Picking a license

[Paul Boddie]

On 9 Mai, 21:07, Patrick Maupin <pmau... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 9, 1:02 pm, Paul Boddie <p... at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > People often argue
> > that the GPL only cares about the software's freedom, not the
> > recipient's freedom, which I find to be a laughable claim because if
> > one wanted to point at something the GPL places higher than anything
> > else, it would be the "four freedoms" preserved for each user's
> > benefit.
>
> Well, I don't think you saw me arguing it that way.  I will say, just
> like anything else, that there is a cost associated with using GPL
> software, and it is not necessarily a cost that I want to impose on
> users of all my software.

I didn't say that you personally argued that way, but people do argue
that way. In fact, it's understandable that this is how some people
attempt to understand the GPL - the software maintains a particular
state of openness - but they miss the final step in the reasoning
which leads them to see that the licence preserves a set of privileges
for recipients as well.

The "cost" with the GPL is that people cannot take GPL-licensed
software and just do whatever they want with it, although it is also
the case that permissive licences also have a set of conditions
associated with each of them as well, albeit ones which do not mandate
the delivery of the source code to recipients. Thus, the observation
of software licences can never be about taking code which was publicly
available and combining it without thought to what those licences say.
Thus, remarks about Cisco and Linksys - that they were somehow "caught
out" - are disingenuous: if you're in the business of distributing
software, particularly if that software itself has a restrictive
licence, you cannot claim ignorance about licensing or that you just
"found some good code".

> > Really, copyleft licences are all about treating all recipients of the
> > software and modified versions or extensions of the software in the
> > same way: that someone receiving the software, in whatever state of
> > enhancement, has all the same privileges that the individual or
> > organisation providing the software to them enjoyed;
>
> Sure, and for a major work I think that's great, especially if it
> helps attract developers.  Sometimes I see people GPL little 100 line
> libraries (of often not very good code quality) in a clear attempt to
> have the tail wag the dog, and that's laughably pathetic.

Why is it pathetic that someone gets to choose the terms under which
their work is made available? By default, if I release something
without any licence, the recipient has very few privileges with
respect to that work: it's literally a case of "all rights reserved"
for the creator. And if it's such a trivial library then why not
reimplement the solution yourself?

> > those "four
> > freedoms" should still apply to whatever software they received. That
> > this is achieved by asking that everyone make the same commitment to
> > end-user freedoms (or privileges), yet is seen as unreasonable or
> > actually perceived as coercion by some, says a great deal about the
> > perspective of those complaining about it.
>
> Well, I *do* think it's, maybe not unreasonable, but certainly
> unrealistic, for the author of a small library to attempt to leverage
> control over several potentially much larger works by placing the
> small library under the GPL, so in general I don't do it.

I dislike the way that when someone releases something under the GPL,
it is claimed that they are coercing or attempting to "leverage"
something. They have merely shared something on their terms. If you
don't like the terms, don't use their software.

>                                                            I also
> happen to believe that there are a lot of people (perhaps like Carl
> Banks if I understand his post correctly) who make money delivering
> small customized solutions to sit on top of proprietary software
> solutions.  If I can save one of these guys some time, perhaps they
> will contribute back.  If I use the GPL, I will have insured that one
> of these guys cannot possibly link my software to, e.g. Oracle, so he
> has to reinvent the wheel.  So, for some use-cases, I sincerely
> believe that the GPL license creates unnecessary, wasteful friction.

But it is not universally true that GPL-licensed software cannot be
linked to proprietary software: there are a number of caveats in the
GPL covering cases where existing proprietary systems are in use.
Otherwise, you'd never have GPL-licensed software running on
proprietary systems at all.

> But the tone of your last statement and some of your statements below
> make it abundantly clear that you've made up your mind about my morals
> and aren't at all interested in my reasoning.

Not at all. Recently, I've had the misfortune to hear lots of
arguments about how the GPL supposedly restricts stuff like
"collaboration" and "growth" despite copious evidence to the contrary,
usually from people who seem to be making a career of shouting down
the GPL or the FSF at every available occasion. Now I'm not saying
that you have the same apparent motivations as these people, but I
maintain that when someone claims that people are "forced" to share
their work when they voluntarily make use of someone else's work, or
that they are at the peril of some "moral hazard", it does have a lot
to say about their perspective. (Not least because people are only
obliged to make their work available under a GPL-compatible licence so
that people who are using the combined work may redistribute it under
the GPL. You yourself have mentioned elsewhere in this discussion one
well-known software project that is not GPL-licensed but was
effectively distributed under the GPL to most of its users for a
considerable period of time.)

[...]

> > Yes, but what irritates a lot of people is when you see other people
> > arguing that some other random person should license their own
> > software permissively because it's "better" or "more free" when what
> > they really mean is that "I could use it to make a proprietary
> > product".
>
> I'm not telling anybody what to do.  I'm just explaining why I usually
> use the MIT license for things I write, and will often not consider
> using a library licensed under the GPL.  What irritated me enough to
> comment on this thread was the IMHO sanctimonious and inflammatory
> "Unless you place such a low value the freedom of your users".

It is hardly a rare occurrence now that I come across someone who has
written in some corner of the Internet, "It's a shame project XYZ is
GPL-licensed because I can't use it for commercial software
development. Can the project maintainers not choose another licence?"
Sometimes, someone who is seeking licensing advice might not want to
be unpopular and might choose a permissive licence because people
reassure them that their project will only be widely used if the
licence lets people use it "commercially" (or, in other words, in
proprietary software). My impression is that many in the core
community around Python seem to emphasise such popularity over all
other concerns.

What I want to point out, and some have done so much more directly
than I have in other forums and in other discussions, is that some
advice about licensing often stems from a direct motivation amongst
those giving the advice to secure preferential terms for themselves,
and that although such advice may be dressed up as doing the "right"
or "best" thing, those giving the advice stand to gain directly and
even selfishly from having their advice followed. I'm not saying you
have done this, but this is frequently seen in the core Python
community, such that anyone suggesting a copyleft licence is seen as
obstructing or undermining some community dynamic or other, while
those suggesting a permissive licence are somehow doing so "in the
spirit of Python" (to the point where the inappropriate PSF licence
for Python is used for independent projects).

> > Well, if you want the users to enjoy those "four freedoms" then you
> > should use a copyleft licence. If you choose a permissive licence then
> > it more or less means that you don't care about (or have no particular
> > position on the matter of) the users being able to enjoy those
> > privileges. I believe you coined the term "uncaring", but I think Mr
> > Finney's statement stands up to scrutiny.
>
> I personally don't think that RMS's "four freedoms" are the last word
> on the best way for society to develop software, no.  But using
> "Unless you place such a low value the freedom of your users" is truly
> an inflammatory statement, because it was given in a context where the
> GPL had not yet been carefully parsed and discussed, and did not make
> it clear that the "freedoms" being discussed are a particular set of
> "freedoms" and not, for example, those freedoms enshrined in the Bill
> of Rights.  (And as Steven has carefully pointed out, not all freedoms
> are necessarily Good Things.)

I tend not to use the terms "freedom" or "right" except when
mentioning things like the "four freedoms": the word "privilege" is
adequate in communicating what actually is conferred when combining
copyright and software licences. Nevertheless, the "four freedoms" and
"freedom of your users" are still useful notions: if a proprietary
variant of Python became widespread and dominant, although various
parts of the software might be freely available in their original
forms, the ability to reconstruct or change the software would be
impaired and provide fewer opportunities for user involvement than the
primary implementations of Python available today. And should such
proprietary software become mandated by government agencies or become
a de-facto standard, that really does have an effect on the freedom of
users.

Paul