On 27/02/16 12:27 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote: > On 02/27/2016 04:44 AM, Fabio Pesari wrote: >> Many people (especially in the open source community) hate the GPL more >> than they hate proprietary software, especially the GPLv3. I never found >> an approach that works with those people. >> >> Mention "freedom" and they'll say the GPL is "restrictive" and "viral". >> >> Mention practical advantages and they'll say "corporations don't touch >> anything GPL". >> >> Mention the dangers of proprietary software and they'll say it doesn't >> matter if the program in question is practically better. >> >> Mention existing famous GPL projects and they'll argue that some of them >> didn't switch to GPLv3 (like Linux and Blender). >> >> Actually, mentioning the GPL at all will get you covered with insults >> and accusations of zealotry. >> >> Showing them articles from GNU.org doesn't work, and will only result in >> ad hominem attacks against their author, Richard Stallman. >> >> This reminds me of Two Minutes Hate from 1984. >> >> How to reason with those people? They tend to gang up and it's very hard >> to get your point across when everybody is agreeing with one another on >> how stupid and brainwashed you are! >> > > It's pretty simple: if they think proprietary licenses are okay, then > it's hypocritical to say the GPL is bad. In no sense at all does GPL > have more restrictions than proprietary. So, you can simply say "this > GPL software, you would be okay with it just being proprietary, right? > You don't think that's bad? Well, GPL is just the copyright holder > choosing to give the General Public extra permissions. You could argue > that you think they should go to a permissive license, but if you think > proprietary is okay, you have to accept that GPL is okay too." > > I've never had a conversation with anyone in which they had any retort > or reply to this at all. Either the conversation becomes productive > because they accept this (maybe they start talking about how they do > prefer permissive licenses, but they agree that people have full right > to use GPL), or they just disappear. >
This is such an excellent point. I'm going to try that!
