Reader Chemisor advances a theory in his journal that a linguistic misunderstanding is at the root of many disagreements over different licensing philosophies, in particular BSD vs. GPL. The argument is that GPL adherents desire the freedom of their code, while those on the BSD side want freedom for their projects.
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15 years 41 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago
Liberal Free Software is More Free
I like this comment http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/07/08/1832255.shtml
I have concluded some time ago that liberally licensed free software is more free than freedom preserving copyleft licenses like the GNU GPL by the fact that liberal licenses have fewer restrictions than copyleft licenses.
I liken liberally licensed free software to that of the anarchist utopian society; sure there may be maximum freedom for all the residents, but the inherent nature of people means that someone will practise actions that will harm other people. The sociopaths and the aggressors of that society will use their liberty in order to further themselves at the price of other people's liberty.
I liken copyleft licenses (like the GNU GPL) to that of a society governed by rules; laws are established and any resident that has been caught breaking those rules are punished. The rules are established by the will of the society and individuals are punished by members of the same society in order to maintain relative peace and freedom in the society.
The liberally licensed free software is more free and that's fine in many cases. The purpose of the GPL means that while there is less total freedom for the participants, these rules exist to guarantee the essential freedoms to every single participant.
dave
15 years 41 weeks 4 days 16 hours ago
I agree with ModplanMan
This is a great comment... blog entry worthy for sure. Any chance you want to add this as a post?
aboutblank
15 years 41 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago
Better Link
Sorry people. The comment I wanted to show is this one http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=607389&cid=24112111
ModplanMan
15 years 41 weeks 4 days 16 hours ago
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That is the most perfect comment ever *saves*. Personally, I also think that's why, as far as I understand the 2 licenses, the GPL is overall the more important.