Picking a license
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From: Steven D'Aprano on 8 May 2010 15:38 On Sat, 08 May 2010 10:14:18 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote: > 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". Finely parsed semantics with a meaningless difference when applied to what I said in the context of comparing GPL vs. more permissive licenses. > 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. What? That's crazy talk. You think Linksys and Cisco don't have people capable of reading licences? What sort of two-bit organisation do you think they are? They have lawyers, they have people whose job it is to make sure that they don't infringe other people's copyright. They wouldn't use software copyrighted by Microsoft without making sure they were legally licenced. One can only wonder why they thought they didn't need to treat the GPL with an equal amount of respect. Since you raised the analogy of a restaurant giving away freebies, if a restaurant stuck a sign on the door saying "Free softdrink with every burger", and some Cisco engineer walked in the door and started loading up a trolley with cans of drink from the fridge ("they're free, right?"), would you argue that this was the restaurant's fault for creating a moral hazard? I don't think you understand what a moral hazard is. Under no circumstances is it a moral hazard to say "If you do X, I will do Y" -- in this case, "If you obey these restrictions on redistribution, I'll licence this copyrighted work to you". Perhaps you should check the definition before arguing further that the GPL imposes a moral hazard on anyone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard > 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. No, you don't *owe* them anything, but this brings us back to Ben's original post. If you care about the freedoms of Cisco's customers as much as you care about the freedoms of Cisco, then that's a good reason to grant those customers the same rights as you granted Cisco. And let's not forget self-interest -- if you care about *your own freedoms*, then it is in your own self-interest to encourage others to use open licences rather than closed ones. The MIT licence merely encourages openness by example, while the GPL makes it a legal requirement. Which brings us back full circle to Ben's position, which you took exception to. If the global freedoms granted by the GPL are sufficiently important to you, then you should use the GPL. If you have other factors which are more important, then choose another licence. Why you considered this controversial enough to require sarcastic comments about the untrustworthiness of Guido and the PSF, I don't know. -- Steven
From: Patrick Maupin on 8 May 2010 16:05 On May 8, 2:38 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st...(a)REMOVE-THIS- cybersource.com.au> wrote: <most of the discussion about moral hazard snipped> > I don't think you understand what a moral hazard is. Under no > circumstances is it a moral hazard to say "If you do X, I will do Y" -- > in this case, "If you obey these restrictions on redistribution, I'll > licence this copyrighted work to you". Perhaps you should check the > definition before arguing further that the GPL imposes a moral hazard on > anyone: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard Well, definition is a tricky thing. Note that the wikipedia article is disputed. One definition of moral hazard is "The tendency of a person or entity that is imperfectly monitored to engage in undesirable behavior." Under this definition, Linksys apparently thought that the imperfect monitoring would let it get away with GPL violations. Certainly, even if Linksys as a corporation wasn't trying to get away with anything, their employees were improperly monitored, and getting a product out was more important than any potential copyright violation at the time (which shows there was a moral hazard their employees took advantage of under either the definition I gave or the wikipedia definition.) There are probably other companies (or employees of those companies) getting away with GPL violations right now -- certainly the risk of discovery if you just use a small portion of GPL code and don't distribute your source must be very small. There are certainly fewer companies getting away with MIT license violations, simply because the license is so much harder to violate. > > 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. > > No, you don't *owe* them anything, but this brings us back to Ben's > original post. If you care about the freedoms of Cisco's customers as > much as you care about the freedoms of Cisco, then that's a good reason > to grant those customers the same rights as you granted Cisco. But I *do* grant them the same rights -- they can come to my site and download my software!!! > And let's not forget self-interest -- if you care about *your own > freedoms*, then it is in your own self-interest to encourage others to > use open licences rather than closed ones. The MIT licence merely > encourages openness by example, while the GPL makes it a legal > requirement. But I *do* care about my own freedom. I thought I made that crystal clear. If I produce something under the MIT license, it's because I want to give it away with no strings. If I produce something under the GPL (that's not merely a small addendum to a preexisting project), it's probably going to be because I think it's pretty valuable stuff, maybe even valuable enough I might be able to make some money with it. If I'm going to use any prebuilt components, those *can't* be licensed under the GPL if I want to deliver the final package under the MIT license. Even if I'm using the GPL for my valuable software, my monetization options are more limited if I use a third party component that is licensed under the GPL, because I now don't have the viable option of dual-licensing. So, that gets back to my argument about what I like to see in a package I use, and how I license things according to what I would like see. For me, the golden rule dictates that when I give a gift of software, I release it under a permissive license. I realize that others see this differently. > Which brings us back full circle to Ben's position, which you took > exception to. If the global freedoms granted by the GPL are sufficiently > important to you, then you should use the GPL. If you have other factors > which are more important, then choose another licence. Why you considered > this controversial enough to require sarcastic comments about the > untrustworthiness of Guido and the PSF, I don't know. To me, the clear implication of the blanket statement that you have to use the GPL if you care at all about users is that anybody who doesn't use the GPL is uncaring. I think that's a silly attitude, and will always use any tool at hand, including sarcasm, to point out when other people try to impose their own narrow sense of morality on others by painting what I perceive to be perfectly normal, moral, decent, and legal behavior as somehow detrimental to the well-being of the species (honestly -- ebola???) Regards, Pat
From: Carl Banks on 8 May 2010 19:39 On May 6, 4:56 pm, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...(a)benfinney.id.au> wrote: > a...(a)pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes: > > In article <4BE05D75.7030...(a)msn.com>, > > Rouslan Korneychuk <rousl...(a)msn.com> wrote: > > > >The only question I have now is what about licensing? Is that > > >something I need to worry about? Should I go with LGPL, MIT, or > > >something else? > > > Which license you use depends partly on your political philosophy. > > Yes. > > Unless you place such a low value the freedom of your users that you'd > allow proprietary derivatives of your work to remove the freedoms you've > taken care to grant, then you should choose a copyleft license like the > GPL. GPL is about fighting a holy war against commercial software. People who esteem their users give them freedom to use software however they see fit, including combining it with proprietary software. Carl Banks
From: Aahz on 8 May 2010 20:36 In article <e2467908-621e-4ed4-a549-48160ad649a3(a)b7g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>, Carl Banks <pavlovevidence(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >GPL is about fighting a holy war against commercial software. And really, that's a Good Thing. We wouldn't have Python, to some extent, were it not for Stallman and his crusade. That doesn't mean we should slavishly worship him, though. -- Aahz (aahz(a)pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx prgrmmng.
From: Ben Finney on 8 May 2010 21:41
Patrick Maupin <pmaupin(a)gmail.com> writes: > On May 8, 2:38 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st...(a)REMOVE-THIS- > cybersource.com.au> wrote: > > Which brings us back full circle to Ben's position, which you took > > exception to. […] > To me, the clear implication of the blanket statement that you have to > use the GPL if you care at all about users is that anybody who doesn't > use the GPL is uncaring. I think that's a silly attitude […] Fortunately, neither that silly blanket statement nor its implication are represented in any of my messages in this thread. I hope that helps. -- \ “I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now that I should | `\ have been more specific.” —Jane Wagner, via Lily Tomlin | _o__) | Ben Finney |