Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Dealing with blind hatred for the GPL

[Paul M]

On Sat, 2016-02-27 at 12:19 -0800, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> > 
> > Practice Rapaport's Rules here and everywhere:
> > 
> > “First, you must attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so
> > clearly, vividly, and fairly that your opponent says, ‘Thanks, I wish
> > I’d thought of putting it that way.’ Then, you should list any points of
> > agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread
> > agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned from
> > your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of
> > rebuttal or criticism.”
> > 
> 
> To clarify about Rapaport's Rules I just quoted, this approach is orders
> of magnitude more persuasive and damning than others. Showing how much
> you understand someone even better than they understand themselves and
> then respectfully showing where they are wrong, this is the most
> devastating critique you can make.


I have heard a similar argument, which I like a lot,  that you aren't
arguing sincerely unless you can describe the circumstances in which
your opponents argument would convince you to change your mind.

Along these lines I think it might be persuasive to also gives examples
of when we think another license might be better a choice than the GPL
because it better serves the end of protecting user freedoms (which
would counter arguments about zealotry etc).

We have already seen the example here about licensing template files,
where the FSF recommendation is to use a permissive license
(https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WMS).

Another I can think of is the example implementation of a (truly) open
standard. Here I think a GPL compatible permissive license, CC0 etc
would be the best choice as it allows the greatest number of different
implementations. This could help protect users freedoms as it encourages
widespread adoption of the standard while guaranteeing interoperability
and allowing decentralization and the ability to run the software
yourself  etc (making certain assumptions about the contents of the
standard).

We have seen examples, in this regard, of large corporations deciding to
open source parts of their proprietary software in order to try to
preempt open standards that they did not control.

For example a GPL compatible permissively licensed implementation of an
OpenId alternative that addressed some of its perceived problems and was
also decentralized and guaranteed interoperability might be preferable
to F******k  deciding to release the sign-on mechanism  under the GPL as
a "standard". The latter would be likely be heavily tied to their
implementation of other services which are not GPL'd, likely very
difficult, if not impossible to actually install and run yourself and
could be useless if you did without a well specified way to point to
your own server. It would also cede control of the "standard" to their
control in a way that would allow them to freely change the
implementation that meant other attempts to implement it are constantly
out of sync and not in a position to persuade people to do otherwise
since they did not have the great mass of existing users etc.

Note, this is largely a strategic argument (in a way that the use of the
LGPL can be).

Paul M.