I disagree, Mark. The restrictions made by Copyleft are blocking additional restrictions. So, determining the "minimal restrictions for *everyone*" involves knowing something about the net effect. Copyleft is net increase in restrictions in a situation where permissively-licensed software would never be used to make proprietary derivatives. Copyleft is net reduction in restrictions in a situation where copyleft licensing actually hampers the creation of proprietary derivatives that would happen others (or keeps those same derivates free/libre where they may not have been otherwise).
So, you cannot make a blanket statement here. Copyleft uses some minimal restrictions to block additional restrictions. Determining the effect on total restrictions requires knowledge about whether additional restrictions would be implemented otherwise. -Aaron On 03/07/2015 07:19 AM, Mark Holmquist wrote: > On Sat, Mar 07, 2015 at 09:26:04AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: >> Copyleft is not a restriction. It is a defense against restrictions >> imposed by middlemen on the users. > > However short-sighted and basically utilitarian the quoted rationale for > avoiding copyleft may be, I think it's impossible for copyleft not to > be a restriction. If it did not restrict people from distributing under > different licenses, it would no longer be called copyleft, it would just > be called public domain. > > Now, you could definitely say that copyleft is not a restriction on the > end user, but if you're looking to minimize the restrictions for *everyone*, > including developers of derivatives or applications that use your code, > then copyleft is not your license. >
