[gentoo-dev] Re: terminal spreadsheet - sc fork

[Duncan]

Ulrich Mueller posted on Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:51:54 +0100 as excerpted:

>>>>>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2014, Luca Barbato wrote:
>
>> - use AGPLv3 + as many exceptions as you like if you want something
>> special, who doesn't agree with them has to stay with the vanilla agpl3
>> with all its forced "freedom".
>
> I disagree. AGPL-3 only makes sense for programs that directly interact
> with users via a web server or similar. Using it for other packages can
> lead to awkward situations. (If you want an example, we're currently
> bitten by Oracle's inappropriate use of AGPL-3 for sys-libs/db:6.0 [1].)
>
> Ulrich
>
> [1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=525110

I think that was the intention.

The suggestion was that if you want a lot of otherwise custom 
restrictions, to avoid license proliferation start with something like 
the AGPLv3+ that's recognized as a standard free license but ends up 
being impractical for many, and then add further liberating exceptions as 
you like.  Because the AGPLv3 is a recognized standard free license even 
if restricted for many in practice, and the exceptions only add 
additional freedoms, anyone who doesn't like them or doesn't want to 
legally review them can take the already well reviewed AGPLv3 only, while 
the exceptions do reduce the normal restrictions of the AGPLv3 in certain 
additional areas, for those who want/need them.

Because the AGPLv3 is already both lawyer reviewed and accepted as a 
standard free license, that'll solve several issues at once, being 
unlikely to have the loopholes or internal conflicts that layman-created 
licenses without sufficient lawyer review often have, being accepted as a 
standard free license, allowing distros to do their distro thing without 
too much additional hassle because it's a license they're familiar with, 
etc.  But at the same time it's restrictive enough that it tends to 
prevent a lot of code sharing, like the custom license alternative it 
replaces, and a license exception can be fashioned to encourage 
distribution of patches as separate tarballs, etc, as necessary.  
Assuming there's a proprietary license available for those wishing to 
purchase it and be freed of the restrictions otherwise imposed by the 
AGPLv3, the choice of AGPLv3 for those not choosing to purchase the 
proprietary license may be seen as appropriate indeed.

And given Oracle's history of deliberate choice of incompatible licenses 
in other areas I strongly suspect the "inappropriate choice" of the AGPLv3 
in this area was deliberate obstructionism as well.  IOW, given Oracle's 
goals, they very likely see the AGPLv3 as an /entirely/ appropriate 
choice for this product, as evidenced by their active enforcement 
activities.  Who care's about the unpaid user?  Certainly Oracle doesn't 
seem too much concerned about inconveniencing them.  They're unpaid and 
thus generate no revenue, after all!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman