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What do you consider free software? Because I don't consider anything licensed under GPL as free, but I would consider software licensed under MIT or BSD as free.
GPL -> "Free" MIT or BSD -> "Open"
MIT or BSD: free, open source
GPL: free, open source, copyleft
And let's be frank, app stores are a much better model for the non-techie end user than the chaos of Windows 9x.
Stallman's (deserved) fall from grace is leading to some soul-searching in the movement he founded and mismanaged for decades. Better late than never, but I'm afraid it's already too late.
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For your first question, this is mostly about legal interpretability. The GPL has a long text that describes explicitly what it allows and doesn't. Yes, that is based on an ethical framework, but that ethical framework is all baked into the text of the license. There is no ambiguity. The GP contrasts this with the JSON license which only uses the term 'good' to describe what it allows. This is incredibly ambiguous fr…
A user in an ICE concentration camp also lacks the freedom to tinker with the software. Seems like a pretty big hole in the ability of the license to protect the freedom of its end users.
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Just a side note, IMHO 'intellectual property' and the associated concept that ideas can be owned is gross enough that you don't need to take it any further. Again my opinion, but calling it 'slavery' moves into the realm of histrionics and to me undermines your overall position. The fact that you can thread a few needles to make the leap doesn't really justify where you land, especially while there are people suffer…
I think the term "intellectual property" is like when someone pisses on you and calls it "rain". It makes no sense. The idea if I was on an island and can't share freely share some ideas of yours that you hold the "copyright" has zero correlation with any notion of property, and is much better described as slavery -- a form of control over my behavior. > especially while there are people suffering actual physical sla…
Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…
Not to mention how reasonable people can disagree on where to draw the line. If you think the Israeli government violates human rights, does that justify banning all Israelis from using the software? What about Intel with its major facility in Kiryat Gat? Should you then ban the software from being run on any Intel processors, whether or not they were made in Israel?
I sympathize with the movement to hold coders and users accountable, but I just don't think this is workable.
The agenda is made very clear toward the end of the article: > As stewards of the free software definition, the Free Software Foundation should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed. The priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to ensure that it can legitimately claim to represent the community and play the leadership role it's been failing to in recent years, otherwise…
And if they can't change the norms of the community, fracturing it beyond repair is fine with them because it doesn't deserve to exist if it does not conform to their moral standards.
The agenda is made very clear toward the end of the article: > As stewards of the free software definition, the Free Software Foundation should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed. The priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to ensure that it can legitimately claim to represent the community and play the leadership role it's been failing to in recent years, otherwise…
> As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by allowing their software to be used for any purpose. Too bad, even if you were to disallow that in your license, governments won't care, those things often are often already illegal - courts will dismis…
> As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by allowing their software to be used for any purpose. Too bad, even if you were to disallow that in your license, governments won't care, those things often are often already illegal - courts will dismis…
Is it true that copyright licenses can't add restrictions? Patent retaliation clauses in software copyright licenses suggest otherwise to me.
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I think the term "intellectual property" is like when someone pisses on you and calls it "rain". It makes no sense. The idea if I was on an island and can't share freely share some ideas of yours that you hold the "copyright" has zero correlation with any notion of property, and is much better described as slavery -- a form of control over my behavior. > especially while there are people suffering actual physical sla…
Might I suggest the slightly less emotive term "intellectual monopoly" instead?
But when I hear the term IP, what I hear is "Intellectual Slavery", as you are declaring control over human behavior, which is the definition of slavery ("restricted freedom").
I'm not necessarily against Intellectual Slavery laws. If we as a people decide it's better to have those laws than not, that's fine. Just let's use honest terms here.