Re: Copyright question

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Marc Balmer <marc@msys.ch> writes:

> Am 14.08.11 22:51, schrieb Lars Doelle:
>> On Sunday, August 14, 2011, marbux wrote:
>>> It might still be permissible to integrate your work with a closed
>>> source program if your work is shipped as one or more separate files,
>>> depending on how the closed source program interacts with your work.
>>> The FSF has a detailed FAQ that in part deals with such issues.
>>> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html>
>> 
>> marbux,
>> 
>> thanks for the hint. I do think licensing is not to limit but to maximize
>> the use of a software. Thus mixing licenses for different parts is as
>> much a matter of design as mixing different languages in one project.
>> It is also a matter of getting clear about the use cases. To some degree
>> i'm very much at the beginning here. To summarize, choosing Lua as a
>> base was a good decision, both from a technical point of view as for
>> its very aware communitity.
>
> Choosing GPL over a MIT/BSD style license mean limiting the use of a
> software.  Think of it.  There is a reason why many smart people choose
> an MIT/BSD/ISC style license over the GPL.

Choosing a proprietary license over a free license puts an end for free
derivatives at any branch of development.  The payoff point of the GPL
consists of those cases where a free license would not be considered
without compulsion, but is not a "bad enough" detriment to stop adoption
altogether.

You may want to claim that it is mere stupidity that GNU/Linux took the
world by storm while BSD just trailed in its wake.  But that is the
point of copyleft.  If the world did not prefer to act stupid given the
choice, Richard Stallman would not have been motivated to create the GPL
in the first place, removing the "prisoner's dilemma" from corporate
contributions to free software.

The GPL takes away choice.  But it in a corporate setting, the "choice"
that is taken away is often not optional: maximizing shareholder value
_requires_ a company _not_ to voluntarily yield anything which could be
withheld as a company asset.

The GPL and the BSD license models draw their line between idealism and
coercion differently.  Trying to model this as a matter of the licensor
being smart or not is reaching too short.

"I don't want the contributions of people who don't want to contribute"
would be a reason to prefer BSD style licenses, and given the high
dependence of maintainability from motivation, this also is a worthwhile
consideration.

However, sometimes a level playing field is all that is needed for
_motivated_ contributions.  A "prisoner's dilemma" is, after all, not a
failure of the prisoner, but of the system.  It is about people
_wanting_ to cooperate, but not seeing a way of _justifying_
cooperation.  The GPL closes a door.

-- 
David Kastrup