Gregory's ServerPermissive licenses posit that freedom comes from having relatively few obligations; copyleft posits that freedom is a guarantee of rights.
Neither approach is "restrictive", and the latter is more free by any reasonable definition of freedom.
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8 comments
Pirate Bady
@drewdevault "Copyleft" licenses are also called as "protective" licenses, right? So wouldn't it be better to call "permissive" licenses as "non-protective" since they don't protect user freedom? 
Drew DeVault
@bady ideally we can come up with some terminology that does not come across as demeaning to either license
Stanislav Ochotnický
@drewdevault I agree, but I *think* most people think of freedom as lack of obligation/rules rather than having rights. Regardless of what a reasonable definition might be.
Drew DeVault
@drizzy maybe so, but it's a very shallow understanding of freedom. Perhaps the most celebrated freedom is the freedom of speech -- this is as a guarantee of rights and an obligation for the government to behave in a way which upholds that right. This "restricts" the behavior of the government such that they cannot, for example, arrest someone for speaking out against a political leader (at least in theory...).
Drew DeVault
@drizzy in the US, for example, freedom is collectively understood to be enshrined in the constitution and its bill of rights, which, collectively, provide a guarantee of rights by constraining the actions of the government. |
Rather than "permissive", I might refer to the license family as "lax"? Not sure, but in any case a better term would be good.