Picking a license

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 12 May 2010 22:16:29 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote:

> On May 12, 10:48 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l... at geek-
> central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>> In message <mailman.121.1273693278.32709.python-l... at python.org>, Ed
>> Keith wrote:
>>
>> > ... but to claim that putting more restrictions on someone give them
>> > more freedom is pure Orwellian double speak.
>>
>> What about the freedom to take away other people’s freedom?
> 
> The freedom to take away other people's freedom is a very serious power
> that should only be used sparingly.
> 
>> What tuple of speak would that be?
> 
> Well, if my friend has a slow internet connection, so I give him a Linux
> CD which lets him get out of Windows hell (me taking advantage of RMS's
> "freedom 2", and my friend taking advantage of RMS's "freedom 0"), and I
> don't give my friend all the source code (or a written offer) because,
> frankly, he wouldn't know what to do with the source anyway, and it
> doesn't fit on the CD, and I didn't even bother downloading the source,
> at that point I would apparently be in violation of the GPL license on
> hundreds of programs, because I would be violating what the FSF calls
> "freedom 1". 

If you used an existing Linux distribution, then the offer to provide 
source code will already be there.

If you compiled the CD yourself, and failed to provide a written offer on 
the CD, then yes absolutely you would be in violation of the licence 
terms, and shame on you.

The GPL doesn't require you to force source code on those who don't want 
it, but it does require you to make it available if they ask, and for you 
to notify them appropriately of this fact. You don't even have to 
explicitly tell your friend he can have the source code. You just have to 
make sure that the written offer is available on the disk you give him.


> Now I know none of us would ever violate the license like this, but if,
> hypothetically speaking, I had made such a CD for my friend, and then
> someone came along and explained to me that, by helping wean my friend
> from MS Windows in this fashion, I had taken away his freedom
> (specifically RMS's "freedom 1"), I would probably conclude that the
> person making this accusation was a moron


Well, yes, you probably would draw that conclusion. Doesn't mean that you 
are right to do so, because quite frankly you would have taken away your 
friend's freedom (albeit in a very small fashion). Access to the source 
code is a freedom that the GPLed software on the disk *explicitly* grants 
to your friend, and by failing to pass the offer on, you have taken away 
that freedom in a very real sense.

We are talking about a small technical violation of the licence terms 
here, but imagine if everyone did it, if Red Hat and Debian and Ubuntu 
etc didn't bother passing on the source code (or a written offer). Only a 
tiny proportion of people would discover by their own efforts that the 
source code was available, and only a proportion of them would learn 
where it was available from. The result in practical terms would be a 
major decrease in the number of people granted the freedom to modify the 
source code, and a correspondingly larger decrease in the number of 
people both free and able to modify the source code.

It's not enough to be granted freedom to modify source code in theory, if 
you know about it, if you can find some hard-to-locate website which may 
or may not be running. The practicalities are equally important. In 
theoretical terms, everyone has the freedom to legally modify and 
distribute the source code to Microsoft Windows. All you have to do is 
buy 51% of the stock so as to become majority shareholder, then make 
sufficient changes to the board of directors so that the new board grants 
you a licence to do so, then fight off the lawsuits from the rest of the 
shareholders. Anyone could do it! Not.

Another, more practical example: here in Australia our government is hell-
bent on introducing an ineffective and expensive Internet censorship 
scheme. It seems that under Australian law, it will be completely legal 
to circumvent the filter, but our government is investigating ways to 
make it illegal to tell anyone how to circumvent it. In other words, 
Australians will have permission to circumvent the nanny filter, but 
since few people will know this, or know how to do so, it will be a 
meaningless freedom.

The GPL concerns itself with the *practical* freedom to gain access to 
source code, not merely the theoretical freedom represented by permission 
without opportunity. Failure to pass on the offer to provide source code 
impacts that freedom in a very real sense.

If you can't understand this, you have the freedom to think I'm a moron, 
and I have the freedom to be sure you are one too *wink*



-- 
Steven