork after some time, and it fails to run on a newer system, but it is something that someone really wants to use. If he has the source code available he can rebuild it / port it / fix bugs in it and continue to use it even after the original developer abandons it. A somewhat similar idea: I can still run, change, apply security updates for Linux software on a very old laptop (until the hardware eventually breaks) that runs mostly FOSS. But I can't do that on an Android phone that uses proprietary camera/phone/gps/etc. libraries because after some point the vendor stops supporting it and without the source code it is hard to make it run on newer versions of the OS. Had the license been GPL I could've asked for the source code and keep using it. An MIT license would allow more freedom for the vendor (to link/modify use in proprietary applications), but it doesn't require distributing source code so it provides less freedom for the end-user. I think in the end what matters to me are the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline... and the GPL is just one way to ensure freedom #2.
sparkie 12y ago
> I'm a developer, I fork it and make changes that I don't publish because I don't have to. That's all fine, because you're only exercising Freedoms 0 and 1. The MIT/BSD licenses and many others are sufficient for these. As soon as you come to exercising Freedom 2 and 3 though, users of the code are susceptible to losing all 4 freedoms for that software. It's at the whim of any of the middle-men distributing or modifying it as to whether any of the freedoms are preserved for all users.
jumpwah 12y ago
The GPL, or copyleft, does not require you to release your changes. 10:31 in the video: "And they can also offer it to the rest of the public, if they wish." It doesn't matter whether you're just using a program, or also hacking away at it, being a developer/programmer means you're also using it, i.e. means you're also a user of the program. So compared to users, developers don't lose anything, except for the fact that they are not allowed to turn a program into an instrument of power over other users. I don't know why you say ideology > people above. If anything, copyleft really favours the people as the majority of people are not programmers. Even for programmers, copyleft has incentive for them to contribute since it's a guarantee that their investment into the program will not be 'wasted', i.e. used in proprietary software (if the programmer believes in the morality of free software that is, obviously it can go both ways). > "I'm also not sure why you'd need the GPL license to ensure the users' freedom." If it's licensed under MIT, you can simply continue development under a proprietary license at anytime (and typically you would stop distributing the source, only distributing the binary). Eventually, the unmaintained MIT licensed version will likely become useless (assuming it remains unmaintained/no development), and because the latest version of the program is proprietary, the user loses the freedom they once had when using this program. The GPL essentially forbids this in order to prevent that from happening.

edwintorok 12y ago

You are right about the video, demanding to have it available in at least one free codec would suffice. About the software: Lets say you stop updating your fork after some time, and it fails to run on a newer system, but it is something that someone really wants to use. If he has the source code available he can rebuild it / port it / fix bugs in it and continue to use it even after the original developer abandons it. A somewhat similar idea: I can still run, change, apply security updates for Linux software on a very old laptop (until the hardware eventually breaks) that runs mostly FOSS. But I can't do that on an Android phone that uses proprietary camera/phone/gps/etc. libraries because after some point the vendor stops supporting it and without the source code it is hard to make it run on newer versions of the OS. Had the license been GPL I could've asked for the source code and keep using it. An MIT license would allow more freedom for the vendor (to link/modify use in proprietary applications), but it doesn't require distributing source code so it provides less freedom for the end-user. I think in the end what matters to me are the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline... and the GPL is just one way to ensure freedom #2.

sparkie 12y ago

> I'm a developer, I fork it and make changes that I don't publish because I don't have to. That's all fine, because you're only exercising Freedoms 0 and 1. The MIT/BSD licenses and many others are sufficient for these. As soon as you come to exercising Freedom 2 and 3 though, users of the code are susceptible to losing all 4 freedoms for that software. It's at the whim of any of the middle-men distributing or modifying it as to whether any of the freedoms are preserved for all users.

jumpwah 12y ago

The GPL, or copyleft, does not require you to release your changes. 10:31 in the video: "And they can also offer it to the rest of the public, if they wish." It doesn't matter whether you're just using a program, or also hacking away at it, being a developer/programmer means you're also using it, i.e. means you're also a user of the program. So compared to users, developers don't lose anything, except for the fact that they are not allowed to turn a program into an instrument of power over other users. I don't know why you say ideology > people above. If anything, copyleft really favours the people as the majority of people are not programmers. Even for programmers, copyleft has incentive for them to contribute since it's a guarantee that their investment into the program will not be 'wasted', i.e. used in proprietary software (if the programmer believes in the morality of free software that is, obviously it can go both ways). > "I'm also not sure why you'd need the GPL license to ensure the users' freedom." If it's licensed under MIT, you can simply continue development under a proprietary license at anytime (and typically you would stop distributing the source, only distributing the binary). Eventually, the unmaintained MIT licensed version will likely become useless (assuming it remains unmaintained/no development), and because the latest version of the program is proprietary, the user loses the freedom they once had when using this program. The GPL essentially forbids this in order to prevent that from happening.