Re: [gentoo-dev] XFree86 w/ new license

[Jay Maynard]

<grumble> I promised myself I'd stay the heck out of this one...but I just
can't let Jon's comment slide unrebutted, and so I'll somment on Drake's
message while I'm here.

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 04:33:03PM -0500, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 12:50:34PM -0800, Drake Wyrm wrote:
> > The problem is that the XFree license and the GPL are now
> > incompatible. For smooth progression of overall Linux development, one
> > of these licenses must now change. This does not necessarily imply that
> > the one which changed most recently needs to change back. So much focus
> > has been applied to the "offending" portion of the new XFree license;
> > perhaps we should lend the same critical eye to our beloved GPL. One
> > possible analogy for the situation is that the XFree license demonstrated
> > a bug in the GPL.

I've been arguing for over a decade that the GPL is buggy. Its deliberate
incompatibility with other open source licenses is one symptom of that.

> I think it's perfectly reasonable for a license to insist on people not
> placing further restrictions on the code. This is what prevents people
> from making free software nonfree.

NO!!!

You CANNOT make existing freely available software non-freely-available.
Period. It cannot be done. Copyright laws will not allow it. Regardless of
what anyone does with a piece of code, no matter what license itt's under,
that code cannot be made other than freely available. Non-viral licenses
allow people to make THEIR OWN WORK other than freely available, but this is
exactly as it should be.

> The BSD license approach is not at all intended to keep free software
> free;

Wrong. If this were not the case, we wouldn't have the BSDs today. Sun would
have made them proprietary a long time ago.

> it's intended to let people create proprietary software using free
> software code.

Thus guaranteeing the maximum freedom for everyone. This is the true spirit
of free software, and why I think the FSF has it all wrong - and is being
intellectually dishonest in calling their position "free".

> What you're actually suggesting is reforming the way the entire free
> software community feels about freedom and licensing.

Speak for yourself, pilgrim.

> Have you really thought this through?

More than the frothing Stallmanites have.

> Basically you're stating that it should be acceptable to place
> proprietary restrictions on what was at one point free software.

No, he's not, because you cannot change the restrictions under which a piece
of code is available. You can place additional restrictions on your code,
but the original code is now and forever available under the same terms as
it was when the proprietary fork was taken.

> If people wanted their code to be treated that way, they wouldn't license
> it under the GPL.

Some folks don't have any choice.
Further, there are LOTS of folks out there that hold the same wrong belief
you do, and choose the GPL in light of that error.

> Nobody's forcing anybody to put their code under one
> license or another.

It is the explicit aim of the GPL to have all software, everywhere, under
any conditions, licensed under their anticommercial terms.

> I would not use a license that allows additional restrictions for most of
> what I do; I only license relatively trivial things under BSD-style
> licenses.

That is your prerogative. However, if you base that on the erroneous belief
that someone could take that software and make it no longer freely
available, I suggest you reexamine your position.

> > One solution to the issue would be inclusion in the GPL of one or
> > more optional clauses. Much in the same way that "front cover" and
> > "back cover" texts may be included in a GPLed package, one could use a
> > "GPL+attribution" license. Such a license would be compatible with the
> > new XFree license.

I stroongly doubt this will happen. RMS is so convinced of the holiness of
his True Cause that any concession to the real world is anathema.

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