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Dr. Quadragon ❌'s posts Post Back to profile
Dr. Quadragon ❌

A nice compact explanation for permissive vs. copyleft licensing I found:

Both models provide freedom and protection at the expense of the developer;
Permissive model provides more freedom and protection for your *immediate downstream user* at the expense of the end user;
Copyleft model provides more freedom and protection for your *end user* at the expense of the intermediate users.

It's pretty context-dependent which way you wanna go, but personally, in a toss-up, I'm gonna side with the end user. Because that's what actually matters in the end: the ability to actually use the software freely.

At the end of the day, if I have to use a proprietary, locked-down system that spies on me, doesn't let me modify it, or even look at its insides, and generally treats me, the user, like crap, it doesn't make a nick of difference to me that it has a BSD kernel inside, or MIT-licensed coreutils, right?

7 August at 22:17 | Open on mastodon.ml
9 comments
Dr. Quadragon ❌

Why have I brought this up at all?

Well,

github.com/uutils/coreutils

It's a nice project, I quite like it. But the license choice kinda irks me.

The author states that its goal is not to fight the GNU project. While that might not be the intention, in my opinion, this is actually one third of the way to the EEE scenario.

MIT license means it's easy for corporations who choose to make proprietary software to adopt it for their projects. So the "Embrace" step is basically done, voluntarily.

The next step is to Extend it, to make it on par or better than GNU Coreutils. Which has not been achieved yet, but this is the goal.

If this has the potential to be better than GNU coreutils (and it does, being written in a more modern language, and by that virtue having more potential for modernization), then why use GNU coreutils at all? That will be the Extinguish part.

Why have I brought this up at all?

Well,

github.com/uutils/coreutils

It's a nice project, I quite like it. But the license choice kinda irks me.

The author states that its goal is not to fight the GNU project. While that might not be the intention, in my opinion, this is actually one third of the way to the EEE scenario.

8 August at 0:27 | Open on mastodon.ml
Dr. Quadragon ❌

We already have GCC basically obsoleted by LLVM (which, again, is great - but it's also permissive, it was made by corpos); GlibC still holds, but I doubt it's for too long, as Musl is coming along nicely, and the Linux kernel we pretty much lost to tivoization. What remains of the GNU project, then?

I mean, I'm in no position to tell the author what to do, he can do whatever the hell he wants to, but it's still sad to see that sweet free software protection for the base OS to slowly erode and fade to irrelevance like this.

Again: it doesn't make a difference to me, the user, if, say, the new Windows effectively becomes a *nix system and adopts those while staying just as proprietary. (it still would be better than what they have right now, by a mile, but merely technically)

And what I always liked about the Free Software movement, is that it turns the power dynamic of the copyright law on its head, therefore making an actual, tangible, political difference. Which is what I'm after.

We already have GCC basically obsoleted by LLVM (which, again, is great - but it's also permissive, it was made by corpos); GlibC still holds, but I doubt it's for too long, as Musl is coming along nicely, and the Linux kernel we pretty much lost to tivoization. What remains of the GNU project, then?

8 August at 0:35 | Open on mastodon.ml
Dr. Quadragon ❌

There's an argument that permissive licenses offer more freedom.

And to that, I say - yes. If you subscribe to the naïve, individualistic definition of freedom, where everything is permitted, without restrictions.

And in the ideal world, maybe that's where the story ends. But we don't live in that world. No man is an island, and if you allow anyone to do anything unrestricted, that means you permit somebody to take someone's freedom away using force. And eventually you end up with a very unfree world.

How do you combat this? Well, with solidarity, of course. There needs to be a concerted effort to protect freedom from those who tend towards smashing it to pieces. That means, some boundaries must be set up. People who respect freedom must stand together and declare that freedom and non-freedom don't mix.

You know how the corpo kind tends to say that GPL "viral" and compares Free Software movement to Borg? Well, that shows what they fear the most. Copyleft represents this solidarity.

There's an argument that permissive licenses offer more freedom.

And to that, I say - yes. If you subscribe to the naïve, individualistic definition of freedom, where everything is permitted, without restrictions.

And in the ideal world, maybe that's where the story ends. But we don't live in that world. No man is an island, and if you allow anyone to do anything unrestricted, that means you permit somebody to take someone's freedom away using force. And eventually you end up with a very unfree world.

8 August at 1:53 | Open on mastodon.ml
Dr. Quadragon ❌

What I fear the most is that, by washing out copyleft licensing in favour of permissive licensing, the movement basically gets atomized. We revert to that naïve individualism which is yes - highly seductive, but it's what's eventually going to be our collective undoing. Because we don't have that end-user protection anymore. We don't have a competitive edge over the non-freedom, we basically brought everything on the silver platter to people who don't subscribe to any definition of freedom in software at all, and couldn't care less about free usage, study, distribution or modification of software, it's just not in their interest.

An incredibly grim picture. I hope I am overrreacting.

What I fear the most is that, by washing out copyleft licensing in favour of permissive licensing, the movement basically gets atomized. We revert to that naïve individualism which is yes - highly seductive, but it's what's eventually going to be our collective undoing. Because we don't have that end-user protection anymore. We don't have a competitive edge over the non-freedom, we basically brought everything on the silver platter to people who don't subscribe to any definition of freedom in software...

8 August at 2:00 | Open on mastodon.ml
Dr. Quadragon ❌

That said, I'm not knocking on the permissive licensing just on principle - it has its place, just like any tool.

Just for our own sake, this place is not *everywhere*, please, goddamn it.

8 August at 3:07 | Open on mastodon.ml
Ténno Seremélʹ

@drq musl is not up to the task, or that’s what I heard anyway :blobcatcoffee:

8 August at 6:36 | Open on lor.sh
uis

@drq permissive provides right, copyleft provides freedom. Right of one ends where right of another begins, but freedom of one is freedom of another.

8 August at 3:02 | Open on pone.social
FC (Fay) 🏳️‍🌈

@drq yeah. I like how Drew DeVault put it:

> "If I understand correctly, what you are arguing for is a passive freedom, which is the absence of obligations; I am arguing for a positive freedom, which is the guarantee of rights."

> Most succinct rebuttal I've come up with yet to those who view permissive licenses as more free than copyleft

fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112

8 August at 18:12 | Open on tech.lgbt
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