From: snacktime <snacktime@...>
Date: 2005-09-14T10:22:25+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Choosing an open source license

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> I disagree on that statement. Having to send your changes back to the
> author is indeed a bit too much indeed. But Free Software is about
> protecting both the rights of the author but also the rights of the
> *user* of software, rights which are considered fundamental, and
> ensuring equity between the two. Its goal is ethical. And taking Free
> Software, making changes to it, and then only let users use it as a web
> service through a browser and deny them access to the source code
> because you are not "distributing" the application may be legal, but it
> sure isn't ethical and is against the spirit of Free Software. It's
> basically closing the source of an originally Free Software, and is one
> of the reasons why a licence like BSD is not acceptable to people like
> me. If one can close the source code, it's not Free Software. True
> freedom always has limits ("the freedom of the one stops where the
> freedom of the other begin). Web services based on Free Software which
> don't distribute the code to their users break the principle on which
> Free Software was built.
>=20

Interesting definition of ethical. If I use software as the license=20
dictates, which the creator put under that license on purpose, It's=20
unethical to use it according to the terms layed down by the author? So eve=
n=20
if the author fully understood that his software could be used and modified=
=20
by a commercial entity to run a service, it would still be unethical. Who=
=20
are you to make such an imposition on the free will of the author? Why woul=
d=20
you take away his right to license his software as he wants? The bottom lin=
e=20
here is that the 'software wants to be free' crowd really wants to dictate=
=20
to me how I can license something I created because they think it is for th=
e=20
better good. If they are honest enough to take their argument to it's=20
conclusion, the only way they will ever get free people to abide by their=
=20
definition of free is through the coercion of some government.=20

Chris

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