[Discuss] OSS licenses (was Home NAS redux)

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On 01/09/2013 11:43 AM, Rich Pieri wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 05:21:09 -0500
> John Abreau <abreauj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Under democracy, citizens are prohibited from seizing power by force
>> and imposing a military dictatorship on their fellow citizens. Under
>> anarchy, citizens are not so prohibited.
> This nation was founded by citizens seizing power by force of arms.
>
>> The equivalent CDDL-type argument would be that anarchy is "more free"
>> because you're not prohibited from taking away everyone else's
>> freedom.
> The CDDL is not anarchy. It is a free software license. A more apt
> analogy would be to compare the GPL to public domain.
>
>> It strikes me as absurd to claim that a system that fails to protect
>> freedom is somehow "more free".
> Freedom is the state of being without restrictions. When comparing two
> licenses, the one that imposes the fewer restrictions on licensees is
> the more free of the two. The GPL places more restrictions on licensees
> than the CDDL does, therefore the GPL is less free than the CDDL.
>
> To turn it around: compelled freedom is not freedom.
>
Basically, contributing to the public domain is anarchy. You write code,
you announce that it is in the public domain, so by doing so, you are
giving anyone the right to do anything with that code. Open Source
licenses provide some rights to the creator in terms of copyright and
what others can do with the code. Each of these licenses have different
goals. One of the goals of the CDDL was that it be GPL-incompatible.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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