On 02/25/2016 12:57 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote: > On 02/25/2016 10:04 AM, Fabio Pesari wrote: >> On 02/25/2016 06:08 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote: >>> >>> I didn't say they were insane extremist anarchists. If they were, I >>> wouldn't associate with them at all. They are specifically people who >>> oppose copyright and patent laws, not *all* laws. (which is my position >>> too, I just want copyright and patent abolition to be paired with (A) >>> prohibition of DRM and (B) mandatory source release for published works, >>> and the Copyfree folks actually agree with this, per our discussions; >>> they oppose DRM but just see that as an issue beyond the Copyfree stuff). >> >> Your position is also mine, and for this reason I do not understand why >> you would associate your project with Copyfree as a concept, since I >> wouldn't. >> > > For background info, I first encountered the Copyfree folks in a debate > about copyleft where I assumed they were being typical assholes who > promote and shill for proprietary stuff. It was interesting that in the > end, we turned out to be in agreement about wanting to see the end of > copyrights, patents, and proprietary restrictions. After further > discussion, it became clear that the particular folks were actually > reasonable and not totally extremists (as shown by their willingness to > help us, an aligned project in terms of freedom but being copyleft. > > People who were totally dogmatic would reject us because they were > copyleft. But the more I've talked to people in the community, the more > I find reasonable people who basically agree with the copyfree > perspective. They see copyleft as about enforcement, see most copyleft > software having no ability to enforce practically. > > For example: Another one of our advisors is Mike Linksvayer who is on > the Board of the Software Freedom Conservancy, advocates for their GPL > enforcement, helped with copyleft.org, and yet he's sympathetic to the > Copyfree viewpoint as well. See > http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/11/25/upgrade-to-0/ (the rest of his > blog is interesting reading too). > > The thing is, the Copyfree people *do* support CC0 and public domain. > The primary reason they don't focus on public domain is in fact > *practical* because there are legal concerns about the practical matter > of getting things to be recognized as public domain, so they advocate > the most effect license terms that are comparably unrestricted. > > In the end, most of the advising and discussion with them when they were > active was on purely practical matters that didn't even relate to > licensing. They're nice aligned people regardless of the Copyfree thing. > We had some differences of opinion about the Copyfree stuff but agreed > that Snowdrift.coop would respect those users who have that political > view. It's not just that there's these couple Copyfree folks who are > some fringe. There's lots of people with some sympathies there who > grudgingly go with copyleft because they agree about the tactic but > somewhat dislike it. > > Copyfree represents the critique of copyleft that isn't coming from a > pro-proprietary view. We like the idea of including diverse viewpoints > and not being just an echo chamber. We found the Copyfree people to be > sensible and reasonable. > >> My issue with it is that you are giving Copyfree some visibility it >> doesn't deserve. It's a ripoff of older ideas, it is incompatible with >> both free software and open source and its politics do not reflect the >> real world. >> >>> Yes, this stuff is political, more than OSI, but it's not *that* >>> political. The primary reason it isn't just an emphasis on public domain >>> is because of the legal quirks of the inadequacies of public domain in >>> practice today. Absolutely *nothing* that is "Copyfree" is any better >>> for proprietary advocates or any worse for software freedom than public >>> domain. The Copyfree licenses do nothing to promote proprietary software >>> any more than public domain software does. >> >> Public domain makes a strong political statement: a refusal to partake >> in the copyright system, including attribution. >> >> If making a political statement against copyright is the point, I don't >> see why not go all the way. >> >>> It's not especially healthy. It's valuing principle over practical >>> concerns. They want no place in which copyright interferes with software >>> freedom *even* if the interference is a copyleft tactic protecting >>> freedom by blocking proprietization. >>> >>> This is a political value question: do we support *stopping* proprietary >>> software even if it *hurts* free software by causing incompatibilities? >>> I say "hmm, tough question, but I lean toward 'yes' better to accept the >>> incompatibility-side-effects in order to block proprietary software". >>> The Copyfree folks say "better to accept the side-effect of proprietary >>> derivatives in order to maximize compatibility for those of us using >>> free software". That view isn't crazy. >> >> That view is crazy, because incompatibility is not caused by copyleft, >> but rather by developers. >> > > That's too simplistic. Copyleft *inherently* causes incompatibility by > its very mechanism. Anyone denying this is just in denial. Our page > describes how important it is to *minimize* this side-effect by > encouraging everyone to use GPLv3+ compatible licenses. But that doesn't > mean this is causing the incompatibility. > > Sure, people should use "or later" clause, but there's copyleft licenses > besides the GPL even. At any rate, *I* think that we can minimize > incompatibility without giving up the copyleft tactic and that's what I > advocate for. But I don't think everyone who takes any other view than > mine is automatically crazy. There's merit to their view, it's simply > not crazy. > >> If everyone used "GPL or any later version" from the beginning and if >> nobody created their own licenses in order to avoid the GPL, >> incompatibilities would never have arisen. >> >> Incompatibilities arise only in two cases (I can think of): >> >> 1) The developers don't use the "or any later version" clause >> 2) The developers want to merge GPL code into permissive code >> >> Reason 2 cannot be allowed for obvious reasons (that code can go into >> proprietary software at any point), but you can always fork a >> permissively licensed project into a GPL project, so this is a moot point. >> >> Reason 1 is unfortunate when it happens due to ignorance (people who >> just stick a LICENSE file in their repository) or when the original >> contributors are unreachable, I give you that. >> >> But what about those developers who intentionally use previous versions >> of the GPL to allow corporations to implement things like DRM, SaaSS and >> Tivoization? That is done with bad intent, and they are entirely to >> blame for that, not copyleft. >> > > Yeah, and I agree with you. But *reasonable* non-crazy people who aren't > advocating for proprietary terms don't completely agree. We can build a > healthy community around the idea that you see the world as black and > white and treat everyone who disagrees with you at all as all being the > same and all either corrupt or crazy. Sometimes you say, "there are > people with compatible overall values that want to help our mission, and > we include them and allow them to have a voice as long as they treat us > reasonably too and their involvement is an overall benefit to the > broader mission". >
Oops, I meant "we CAN'T build a healthy community…" in that sentence just now. > I'd much rather draw the line where we make it clear that the people > advocating for proprietary software are the problem and not push out > those free software advocates who have different tactical views or > priorities than us. >
