On Friday 07 February 2014 15:17:39 Carsten Agger wrote: > > The recommendation seems to imply that people who prefer or don't > > object to non-viral free software licenses don't value software > > freedom. > > It does not, I think.
The original blog post[1] by Matthew Garret does not imply this. Yet, the last sentence of the summary does: >> If you value software freedom, FSFE recommends you not to sign agreements >> which make it possible to distribute your code under non-free licenses. While I do understand (and share) the Foundation's interest in ensuring permanent freedom of code, I think this sentence has unfortunate wording. If the first part of the sentence had been omitted, I would have no problems with it. I think the example of Qt (also in the blog post's comments) shows the subtleties of the whole thing and helps to illustrate the point I'm trying to make: - The CLA for the Qt project requires you to allow co-licensing the source under a proprietary license. - The owner of Qt may make the entire Qt project proprietary by first releasing it under a BSD license. This CLA clearly makes it possible to distribute your code under non-free licenses. OTOH, the KDE-Qt agreement includes a clause that effectively prohibits the owner of Qt from making the project more closed. I think it's totally ok for the FSFE to make a recommendation against contributing to the Qt project -- after all the foundation is trying to fight the status quo. However, implying that anyone contributing to Qt does not value software freedom seems like a comical statement at best. Johannes [1] http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/29160.html
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