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Top-level
 This is why this doesn't make sense: permissive licenses offer freedom from obligations, and copyleft offers guarantees of rights. Only the latter actually describes freedom as it appears in practice. Introduce freedom from obligations in a context where power differentials exist and it becomes a form of tyranny. Freedom exists only through the obligation to respect the rights of others. Freedom of speech is guaranteed by limiting the government's right to interfere in it, for example. 12 comments
Anyway, all productive political thought requires an analysis of power dynamics. See you at the next meeting, comrade  @drewdevault  The only BSD license apologia that made sense to me was #OpenBSD's attitude of, "We'd rather the corporations use our good code and not give back than come up with their own crappy solutions." In that view, its a service to the community at large to help the security of commercial software. Not saying I agree, really, but it has *some* logic, rather than complaining that the GPL is a one-way street (and somehow commercialism isn't). @RL_Dane indeed. I don't think that copyleft is the only answer; I see room for permissive licenses and I use them myself for many of my projects. I'm simply refuting the common bad analysis of the "freedom" associated with each. Ah, I see. Just curious why you use permissive licenses, then? I mean, I use MIT, but I'm just spitting out ~100 line shell scripts here and there, puttering around and having fun. If I invested months in a project, I'd probably want it to be strongly copylefted. @RL_Dane it depends on the project and my goals. Licenses are a tool, and different tools are suited to different purposes. https://discourse.writefreesoftware.org/t/what-is-your-current-go-to-license/60/6?u=ddevault  @drewdevault In primary school they'd teach us that you can't have absolute freedom, because one person's freedom ends where the next person's begin. Freedom is always limited because of this. I think folks advocating for copyleft as being "the most free" simply forget that the extra "freedom for the code" results in "less freedom for developers". @drewdevault I listened to a podcast the other day that talked about the distinction between liberty and freedom, and that we should be using the word liberty. Freedom means freedom from encumbrances. Liberty carries a notion of freedom and responsibility, where you limit freedom to the extent that it allows freedom for all. We should strive for liberty.  @drewdevault your distinction makes perfect sense, but I think that most people reason about the permissiveness of licenses as sets of things which are allowed/disallowed. And by that metric the permissive licenses include all the things copyleft ones do, plus more, therefore "more free".  Regulation is not restriction, it is codification of expectation and standardisation by excluding abusive behaviors. |
Gregory's Server
Freedom from obligations when one party holds more power than another just means that the former exploits the latter. Businesses exploit the community, in the case of permissive licenses. Copyleft levels the playing field and guarantees the same rights to *everyone*, which is what freedom actually is.