Re: [Fsfe-uk] Stalls at Marxism 2003

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 22:04, Chris Croughton wrote:
> By the FSF/RMS's definition.  But by my definition of 'free' saying "you
> can't link my library with yours unless you do what I say" isn't free
> either, that's my point.

Sorry, I thought you were making a specific point about the FSF allowing
something they consider non-free - I was concerned with that
misrepresentation, not any more general point.

As for the 'BSD is most free' argument, the freedom in terms of absolute
choice thing has been done to death. I doubt we need rehash it here.
Your freedom to punch, etc., etc. Yes, I guess the definition is
'arbitrary' (I would say relativist). 

> And it makes it "non-free", in the sense of freedom.  If I am not
> allowed to link my code with both a GPL library and an OPL one, that is
> limiting my freedom.

That's a 'feature' of copyright law, not the licences involved per se. A
copyright licence covers derivative works, and it happens that
compositions are derivatives of their components. The licences govern
the components themselves; the idea of compatibility is the idea of
legal consistency of the terms governing the derivative. 

I would say this almost comes down to your expectations of other
people's work though - I'm (personally) not particularly in favour of
mandating particular licences to people. Clearly, I believe people
should release software under a free software licence. I don't believe
any particular licence should be imposed though. So, I pretty much have
to live with what compatibility is available to me. By saying that
someone is reducing my freedom because they have chosen to release their
work under X particular licence is something which I can't agree with,
therefore. For it to be otherwise (i.e, for them not to reduce my
freedom) would entail them not having a choice, or as wide a choice. I
can't see how the creators of things have reduced my freedom; at worst
they have not increased it. But, you may disagree :o)

> And since even looking at the source code and then
> writing a version which does the same can be (and has been) regarded as
> creating a "derivative work", this means that I can't legally even write
> my own version without infringing the FSF's licence if I have used my
> 'freedom' to study their source code.

Again, this isn't a problem of the FSF's making - it's down to the legal
definition of derivative. I would probably agree here, though, that
there is some kind of issue - but then, I think probably the FSF might
agree that copyright is a lot more broad than it ought to be (certainly,
more than it used to be) - copyright has been found to subsist in some
very bizarre places. The FSF cannot do anything about your creating a
derivitive, so the argument is then, given that you're deriving, does
the licence allow you the necessary freedom? Unsurprisingly, you think
not. But, we already established that ;)

> It's supposedly free software, by its own licence it can be sold or
> given away by anyone, and by RMS's own statements the only profit they
> can expect to make from it is by selling their services.  If O'Reilly
> (or anyone else) provides a better service than the FSF (and O'Reilly
> books are a lot more available in the UK than FSF ones as far as I've
> seen) then that's according to RMS's own stated principles.

To be honest, I don't really know all that much about the O'Reilly
situation. However, the works on gnu.org are licensed as they are
licensed. If people were being put off making use of their ability to
make use of those works, I think I would be dismayed. But, I'm not clear
that it is happening - and generally speaking, RMS doesn't get quoted
particularly accurately. I would be genuinely surprised if it was the
case that he was putting people off using that material. If he did ask
O'Reilly not to publish it, I would guess that there would be very good
reasons - and I certainly don't think he would take any action (such as
attempting to change the licensing conditions) even if they did. 

But, as I say, I wouldn't really know about that, now.

Cheers,

Alex.

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