[Discuss] Home NAS redux

[markw at mohawksoft.com (Mark Woodward)]

On 01/07/2013 10:15 AM, Edward Ned Harvey (blu) wrote:
>> From: Mark Woodward [mailto:markw at mohawksoft.com]
>>
>>> I acknowledge and understand that there are pros and cons of both
>>> licenses, philosophically and materially.  I'm not saying one license is better
>>> than another, as a generalization; although in specific cases, each license can
>>> sometimes be better than the other.
>> I don't agree with this. The GPL is the source of a HUGE amount of free
>> code to build on and learn from. It ensures that improvements get added
>> back. Software is a capital investment in time and effort. I'm a
>> capitalist and I take offense to a license that allows someone to take
>> my intellectual property that I have intentionally shared and deny
>> others the benefits I intend. That is theft.
> No problem.  You like GPL because it prevents people from doing something you don't like them to do.  But other developers are sometimes happy to permit such usage.  I'm not saying one license is better than another except in specific situations - but you are.  You've categorized this as "theft" unconditionally.

This is a philosophical point. Is a right to deny others rights ever a 
really a right? In other words, is a freedom to deny other's freedom 
really a "freedom."  I would say no.

>
> Point remains, if you say you don't like CDDL because of restrictions it imposes, and you like GPL instead, that's the opposite of truth, because CDDL is less restrictive.

Let's get this clear, it is not "less restrictive" in the long term 
view. Think of it in terms of a chain. From originator to You, you 
receive the software. Under GPL you can do anything you like with that 
software. ANYTHING. Seriously. Anything. However, the restriction is 
about how you are to treat the software, which you received with 
complete freedom, as you pass it on to the next person in the chain. Do 
you feel that you have the right to deny freedom to a subsequent user? 
Is the freedom to deny freedom really a freedom?


>   Under GPL, if some software is built into a larger derivative work (statically linked), then all the other source code contributing to the larger work must also be GPL.

Yup, to ensure that everyone has at least the same level of freedom that 
you had.
>   Under CDDL, they don't have the same restriction - Some CDDL code can be built into a larger work, without placing a restriction on the licensing of the *other* source code.

That is the paradoxical part, people can take CDDL code and make it less 
free.

>   Under CDDL, only the original CDDL code and its subsequent modifications must be redistributed under CDDL.  But they allow you to statically link with potentially closed-source code, producing a binary that was partially the result of CDDL code and partially the result of other code (potentially closed-source.)

Potentially making it less free. Anyone remember Microsoft's "embrace, 
extend, extinguish" strategy. That's how licenses like CDDL allow less 
freedom.
>
> Some people including myself choose to distribute software using even less restrictive licenses.  I am personally biased in favor of the MIT license.  I write the software, and if somebody else incorporates it into whatever they're doing, they can do whatever the heck they want, even close-source their fork if they want to.  Kudos to them, if they're making closed-source modifications.  I didn't write those modifications, and I don't feel a need to demand access to them.  :-)  Just my opinion, for some of the code that I write and distribute.

But as an MIT or BSD licensor, you allow murky chain of intellectual 
property. People and corporations can take it, lock it up, and you'd 
never know. Maybe that doesn't bother you, but there are a whole lot of 
side considerations to think about. You can't even enforce your 
requirement that the header remains intact because you don't have the 
right to see their modifications of your code.

>
> It's all personal opinion, and there is no absolute right or wrong, which is what you're saying.  But extremist opinions are commonplace - the only thing I object to repeatedly is the incorrect assertion that CDDL is more restrictive than GPL, and using that as the grounds for your extreme position.

As I have said before, when advocating personal freedom and the 
protection of freedom is considered "extreme" and advocating corporate 
rights to raid public intellectual property is practical. There is 
really something wrong.
>