Having a licence which really means the software is free is an important piece of legal spectrum. From that position it is possible to adapt the code to match the GPLv3 or to recognise that you want a product to be a mixed code product. LGPL or GPL2.

My understanding is that the mixed products will not ensure your stack has safe technologies at each level. Projects which interface with or comprise DRM technologies can be licensed to make felons of people who make technologies which interface with them.

My understanding of the position the developers have taken is that the kernel does include binary closed format material but that it will be a big task to undo that.

In my opinion this does not mean we do not need GPLv3 it means we need it to flag what is honestly free for investment and safe development.

Other projects, both proprietary, closed and open source which involve joins between two different DRM owners or between a DRM owner and another model do need to use a licence which indicates that there is a mixed issue which needs to be negotiated with care in order to ensure we have no future SCO-alike stunts.

The community is not all where you suggest it is on this issue.
Really free is important. It may be a journey not a simple step.

“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.'”E.M.Forster

Similarly, today people might think they dealt in an open source movement at some time prior to 1998, but I don’t see the references indicating that it was called “open source” or that people espoused the values that movement promotes today. The OSI began as a reaction to Netscape making available its browser software, the idea being that other businesses might also be willing to do something similar to what Netscape had done. They chose to pursue this by eschewing a user’s freedoms and advocating a developmental methodology instead.

So in the absence of evidence contradicting the OSI’s claim, I’m compelled to conclude that it is revisionist history to say that there was an open source movement before the OSI began in 1998.

That unethical coercion can be undone by the government, public disobedience, or an ethical choice by each artist.

There are of course many who wish to retain this coercion, and the ideal strategy is to confuse the people with double-speak into thinking the coercion rightfully grants the artist the gift of liberty, or that those who would take this gift away are the ones exerting the coercion.

“Abolish slavery?! What gives you the right to dissolve my property? Such a choice is mine, and mine alone!”

Take it easy man. Let’s not start a war over this. Just do the right thing eh?

Information is already instantaneously diffused. People are already emancipated. All that remains is the task of breaking this fact to people as gently as possible.

No artist today can actually control what anyone else does with their published work. All we’re left with are people who haven’t quite grasped that fact yet.

The GPL is a mind game. It only has power against those that still believe in copyright, i.e. those who believe in the proprietary software development business model.

“Freedom is a fundamental value.“

Yes.

“It’s not obtained by coercing people,“

Of course not.

“but by them freely choosing to agree with the principles and accepting that some won’t choose to agree“

Yes.

“but still releasing the code because that is the right thing to do to maximise the value to humanity.“

Perfect.

Now the question is, if one wants to – in your words – “maximise the value to humanity” (not, “maximise the number of options people have”), then what license – given the fact that proprietary copyright licensing is the current reality and that the public domain can be appropriated – is best for such a goal?

The GPL is the best thing I’ve seen so far and meshes perfectly with what you have said above. I’m not understanding your argument James.

James, do you want software to be licensed in a way that maximizes the value to humanity or gives people more choices? And if you say they are the same thing, then please…explain yourself.

Ideally there would be some trusted body to which copyright of one’s work could be transferred on the basis that the work would be published using the GPL – and only the GPL.

As you say, it is currently an individual’s choice as to whether they accept the privilege conferred upon them by copyright or patents to curtail the freedom of their fellow men, or whether they divest themselves of it entirely, and use the GPL as a tool of manumission.

That is the ethical choice.

One can of course ignore the ethical choice and select one or more ready made licenses simply for commercial expedience, or even ‘because it seemed like a good idea at the time’.

Seth, so you have PostgreSQL which uses BSD (mostly) and is free for anyone to use and you have MySQL which is GPL and charges commercial developers who want to use it without disclosing their source code. PostgreSQL business models have all failed and/or been based on (temporarily?) proprietary software. MySQL gets the GPL users to test it then bundles it up and sells it as proprietary software. Yet you claim it’s the open source license which is the business model? You need to look a little further, I think. The restrictions the GPL imposes on developers make it a powerful tool for driving a business model, one MySQL exploits very well, to its credit and that of others who similarly exploit the restrictions the GPL imposes to create their business model. This GPL-based business model does nothing for “freedom” of the end users.

How do you plan to force such companies, whose business model relies on the restrictions imposed on developers, to deliver the freedom for end users that the “free” software movement is supposed to stand for? The GPL isn’t a tool for freedom here, it’s an enabler of non-free business models.

Perhaps you’ll duck, compromise freedom for business interests, and ignore the whole picture and claim that the GPL version is “free” so the whole picture doesn’t matter?

Your slavery comparison is pretty good, IMO. The open source model would let you sell yourself into slavery. The “free” model would require that you also sell your descendants into slavery, whether they like it or not, though you would have the choice to have no descendants.

Freedom is a fundamental value. It’s not obtained by coercing people, but by them freely choosing to agree with the principles and accepting that some won’t choose to agree but still releasing the code because that is the right thing to do to maximise the value to humanity.

I agree that there is a conflict. The “free” software movement is fundamentally wrong in choosing coercion rather than cooperation and freedom. For all the best of reasons, honestly trying to do what is right, but still wrong in the method used. Better the open source model of people freely working together and sharing tools and such because they want to.

The disputes over the new GPL version are just the normal troubles of a centrally governed communist-style freedom approach, when those at the edge don’t all agree with what the leaders are trying to impose. After the arguments, most will probably go along because it’s easier and less risky than revolution and real freedom. I don’t expect much in the way of revolution.

No part of this should be taken as personal criticism of RMS or the other leaders of the “free” software movement, who I honestly believe really are trying to do the right thing. I almost always oppose what they oppose. But also the method used to oppose it.

Views expressed here are not necessarily those of my employer or anyone else.

In particular, the core of the debate is here: “Or whether he evolves these licenses to support the communities they have enabled.”

As has been said above, the Free Software community which has been enabled is being supported. It is not the same as the Open Source community.

Free Software is a moral viewpoint. Open Source is a business model.

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME!

Moreover, it touches on a deep division – is freedom a value in itself, or just when it is good for business?
I know, there is intense pressure to say these are not in conflict, to defend against the red-baiting and strawman attacks from monopolists.

But … but … there is a deep philosophical problem that won’t go away – to wit, what happens *when* freedom conflicts with business?

It doesn’t happen as much as the monopolists claim. These aren’t intrinsic enemies. But they are not the same either – what about the freedom to sell yourself into slavery? And that’s what Free Software addresses – it wants to promote maximal overall freedom as a good, and in any conflict, what’s good for business must yield. Open Source is about a particular business model, and will compromise freedom *if* necessary.

It’s really not helpful to accuse people of being control freaks on the basis of by definition not agreeing with an opponent, which is what the critique boils down to at heart.

The compromise is in fact in favor of other principles, many of which are opposed to the idea of freedom.

James Day: It seems inaccurate to suggest that RMS inspired the open source software movement when he was himself inspired by open source but didn’t like the lack of restrictions it imposed on developers. Seems like putting the cart before the horse. He did perhaps inspire the OSF, but that’s just a recent development.

This is historically incorrect. The principles of software sharing predate Free Software, which is a reform movement, but the term “Open Source” was made up some years after the term “Free Software” because a group of software consultants were worried that their corporate customers wouldn’t like Freedom. Ironically this has scared off the biggest IT gravy train, the military, who love Freedom but aren’t all that keen on openness.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060925204515114

Stallman has already listened to the community, Moglen has responded at length, and GPL3 beta 2 has changed the most contentious sections quite markedly. This is accommodating wide sections of the community, including Torvalds if he’d actually listen for just a moment.

Free Software is not a “gift economy” or a better way of making software for other people to sell, it is a set of freedoms for users of software. The challenges to those freedoms have evolved, and so the GPL must evolve to face them. The principle to guide the guardians of Free Software is that they should do the right thing. Stallman is. All of the changes are accounted for, and the fact that the Linux Kernel developers are as confused about DRM as Debian-Legal are (hint: it’s law, not technology) doesn’t give much weight to their argument.

The FDL revision is not ideal in itself (to put it mildly) but the SFDL is brilliant and Wikipedia or any other work with no immutable sections can be moved to it with no problem. I’m dreading the Wiki license. 😉 I have already added my criticisms and comments to the web site. I’ll be very interested to see what CC make of the licenses, and hope (in a revision of my earlier position based on the problems solved by the new license) that BY-SA/SFDL compatibility is possible soon.