genchu

@[email protected] (sorry, might be paragraph incoming)It is still OSI approved, and it is not true that the gpl was too restrictive despite what ESR might say

let me explain, what most people mean when they say the gpl is restrictive is specifically that it “forces” forks to respect the 4 freedoms

One fallacy here is that most people who object the GPL use words like “force” to describe its’ copyleft and viral effects (not speaking for lesser-GPLs here) even though those are distribution terms, not EULAs for personal usage, so it actually upholds freedom more than it restricts it, this way the average user of whatever fork is also a user of Free Software

That distribution guideline is not an EULA or “force” it is simply an obligation, much like how attribution is treated as an obligation, both terms when put side by side are legally identical treated as obligations as far as I know.

Some developers who favor non-copyleft licenses may say it is more “free” because it lets anyone mix in proprietary software into the project, but if an entity mixes nonfree code with free code what exactly are they exercising? is it power or freedom? (its Power), we’ve seen forks of popular operating systems be used in proprietary environments, think of things like PlayStation operating system! it was made through non-copyleft free software, and today, the average of user of PlayStation is using a nonfree operating system now, same could be said for Darwin Operating System, the OS that the Intel Management Engine runs, etc…

so of course, the GPL felt restrictive to them because it triggers discomfort for businesses to question their ethics, so why not make a marketing initiative instead and strip the ethics out of Free Software to attract businesses? (which is what happened)

@[email protected] you can add additional patches with a different license and that is not the same as relicensing the original work, it is a common mistake to mix the two, and that is not what the MIT license permits, the copy of the MIT license must stay there for attribution

@[email protected] https://opensource.org/blog/public-domain-is-not-open-source#%3A%5C%7E%3Atext=elsewhere.-%2CPublic%2Crespected

This is no different than what I said, additionally, if you dont have the permission or are not the copyright holder for the license, you can not relicense it either way, regardless of if it’s public domain, 0BSD, ISC, etc

@[email protected] can you expand on that? GNU (A/L)GPL version 3 is OSI approved

@[email protected] @[email protected] is that actually true? I’m more so to the side of Free/Libre Software because I disagree with the Open Source Initiative on many things, but from my knowledge public domain software (if provided with the 4 freedoms) should be considered both Free/Libre as well as Open Source?

@[email protected] @[email protected] their point is that commercial restrictions go against both the Free Software Movement and the Open Source Movement as layed out by both of their definitions and it’s harmful for several reasons (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html)

sit with the thought for a moment, what if the GNU operating system or the Linux kernel, etc… had a commercial restriction on them, there would be more complications then, and the physical copies made by other distributions wouldn’t be made, and so on