From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2006-04-06T04:41:18+09:00 Subject: Re: GPL v3 and Ruby License. On 4/5/06, Gregory Brown wrote:> On 4/5/06, Austin Ziegler wrote:[...]>>> Stronger is not necessarily better, of course. Stronger also can be>>> seen as 'more restrictive' by some. However, I do believe that>>> copyleft is not coercion because you cannot coerce someone through>>> licensing terms.>> That's a common misconception. One *can* coerce through licensing>> terms. If the choice is "my way or the highway", where the highway is>> extremely difficult, it's coercion. A lot of Libertarians I know>> would disagree me on this point, but they're also of the opinion that>> coercion can only come from physical force. The verb "coerce",>> however, is defined as: "To cause to do through pressure or>> necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means". A licence can>> be coercion.> I'm an anarcho-capitalist. I guess that puts me in the dissenting> group on things like that. I believe that strong contracts that are> freely entered into can be upheld and can be used to support various> political and ethical goals. [...] In theory, this stance is great. In practice, do you read *every*licence you come across? Click-acceptance is legal these days, you know,so there *might* be a licence clause that requires you to give yourfirstborn the name "Myron Fiddlebrick", and you might have agreed tosuch without having read it. I'm one of those odd folks who *does* read all of the fine print (oncontracts that I sign; I generally ignore the licence details onsoftware because it isn't clear how enforceable it is and I prefer thestated intent of the licence, e.g., "like a book", etc.), and I'llchallenge sections that I don't like. If it matters enough to me, Iwon't do business with the person who puts out that sort of licence orcontracts. Coercion can happen in many forms, and libreadline is a perfect exampleof coercion. (Of course, I would argue that there are times when suchcoercion is important and useful, such as when NeXT implemented anObjective-C frontend for GCC and was forced to release its source.) I don't really have an issue with a copyleft licence: if you want torestrict how your code can be given out (e.g., like the CC ShareAlikelicence provision), then that's your choice. The problem I have with theGNU GPL is the deception that goes on around it and the "moral"boundaries it sets up around its restrictions. I also think, as I'vesaid, that the GPLv3 goes beyond what is reasonable for an open sourcelicence. >>> I am mostly in favor of weak copyleft, in most pragmatic>>> applications of licenses. Protect your source, ensure it will>>> remain free software, ensure the license can't be buried under a>>> proprietary license, etc. As far as linking and integrating with>>> non-free software... i'd like to be an idealist and say it's evil...>>> but of course, I wouldn't have a job if that were the case ;)>> Something like the MPL. The problem is, with the way that the GPL is>> written, the MPL is incompatible with it. This will not be changing>> under GPLv3.> I imagine I must be the FSF's "most loving critic". I do love these> guys and their ideas, but I don't love the vagueness and rhetoric they> are prone to: Yeah. That's Stallman through and through. I was one of the ~300 or sofolks heavily involved in the discussion list about the MPL back in theday, and I got into some arguments with Eben Moglen about the wholething when the FSF was trying to get Netscape to *solely* use the GNUGPL. (I consider the day that the Mozilla Foundation relicensedeverything as MPL and GNU GPL as a net loss for quality open source.) The problem is entirely in the GNU GPL's wording preventing furtherrestrictions on the code. Here's a gedankenexperiment: * Create a copyleft licence patterned after the GNU GPL (make it the GNU GPL without the propaganda). Call it the ASCL (Austin's Strong Copyleft Licence). Add one additional term that enforces your right to be known as the author of a work (this is *not* the advertising clause from the original BSD, mind you). The ASCL is incompatible with the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL requires that your licence have a *subset* of restrictionsthat the GNU GPL provides. It is not even clear if the GNU GPL would becompatible the ASCL even if the additional term were removed. However,even *one* additional restriction, no matter how reasonable, rendersyour licence wholly incompatible with the GNU GPL. It's nonsense, and it could be fixed pretty easily. -austin--Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca