Picking a license
in [Python]
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From: Patrick Maupin on 8 May 2010 02:40 On May 7, 6:44 pm, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...(a)benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Patrick Maupin <pmau...(a)gmail.com> writes: > > On May 7, 5:33 pm, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...(a)benfinney.id.au> wrote: > > > Since no-one is forcing anyone to take any of the actions permitted > > > in the license, and since those actions would not otherwise be > > > permitted under copyright law, it's both false and misleading to > > > refer to them as forced. > > > Again, the force is applied once you choose to do a particular thing > > with the software > > And again, that would be the case with or without the specific free > software license But the OP wasn't asking whether he should supply a license or not (the absence of a license would presumably force everybody who wanted to use the software to download a copy from an authorized site, and not allow them to make copies for friends); he was asking *which* license he should use, and he explicitly mentioned MIT and LGPL. In the post you directly responded to, Aahz had responded to the OP with a suggested license of "MIT". So, in the context of the original question and original answer, the comparison is permissive vs. (L)GPL, *not* (L)GPL vs. no license at all. > so it's false and misleading to say the license forces > anything. I have already adequately covered what I believe Aahz meant by "forced" and I think it's a reasonable term for the discussed situation. Personally, I believe that if anything is false and misleading, it is the attempt to try to completely change the discussion from MIT vs. GPL to GPL vs. no license (and thus very few rights for the software users), after first trying to imply that people who distribute software under permissive licenses (that give the user *more* rights than the GPL) are somehow creating a some sort of moral hazard that might adversely affect their users, and then refusing to have any further discussion on that particular issue. So which is it? GPL good because a user can do more with the software than if he had no license, or MIT bad because a user can do more with the software than if it were licensed under GPL? > The actions that are prohibited are prohibited by copyright > law, not by the license. Yes, just like the taking of food from the restaurant is prohibited by laws against theft, and in both cases, these prohibitions may be backed up by the force of the government. But as discussed, this does not mean that the restaurant or software author cannot give you something for free if they desire to. > I think we're done here. Certainly appears that neither of us is going to convince the other of anything. Regards, Pat
From: Steven D'Aprano on 8 May 2010 04:37 On Fri, 07 May 2010 23:40:22 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote: > Personally, I believe that if anything is false and misleading, it is > the attempt to try to completely change the discussion from MIT vs. GPL > to GPL vs. no license (and thus very few rights for the software users), > after first trying to imply that people who distribute software under > permissive licenses (that give the user *more* rights than the GPL) are > somehow creating a some sort of moral hazard that might adversely affect > their users If encouraging third parties to take open source code and lock it up behind proprietary, closed licences *isn't* a moral hazard, then I don't know what one is. For the record, I've published software under an MIT licence because I judged the cost of the moral hazard introduced by encouraging freeloaders to be less than the benefits of having a more permissive licence that encourages freeloading and therefore attracts more users. For other software, I might judge that the cost/benefit ratio falls in a different place, and hence choose the GPL. > So which is it? GPL good because a user can do more with the software > than if he had no license, or MIT bad because a user can do more with > the software than if it were licensed under GPL? Good or bad isn't just a matter of which gives you more freedoms, they're also a matter of *what* freedoms they give. Weaponized ebola would allow you to kill hundreds of millions of people in a matter of a few weeks, but it takes a very special sort of mind to consider that the freedom to bring about the extinction of the human race a "good". I consider the freedom granted by the MIT licence for my users to take my source code and lock it up behind restrictive licences (and therefore *not* grant equivalent freedoms to their users in turn) to be a bad, not a good. But in some cases it is a cost worth paying, primarily because not all people who use MIT-licenced software go on to re-publish it under a restrictive licence, but nevertheless won't consider the GPL (possibly due to misunderstandings, confusion or political interference). -- Steven
From: Martin P. Hellwig on 8 May 2010 05:33 On 05/08/10 09:37, Steven D'Aprano wrote: <cut> > If encouraging third parties to take open source code and lock it up > behind proprietary, closed licences *isn't* a moral hazard, then I don't > know what one is. <cut> I fail to see what is morally wrong with it. When I ,as the author, share my work to the public, I should have made peace with the fact that I, for all intends and purposes, lost control over its use. And that is rightfully so; who am I to say: "Yeah you can use it but only once in a blue moon when Jupiter aligns with Mars and a solar eclipse reaches its high on Greenwich at noon exactly." But just for argument sake say that you can put restrictions on the use, who is going to enforce these restrictions? The author/Police/special interest groups? Anyway I usually put stuff under the MIT/BSD license, but when I can I use the beerware license (http://people.freebsd.org/~phk/) and I fully agree with PHK's reasoning. -- mph
From: Aahz on 8 May 2010 10:26 In article <4be522ac$0$27798$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, Steven D'Aprano <steve(a)REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote: > >For the record, I've published software under an MIT licence because I >judged the cost of the moral hazard introduced by encouraging freeloaders >to be less than the benefits of having a more permissive licence that >encourages freeloading and therefore attracts more users. For other >software, I might judge that the cost/benefit ratio falls in a different >place, and hence choose the GPL. Well, yes, which is more-or-less what I posted in the first place. -- Aahz (aahz(a)pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx prgrmmng.
From: Patrick Maupin on 8 May 2010 13:14
On May 8, 3:37 am, Steven D'Aprano <st...(a)REMOVE-THIS- cybersource.com.au> wrote: > On Fri, 07 May 2010 23:40:22 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote: > > Personally, I believe that if anything is false and misleading, it is > > the attempt to try to completely change the discussion from MIT vs. GPL > > to GPL vs. no license (and thus very few rights for the software users), > > after first trying to imply that people who distribute software under > > permissive licenses (that give the user *more* rights than the GPL) are > > somehow creating a some sort of moral hazard that might adversely affect > > their users > > If encouraging third parties to take open source code and lock it up > behind proprietary, closed licences *isn't* a moral hazard, then I don't > know what one is. For a start, there is a difference between "encouraging" and "allowing". But in point of fact, you have it exactly backwards. Putting the code out there and making it a tort to republish it under a closed license creates a moral hazard -- a trap that many companies including Linksys/Cisco have fallen into. If I expect nothing in return, if it's a gift, then the likelihood of moral hazard is significantly reduced. Unless you are somehow suggesting that I owe my user's customers anything (which suggestion, btw, is frequently made in veiled terms, and always pisses me off), there is no other moral hazard produced by me choosing a permissive license for my code. > > So which is it? GPL good because a user can do more with the software > > than if he had no license, or MIT bad because a user can do more with > > the software than if it were licensed under GPL? > > Good or bad isn't just a matter of which gives you more freedoms, they're > also a matter of *what* freedoms they give. Weaponized ebola would allow > you to kill hundreds of millions of people in a matter of a few weeks, > but it takes a very special sort of mind to consider that the freedom to > bring about the extinction of the human race a "good". You're missing the context where Mr. Finney keeps changing what he's arguing about. I agree completely that different licenses are valid for different expectations, and said as much in my first post on this subject. But it's extremely silly to compare weaponized ebola to publishing free software, unless you want to give ammunition to those amoral profiteers who claim that it is so dangerous for hackers to give out source code at all that doing so should be criminalized. > I consider the freedom granted by the MIT licence for my users to take my > source code and lock it up behind restrictive licences (and therefore > *not* grant equivalent freedoms to their users in turn) to be a bad, not > a good. But in some cases it is a cost worth paying, primarily because > not all people who use MIT-licenced software go on to re-publish it under > a restrictive licence, but nevertheless won't consider the GPL (possibly > due to misunderstandings, confusion or political interference). "Political interference" is certainly the main reason that I won't use the GPL, but it is probably not the same politics you are thinking of. When I seriously consider investing in learning a piece of software so that I can make it part of my "toolbox," a major consideration is how well it plays with the other tools in my toolbox, and exactly which construction jobs I can use it on. RMS has managed to create a scenario where the GPL not only doesn't play nicely with some other licenses, but now doesn't even always play nicely with itself -- some people who liked GPL v2 but weren't willing to cede control of their future licensing terms to the FSF now have GPL v2 code that can't be linked to GPL v3 code. So, when a package is GPL licensed, for me it can create more contemplation about whether the package is worth dealing with or not. If the package is large, well-maintained, and standalone, and I'm just planning on being a user, the fact that it's GPL-licensed is not at all a negative. If I'm looking at two roughly equivalent programming toolkits, I will take the BSD/MIT one any day, because I know that when I learn it, I "own" it to the extent that I can use it on anything I want in any fashion in the future. Regards, Pat |