Picking a license

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 08 May 2010 10:14:18 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote:

> On May 8, 3:37 am, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
> cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> On Fri, 07 May 2010 23:40:22 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote:
>> > Personally, I believe that if anything is false and misleading, it is
>> > the attempt to try to completely change the discussion from MIT vs.
>> > GPL to GPL vs. no license (and thus very few rights for the software
>> > users), after first trying to imply that people who distribute
>> > software under permissive licenses (that give the user *more* rights
>> > than the GPL) are somehow creating a some sort of moral hazard that
>> > might adversely affect their users
>>
>> If encouraging third parties to take open source code and lock it up
>> behind proprietary, closed licences *isn't* a moral hazard, then I
>> don't know what one is.
> 
> For a start, there is a difference between "encouraging" and "allowing".

Finely parsed semantics with a meaningless difference when applied to
what I said in the context of comparing GPL vs. more permissive licenses.


>  But in point of fact, you have it exactly backwards. Putting the code
> out there and making it a tort to republish it under a closed license
> creates a moral hazard -- a trap that many companies including
> Linksys/Cisco have fallen into.  

What? That's crazy talk. You think Linksys and Cisco don't have people 
capable of reading licences? What sort of two-bit organisation do you 
think they are?

They have lawyers, they have people whose job it is to make sure that 
they don't infringe other people's copyright. They wouldn't use software 
copyrighted by Microsoft without making sure they were legally licenced. 
One can only wonder why they thought they didn't need to treat the GPL 
with an equal amount of respect.

Since you raised the analogy of a restaurant giving away freebies, if a 
restaurant stuck a sign on the door saying "Free softdrink with every 
burger", and some Cisco engineer walked in the door and started loading 
up a trolley with cans of drink from the fridge ("they're free, right?"), 
would you argue that this was the restaurant's fault for creating a moral 
hazard?

I don't think you understand what a moral hazard is. Under no 
circumstances is it a moral hazard to say "If you do X, I will do Y" -- 
in this case, "If you obey these restrictions on redistribution, I'll 
licence this copyrighted work to you". Perhaps you should check the 
definition before arguing further that the GPL imposes a moral hazard on 
anyone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard


> If I expect nothing in return, if it's
> a gift, then the likelihood of moral hazard is significantly reduced. 
> Unless you are somehow suggesting that I owe my user's customers
> anything (which suggestion, btw, is frequently made in veiled terms, and
> always pisses me off), there is no other moral hazard produced by me
> choosing a permissive license for my code.

No, you don't *owe* them anything, but this brings us back to Ben's 
original post. If you care about the freedoms of Cisco's customers as 
much as you care about the freedoms of Cisco, then that's a good reason 
to grant those customers the same rights as you granted Cisco.

And let's not forget self-interest -- if you care about *your own 
freedoms*, then it is in your own self-interest to encourage others to 
use open licences rather than closed ones. The MIT licence merely 
encourages openness by example, while the GPL makes it a legal 
requirement.

Which brings us back full circle to Ben's position, which you took 
exception to. If the global freedoms granted by the GPL are sufficiently 
important to you, then you should use the GPL. If you have other factors 
which are more important, then choose another licence. Why you considered 
this controversial enough to require sarcastic comments about the 
untrustworthiness of Guido and the PSF, I don't know.



-- 
Steven