Licensing in a Post Copyright World

http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2013/7/23/licensing/

by llambda • 13 years ago

129 192 13 years ago

lucumr.pocoo.org

azeemk• 13 years ago

great post.

zeckalpha2• 13 years ago

This is a must read for anyone licensing software.

I wish there would have been a discussion of the ISC license, as I find it even clearer than the MIT/BSD licenses.

jtome2• 13 years ago

I agree about the ISC, that's why OpenBSD, the most free OS (as in you can do whatever you want with a larger percentage of it than any other OS), prefers using the ISC over the BSD license now.

graue4• 13 years ago

The FSF's site[1] points out what looks like a serious problem with this license:

This license does have an unfortunate wording choice: it provides recipients with "Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software…" This is roughly the same language from the license of Pine that the University of Washington later claimed prohibited people from distributing modified versions of the software.

To me, it sounds like "modify and/or distribute" means it should be okay to both modify and then distribute the modified version. But I'm not a lawyer, and if the same language has been used to argue you can't distribute modified versions, that's pretty scary. Enough reason to prefer the slightly longer MIT license.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ISC

desmondrd• 13 years ago

This is awesome.

jdmitch• 13 years ago

Very informative - here is a license comparison tool I've found useful:

http://www.tldrlegal.com/compare

__david__• 13 years ago

One license I think gets overlooked is the Mozilla Public License (MPL). I think it's particularly good for libraries and I've published some of my simple javascript code under it.

The interesting part about it is that it says modifications must be published, but that they are file based and not project or linker based. This omits many of the "onerous" (from the library user's perspective) restrictions of the LGPL, while still keeping the spirit of "this is free software, please give your enhancements to others to make the world better" which is sort of the whole point of GNU.

JoshTriplett3• 13 years ago

Note, though, that older versions of the MPL (before version 2.0) are incompatible with the GPL, so you end up with things like MPL/GPL dual-licensing. MPL 2.0 is OK in that regard, though I still prefer LGPL or GPL.

synchronise12• 13 years ago

You can use someone else's proprietary modules in MPL code to better your program or library, you can't do the same with (L)GPL.

qznc2• 13 years ago

My try of a licence wizard: http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/licences/

Tobu• 13 years ago

Thoughts on LGPL vs MPL vs GPL with linking exception?

qznc2• 13 years ago

I opted for MPL, because it is the most liberal licence that I could find, which is still "copyleft". The spectrum between MPL and GPL (covering LGPL etc) is complex.

pessimizer9• 13 years ago

People that license software under the BSD or MIT license probably would not mind that much if copyrights would be abolished or greatly restricted. Richard Stallman's world on the other hand would would fall apart.

I'm pretty sure that Stallman would love a post-copyright world, unless it led to a world of rented locked down single-purpose appliances run on gifted code - an outcome that MIT/BSD would be totally fine with.

AGPL and GPLv3 was a line in the sand to separate OSI types from people who feel that it is a problem that people are legally and physically alienated from their own tools.

IMO, releasing the source code that operates people's property is equivalent to putting a list of ingredients on a packaged food product.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

IMO, releasing the source code that operates people's property is equivalent to putting a list of ingredients on a packaged food product.

No, it's like putting the secret recipe to Coke on the bottle, or the food science process that makes Rice Crispies so crispy.

pessimizer9• 13 years ago

The GPL doesn't force you to tell people how to build your appliance, it forces you to tell them what's in it. That's not comparable to having to share the manufacturing process of a good, but is comparable to having to share what's in it.

kvb2• 13 years ago

In a post-copyright world, how can you force someone to release their modifications to your code? You couldn't argue that they were violating the terms of your copyright, because there is no copyright (in such a hypothetical world)! The GPL depends on copyright law to provide its teeth.

pessimizer9• 13 years ago

Do we have to rely on copyright to force people to list the ingredients in food?

npongratz• 13 years ago

IMO, releasing the source code that operates people's property is equivalent to putting a list of ingredients on a packaged food product.

pessimizer, I really like your metaphor, and I expect that using it is an easy way to introduce the subject to non-techies/non-law-geeks. Thank you!

As I reflected on your metaphor, my first thought was that releasing source code is actually more closely similar to releasing the ingredients as well as the recipe for the packaged food. But my thinking is probably not always correct: An author can release their source code that operates on my property (the ingredients), but they have no obligation to release the process to build/compile said source code (the recipe). (Hopefully I'm correct, I'm certainly open to constructive criticism).

That said, I truly appreciate it when developers offer easy-to-follow build instructions. However, for me at least, releasing the source almost always meets my needs for sufficient disclosure.

pessimizer9• 13 years ago

they have no obligation to release the process to build/compile said source code (the recipe)

I was typing the same thing at the same time:)

drv• 13 years ago

IANAL, but by my reading, the GPL does include build scripts as part of the source code, e.g. from GPLv3:

"all the source code needed to generate [...] the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities"

Presumably this includes things like Makefiles.

tjaerv5• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that Stallman would love a post-copyright world...

See http://rudd-o.com/monopolies-of-the-mind/thoughts-after-my-d...:

"Richard is against abolishing copyrights because, to his view, without copyright, enforcing copyleft would be impossible."

pessimizer9• 13 years ago

...unless it led to a world of rented locked down single-purpose appliances run on gifted code...

There would have to be some other enforcement mechanism to prevent this for Stallman to be happy. He may not think that's possible, but I'm sure he would be happy to be proved wrong.

I think that a post-copyright regime could easily require code exposure for computers that are sold to consumers - that's far less radical than a post-copyright world would have already been in order to abolish the stuff.

reedlaw• 13 years ago

I see copyleft as a kind of parody on copyright. The name itself is a play on words. Its goal, respecting freedom, is an admirable one. Copyright's goal on the other hand is not very admirable. Copyright exists to enforce an artificial monopoly on ideas, the primary incentive of which is to protect the financial interests of creators. The impetus behind copyright is not all bad--after all, the laborer is worthy of his wages. But it has the nasty side effect of making creators over-protective of their work. If creators were fairly compensated for the value they provide they might not feel such a need for copyright protection. That's why I hope things like gittip and Kickstarter become more and more mainstream.

Copylefting a project says to the world that we value freedom more than compensation. It's the right message but depends on the wrong "logic" of copyright. Ideally, we would all reward companies that value freedom above profits, thus ensuring that freedom is profitable. But for now, copyleft exists as a strong-arm tactic against the over-protection of information. In the sense that copyleft utilizes copyright law to enforce freedom, it's hard to say whether GPL or other open source licenses have a greater respect for freedom.

the_mitsuhiko2• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that Stallman would love a post-copyright world, unless it led to a world of rented locked down single-purpose appliances run on gifted code - an outcome that MIT/BSD would be totally fine with.

He would not. Abolishing copyright does not imply that people are required to release their sourcecode.

MikeTaylor• 13 years ago

This post is in most respects excellent, but it suffers from a fundamental problem. It starts from the assumption that the goal of free software is to be as widely used as possible, and that anything that prevents this is therefore Bad. But widest possible use was never the goal of the Free Software Foundation. They have always been about freedom first and software second, and Stallman has many times stated that he'd rather a program be used less if it results in more freedom, than vice versa.

So the goal of the various restrictions imposed by the GPL (in either of the main versions) is to increase freedom. We can usefully have a debate about how well they achieve that goal, and whether the increase in freedom is worth what has to be spent in order to achieve it. But if we do that, let's do it from a position of first having understood why the GPL says the things it does.

I saw this summed up an admirably concise way some years ago, but stupidly forgot to note whose soundbite this is: "Saying that the GPL is less free because it forbids proprietary derivatives is like saying the USA is less free because it forbids slavery". Yes, of course it's hyperbole to hold up freedom of software alongside the freedom of people; but this quote shows by example that more freedom doesn't always get achieved by less regulation but by more.

baddox5• 13 years ago

They have always been about freedom first and software second, and Stallman has many times stated that he'd rather a program be used less if it results in more freedom, than vice versa.

I think I disagree with your interpretation, but I think my disagreement hinges on a semantic disagreement about the word "freedom." To me, the GPL is a legal limitation on freedom. It prohibits certain use cases, like distributing that software without its source code. To me, a piece of software is "more free" if its source code is available, but people are still able to do literally anything they want with the source code, including distributing binaries without providing access to the source code. I think the point of the GPL is to utilize the copyright system to ensure access to source code for everyone, not to simply increase freedom.

The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave. So unless we're talking about increasing freedom for source code (which is a strange notion, since most source code is not conscious) rather than increasing freedom for people, my disagreement still applies. The reason forbidding slavery is not generally considered a decrease in freedom is that both slave owners and slaves are people.

spacelizard21• 13 years ago

The GPL does not limit freedom, it only limits power. Distributing a binary to a user while denying them the source code, while not strictly a malicious act, is an attack on the user's freedom because it puts the user at a position where the author hold power over him/her. The author allows himself/herself to freely study and modify the program in its preferred format (the source code), but he/she has intentionally made it impossible for the user to do this. Copyleft is about authors willingly removing the powers granted to them by copyright and "redistributing" them so that all users are granted freedom.

It's worth noting that the GPL does not say you have to give out source code all the time, you just have to give it out when people ask for it, and you have to make the offer to give it out clear. So the actual issue that you believe is "a limitation on freedom" is the lack of the ability to say no when someone asks for the source code, despite that they have already been distributed a binary. However, there are no practical reasons to do this that don't involve intentionally keeping secrets from people, or intentionally making studying and modification of the program difficult.

drcube• 13 years ago

I think the point of the GPL is to utilize the copyright system to ensure access to source code for everyone, not to simply increase freedom.

According to many, including the FSF, GNU, Stallman and myself, increasing access to the source code for everyone is increasing freedom. In fact, it's freedom number 1. "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms_%28software%29#D...

The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave.

No, it's about freedom for people in both cases. The lack of source code would be analogous to the chains of slavery. Not equivalent, mind you, but analogous. A software user is less free when he or she cannot inspect or modify the software that runs on their machine.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

The goal of the GPL is to protect the freedom of users of software. The freedom it restricts is not generally relevant to those just trying to use the software, only to those who want to pass on changes in ways that restrict the freedom of their users.

mcguire3• 13 years ago

"To me, a piece of software is "more free" if its source code is available, but people are still able to do literally anything they want with the source code, including distributing binaries without providing access to the source code."

Yes, because AIX is more free, because Solaris is more free, because Irix and HP-UX and a small plethora of other operating systems are more free.

That whole "more free" idea? It's not theory. It's history. It didn't work.

That "legal limitation on freedom" came about for a specific reason: because software released under things like the BSD license that were "more free" were taken, modified, and made proprietary. All of those operating systems essentially started as BSD Unix; the last time I saw any of the AIX source code, it had BSD copyright notices all over it. (Including on parts that clearly weren't BSD, like the journaled file system. Weird.)

That works fine, if you are a member of Berkeley's CSRG and thus the best programmer in the world. Those people touching your can't improve it; the best they can do is tarnish your brilliance. I am not the best programmer in the world, so I'm not terribly impressed with your interpretation.

shizzy0• 13 years ago

The slavery quip doesn't really make sense, because in that analogy the source code is the slave.

Wrong. Your users who don't have the same power to make changes as you do are the slaves in the analogy, not the source code.

I sum it up thusly: BSD is about freedom for the developers; GPL is about freedom for the users. I work professionally as a software developer, but I use far more software than I develop.

zanny2• 13 years ago

This is why I try to license my personal stuff gpl or agpl still. At the end of the day, I don't want people using it or modifying it that don't release the source, even if it is less used as a result.

The article brings up two camps - gpl vs mit / bsd, and while I use the gpl now on the precedent that the copyright situation is so bad it needs some counter-pressure wherever I can place it, I hope in the long term the outcome is the abolition of copyright entirely. But I put stuff under GPL now because the ultra-restrictive copyrights on proprietary software and their license terms harm creativity so much using the system to force freedom is better than ignoring the problem entirely. To me, at least.

The goal of the GPL is user freedom, in an age when the copyright holder / developer (not always the same person) holds all the cards.

tjaerv5• 13 years ago

The real counterweight is to release your code into the public domain, opting out of the copyright industry's game altogether. See http://unlicense.org/

japhyr2• 13 years ago

I just started a project that allows teachers, educators, and interested parties to create, maintain, and fork education standards. Basically, bring long-standing software development concepts to education.

After a brief discussion on irc yesterday I went with the AGPL. I want to encourage collaboration, but I don't want some ed tech startup with vc funding to use this code. I did put a note in the readme that if anyone has a good reason to want an MIT license, I'd be open to reconsidering the license. But I can't see a good reason at this point.

null_ptr• 13 years ago

"What if it will become illegal to sell consumer devices without signature checks for all software running on it."

Well that would be a tragedy. As if computing isn't moving towards closed systems fast enough. I really hope general-purpose computing devices will not become something only found in museums. Few movements in humanity's history were as revolutionary.

er0k• 13 years ago

This is why I use the WTFPL (DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE) http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/copying/

LeafStorm2• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure suing you if it causes damage counts as "what the f--k they want to."

droithomme3• 13 years ago

Can you post a list of all lawsuits filed against WTFPL licensed software?

droithomme3• 13 years ago

I use the WTFPL too since it is the most free license and easiest license to understand. It also deals with the non-issue - but common complaint - that "public domain" does not exist in some backwoods third world jurisdictions.

I also use the zlib license which is very similar to WTFPL. It has restrictions against misrepresentation of origin, which in practice only affects plagiarists, so isn't a substantial limitation. An advantage of the zlib license over the WTFPL is that it can be used in "professional corporate" environments where suits have a hissy fit if they see the letters "WTF" in a license, saying that any use of that term is in some way immoral, while conveniently ignoring the fact that they personally are secretly cheating on their spouse, engaging in insider trading, embezzling, looking at donkey porn, and drowning kittens in their spare time at their palatial estate.

http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib_license.html

These two licenses are the ones that preserve actual freedom, unlike certain others that propaganda artists often apply the word "freedom" to, using a definition that exists only in their own imagination and is not consistent with the commonly accepted understanding of the word. These licenses are also comprehensible and far less ambiguous than certain other licenses as well. The zlib and WTFPL licenses are good and useful licenses that are worth consideration by any developers looking to license their code in a way that maintains as much freedom as possible.

egh• 13 years ago

If you want to misunderstand licensing, this article is here to help.

To pick out just one of the many errors of fact and interpretation: linux has historically been GPL v2 only; this decision was not made after the release of GPL v3.

It's great that his "generation sees copyrights [as] a concept that should be much more restricted and have a smaller lifetime": I'm glad that he's so surrounded by the FOSS that makes this possible. But this possibility came about because of the work of free software advocates and developers. Reveling in your ignorance and disinterest really isn't going helping.

And if you think that it's a problem that Apple and the FSF (among others!) are clashing on issues like restricted bootloaders, tivoization, etc. -- well, I don't really know what to say. There's a reason that Apple and advocates like the FSF are on different sides here. I know which side I'm on: do you?

nkurz4• 13 years ago

There's a reason that Apple and advocates like the FSF are on different sides here. I know which side I'm on: do you?

In the US the Democrats and Republicans clash on many issues. There are reasons for this as well, which have mostly to do with self-interest. Does this mean that I have to choose one of them, even if my interests align with neither? Might there be a better choice beyond those two?

I'm pretty certain I'm not on either side.

mcguire3• 13 years ago

Not making a choice is still a choice.

stormbrew2• 13 years ago

An interesting thing, to me, about the GPL is that it's possible for companies to use it as an anti-competitive weapon against each other. A company who owns or has been assigned the copyright to an entire codebase is able to hold the exclusive right to profit from hidden modifications of it. Oracle is in this position right now with mysql, for example. GNU itself, were it so inclined (though it obviously isn't), would be as well.

This becomes even more significant when talking about the AGPL and its limitations on using it as a service. 10gen is the only company that could run a proprietary uber-version of MongoDB, and that right persists effectively forever.

When it comes to more open licenses like BSD no one holds this as an exclusive right.

zanny2• 13 years ago

I think if the FSF could get away with a clause akin to "once licensed under the GPL, this software can not be licensed under any other license for distribution, and it's license can not be changed by the copyright holder".

But that wouldn't fly. Ever. At the end of the day, the copyright holder still gets to change their license whenever they want, and the license itself can't deny that, because it would never hold up in court.

icebraining9• 13 years ago

It wouldn't fly, because to the copyright holder, the license simply doesn't apply. At all. You only need a license if you're restricted by copyright law from doing what you're doing, but copyright law doesn't restrict the holder themselves.

spacelizard21• 13 years ago

Arguably that problem is worse with permissively licensed software. In that case you don't just have the original copyright holder peddling a proprietary uber-version, you have every company and his dog doing it and every version is expensive and/or incompatible with each other.

stormbrew2• 13 years ago

I don't see how it can be considered worse. I could see even, but not worse. Does it matter if it's one or ten organizations that are taking advantage of the ability to make proprietary software out of open source code? At least with ten there might actually be competition.

But realistically, it's not like permissive licenses are a new thing and this apocalypse doesn't seem to be a very common occurrence in practice.

nkurz4• 13 years ago

This is a wonderful article, and a great summary of the current open-source software licensing issues, but I feel uneasy about the apparent conclusion. After dozens of paragraphs about the intricacies and uncertainties of licensing, it seems to suggest that if instead of asking people to choose from a drop-down list of licenses, things would be greatly improved if they were given a 10 minute overview before being forced to choose.

Any overview, even if vetted by vast teams of international copyright lawyers, can only brush the surface of the issues. At best, you could end up with a list of reasons to eliminate certain licenses based on your personal goals, with the wordings chosen by the ideologies of the lawyers involved. Would this be any better than GitHub deciding internally which license(s) they want to promote, and putting these at the top of the list?

I think we should start to seriously consider simplifying our software licensing environment

This I can agree with. Having seen the amount of time wasted by open-source projects on licensing issues, copyright worries, and patent fears (and the resulting reinvention of the wheel) I think simplification is the way to go. Personally, I don't think this simplification can be achieved by piling more layers of abstraction on top of copyright and contracts.

Most books and papers seem to get along alright without licenses. I'd love to see "fair use" defined more broadly, but I don't think that adding additional licensing would be an improvement. Most electronic parts can be used as building blocks for whatever project you want without worrying whether one part will "contaminate" the others or "infect" the project. Music is licensed more frequently, but I don't think amateur musicians would benefit if they had to agree to terms of service before attending a concert.

Please tell me again why we want every project on GitHub to choose and stick to a license? And who is this "we", and what do "we" stand to gain?

spacelizard21• 13 years ago

Yes, the morass of software licensing sucks. But unfortunately another side effect of that is that not choosing a license or making uninformed decisions about licensing creates situations that end up with users becoming extremely susceptible to copyright trolling. It is true though that the solution is obviously to ease up on some of the powers granted by copyrights.

nkurz4• 13 years ago

situations that end up with users becoming extremely susceptible to copyright trolling

I worry the trolling is largely extra-legal, and that the actual terms of the license matter little. Currently, anyone can create an account on GitHub and without proof-of-positive-ID can apply any license to any code they choose to upload. Whether they have the right to issue this license is unknown to the user other than by direct due diligence.

Consider: I take a small function out of a piece of proprietary or GPL code, and without permission put it into a library which I publish on GitHub. You use it in your successful commercial venture. Is your legal exposure different depending on whether I chose "BSD" from the drop-down or left it unlicensed? Is my liability different? What about GitHub's?

Does there exist a software equivalent of real-estate title insurance? I like the SQLite approach to this: http://www.hwaci.com/cgi-bin/license-step1

tjaerv5• 13 years ago

Yes, the conclusion feels like a letdown. With the title of his post ("post copyright") you might think he'd have something to say about releasing code into the public domain, yet there's no mention at all of this. How is licensing your code under the copyright monopoly supposed to be "post copyright"?

The introduction at http://unlicense.org seems spot on for the topic of the blog post:

  Why use the Unlicense? Because you have more important things to do
  than enriching lawyers or imposing petty restrictions on users of your
  code. How often have you passed up on utilizing and contributing to a
  great software library just because its open source license was not  
  compatible with your own preferred flavor of open source? How many   
  precious hours of your life have you spent deliberating how to license
  your software or worrying about licensing compatibility with other   
  software? You will never get those hours back, but here's your chance 
  to start cutting your losses. Life's too short, let's get back to
  coding.

the_mitsuhiko2• 13 years ago

you might think he'd have something to say about releasing code into the public domain

Author of the post here. I'm Austrian - the whole concept of public domain does not even exist in my legislation. I cannot legally waive copyright currently. The closest to putting code into the public domain is probably something like the WTFPL but I am perfectly fine with my stuff having a few more restrictions through the MIT/BSD to avoid license confusion.

How is licensing your code under the copyright monopoly supposed to be "post copyright"?

It is not. However there is a certain trend ongoing that people wish the whole copyright system would be reformed and that would have more impact on Copyleft licenses than MIT/BSD.

Aside from all of that I don't want to make license decisions for other people. :-)

jtome2• 13 years ago

Did anyone notice the line:

What if it will become illegal to sell consumer devices without signature checks for all software running on it.

I find it pretty weird that he's complaining that any country foolish enough to enact such a draconian law would also criminalize all gplv3 software. I personally think the gplv3 would be wonderful in this case since it would create a high cost for enacting such an evil law.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

Most people are ignoring licenses, because most developers think they have won.

There is a generation of developers for whom software freedom is in the bones.

Why bother putting a license on code, or releasing code under compatible licenses -its all free and open.

This attitude may seem naive - but i see it as wondrous - any attempts to put the genie back in the box will not be met by court cases led by Lessig, but simple mass global disobedience - software is free when everyone simply thinks it is free.

icebraining9• 13 years ago

Most developers think software is free for them to use, while completely proprietary if anyone tries to use theirs.

It's not software freedom in their bones, it's self-interest running in their veins.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

Well logically that still means everyone thinks all software is free. :-)

Excellent metaphor aikido there though.

mcguire3• 13 years ago

...unless you make money using software, in which case you can be disobedient all you want, from the cardboard box in which you live.

gillianseed21• 13 years ago

I don't know the original study in detail, but given my time on github I see a ton of 'projects' which are just small scraps of test code, heck even dot files.

I can certainly see why people don't bother putting a licence on these types of 'projects'.

However on all projects I've come across which are actually something substantial there has been a licence declared, so I'm wondering if this 'lack of licencing' is a 'real' problem or if it's just the result of github becoming a convenient dumping ground/backup for tons of small snippets/settings etc which used to just sit on people's harddrives.

binarycrusader• 13 years ago

  Sun liked the whole concept of not being compatible with GPL...

This old chestnut again? I'm assuming this is based on Danese Cooper's comments. Well, Danese was wrong:

  She is speaking this way because she lost an argument
  inside Sun, not because her view is representative of the
  views of Sun or its staff in the way she claims. She,
  along with many actual engineers, was an advocate of
  using GPL or OpenSolaris but the need to release rather
  than wait for one of {GPL v3, Mozilla license revision,
  encumbrance removal} meant that this was not possible. I
  am still furious with her for the statement she made at
  DebConf, which was spiteful and an obstacle to a united
  FOSS movement.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110716130648/http://www.opensol...

drewcrawford• 13 years ago

This is a great article.

One thing I would add to this is that nobody really knows what licenses like the GPL actually do. Jacob Kaplan-Moss published a fantastic piece called "20 questions about the GPL"[0] , and my attempts to clarify a few of them with the FSF and SFLC have so far revealed that not even two developer advocate organizations can agree on even fundamentally basic concepts about the most popular license, so isn't that a problem?

The reason that I contribute to the "projects on GitHub with no license" problem is that I cannot find a license that unambiguously does what I want, after spending many, many weekends on the problem. I could write one, or get my lawyer to, but license proliferation is grounds for expulsion from the cool kids club. Since I have no good options, I take no action.

Fundamentally, I believe we need a new license steward that isn't afraid to update regularly to address 1990s questions like dynamic linking and optional dependencies, and 2010s questions like app stores. Something like Creative Commons for code, where you have some options to choose from.

[0] http://jacobian.org/writing/gpl-questions/

tjaerv5• 13 years ago

Creative Commons for code would be CC0: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27081

yk• 13 years ago

The post ignores, why there are so many different FOSS licenses, the thing is people have interests and sometimes these interests are not compatible. So there is a place for MIT licenses, namely if you want as much adoption as possible, and there is a place for copy left licenses, if you want to protect the associated rights of copyleft. This is probably most visible in the “anti-tivoization” section, which concludes

     The license restrictions of the AppStore, Google's Play Store
     and similar distribution systems and the GPLv3 are just not 
     compatible.

The reason for this is Apple, Google and others have their interests, namely controlling a platform and enforcing whichever restrictions are mandated by their interests.[1] On the other hand, the GPL[v3] tries to protect the freedom to tinker for the owner of the device, the ability not only to see the source code, but also to modify and run it. So the absence of GPLv3 licensed software on iOS is actually proof, that the license is working as intended.

[1] Some examples of these interests are: Enforcement of DRM, trying to create a 'more secure' environment, having a consistent UX, etc.

danbmil99• 13 years ago

Great article. My favorite example of these Talmudic complexities is opensim (opensimulator.org), an MIT-licensed Second Life-compatible server that has a twisted, Black Widow-like relationship with Linden's GPL-licensed client code. Before 2011, there was a nutty "6 month cool-off period" before any SL client contributor could contribute to Opensim: http://justincc.org/blog/2011/06/30/announcing-the-overte-fo...

Licensing in a Post Copyright World

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