Hi, I think that licensing is an important issue and despite of being a pretty political one (a way to express power and empowerment from/to users) is not discussed deeply, so I welcome a lot a friendly thread like this one. I share the views of the free software (which is not the same as open source), but I think that not all software can be released as such. Even the people at FSF provided exceptions like the LGPL as a way to balance practical concerns and liberties. In the case of Pharo, subclassing is the most common way of reusing (instead of linking), the LGPL doesn't work (a long rationality about when/where to use it is on [1] and a interesting analysis is [1a]).
[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html [1a] http://giovanni.bajo.it/post/56510184181/is-gpl-still-relevant There are long discussions about how to create cultural (and other) commons and how licensing plays a role on it. The P2P license[2], for example, favors cooperatives instead of private corps (I think that a modification to include small and medium business should be provided). The idea is that license express a world view (about liberty, sharing, reciprocity, diversity, fears, etc.) and we should not overseen that. In my case, what I try to do is to see how a particular license plays a role in creating a commons and making me part of a community that build such commons goods. If I chose a different license for Grafoscopio, instead of MIT, the tool have less probability to be part of the Pharo commons and community (and is not properly a rising star in popularity right now!), but I can express my concerns about diversity in licensing and commons building in other places, like in the Grafoscopio Manual [3]. [2] https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production_License [3] http://mutabit.com/repos.fossil/grafoscopio/doc/tip/Docs/En/Books/Manual/manual.pdf So I think that we should look at how the licenses have enabled or not the building of a common world and who is empowered by such licenses as a complex issue, to balance practical and idealist choices, trying to make them converge. In my case, having Grafoscopio and its documentation and related artifacts licensed as Free Cultural Works [4], has given to me leverage even in negotiations with big entities and they keep such works and derived ones with the same licenses. So, from my personal point of view and practices having such mixtures of licenses have not diminished in any way my own practices in building commons. I would like to explore (networks of) cooperatives and small/medium business as an alternative economical practice to enlarge and protect the commons, but as said, this is a complex issue that requires a lot of field work. Cheers, Offray [4] http://freedomdefined.org/ On 21/09/17 10:39, Jose San Leandro wrote: > I personally don't care about the interests of big corporations > cheating with end-users' rights. If they were my potential customers, > or any intermediary which is afraid of not being able to do business > with them due to their obsession with restricting end-users' rights, > then I'd probably have a conflict of interest. In that case, I could > think of sacrificing ethics for food temporarily. But I'm not in that > business, and I don't want to. > > I won't blame the GPL instead of the "old culture" of doing business > by forcing customers to do only what you want them to do, and make > them pay for any upgrade some of them could do themselves otherwise. > > Distributing works with GPL restricts the options to other developers > using your product or library. No doubt about that. But ethically, > that "freedom" only helps the old model of doing software. All > software should be GPLd in the first place. > > There's a book that indirectly illustrates my point, and one I > enthusiastically recommend: Badass users [1]. > > Anyway, we could go on and on. It's a matter of pragmatism vs ethics > of software. > > Usually, people sharing your "classic" point of view of the business > of software don't understand why people write free software and give > it for free. > Is that your case? > > [1] http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920036593.do > > 2017-09-21 17:16 GMT+02:00 Jimmie Houchin <jlhouc...@gmail.com > <mailto:jlhouc...@gmail.com>>: > > On 09/21/2017 09:47 AM, Ben Coman wrote: >> [SNIP] >> Its horses for courses. No one viewpoint fits all circumstances. >> Another way to look at it is that permissive licenses give a >> developer more freedom to combine libraries with different >> licenses. >> >> I do like this radical simplification I bumped into... >> "Another way of looking at it is that you’re picking a license >> based on what you are afraid of. >> * The MIT license is if you’re afraid no one will use your code; >> you’re making the licensing as short and non-intimidating as >> possible. >> * The Apache License you are somewhat afraid of no one using your >> code, but you are also afraid of legal ambiguity and patent trolls. >> * With the GPL licenses, you are afraid of someone else profiting >> from your work [or profiting off end-users] (and ambiguity, and >> patent trolls)." >> [https://exygy.com/which-license-should-i-use-mit-vs-apache-vs-gpl >> <https://exygy.com/which-license-should-i-use-mit-vs-apache-vs-gpl>] >> >> ...which aligns squarely with Pharo - our greater fear is people >> not using it. > > I think the GPL one looks right. Fear, anger, offense if someone > has the possibility of using their software and not contributing > back. To me I think it doesn't work as much as they think. It > doesn't take into account the free will of people to walk away and > completely not use their software. I personally don't even look at > GPL licensed sources unless there are none other available which > is very rare. I don't want the knowledge or understanding of that > code tainting other code I write. > > MIT often means, we don't care, do what you want, just don't blame us. > We don't care if you take it and use it in closed source > proprietary money making big corp software. > We don't care if you take it and use it and keep it to yourself. > We don't care ... Just don't blame us for any problems. > > However, we would love your buy in on open source philosophy and > contribute back where you are able. We understand you have > software which is business critical, proprietary and can not be > open sourced. We also know that you probably have software which > has no business specific (your business) code which is releasable. > And we see many, many, big and small businesses doing so today. > Close off what you must, open what you can. > > I don't think most of us are afraid of no one using our code. > PostgreSQL has no such fear. SQLite which is public domain has no > such fear. And we could go on and on. Python, etc... > > I personally am very much in the camp of I want people to > contribute because they want to contribute. Not because I have a > stick called the GPL. But rather because I have the carrot of all > of the benefits derived from open source software. I am carrot > oriented, not stick oriented. > > Jimmie > > >
