[Discuss] OSS licenses (was Home NAS redux)

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 11:29:40AM -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
> >>It strikes me as absurd to claim that a system that fails to protect
> >>freedom is somehow "more free".

There's an assumption here that is wrong.  The job of a software
license is to protect the rights of the copyright holder while
granting privileges to their business associates.  It is NOT to
protect the freedoms of the software's users.  If you distribute
software under BSD-style license, you're explicitly stating that you
don't mind if people take your software and make it non-free.

This does not harm the freedom of the original software in any way,
and the author of the new software should have the freedom to choose
whether to make his software free or not, so long as the upstream
doesn't prevent him from doing so. 

> >I think you're hinting that CDDL fails to protect freedom.  Please
> >elaborate, but begin by reading the CDDL.
> 
> The problem with the CDDL is that it allows you to combine CDDL
> licensed software with non-CDDL licensed software to create a
> "larger work" which is not CDDL where only the CDDL portions are
> protected. 

This is not a problem.  As the copyright holder, I have the right to
make my software non-free.  And that remains true even if I've used
someone else's software as the basis of my own, SO LONG AS THEY GAVE
ME PERMISSION TO DO SO.

> This will do nothing to prevent the MIT kerberos problem.

Neither would the GPL, for reasons I already gave you.

> The freedom to deny freedom is NOT a freedom. 

Yes it is.  It's the freedom to control your work product, which an
author ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE.

> By combining the FREE software with NON-FREE software you can create
> NON-FREE software.  This does not protect FREE software.

Why should it?  The copyright holder doesn't want it free.  The
original author doesn't care if derivative works are free.  What right
do YOU have to INSIST that it be free?  Why, none at all, in fact.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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