Re: The sad decline of copyleft software licenses? :(

[Jean Louis]

* Marinus Savoritias <marinus.savoritias@disroot.org> [2020-09-22 20:18]:
> 
> 
> On 9/22/20 6:32 PM, Jean Louis wrote:
> > * Marinus Savoritias <marinus.savoritias@disroot.org> [2020-09-22 18:42]:
> > > I was actually have been thinking about it a lot lately. Because as you 
> > > said
> > > the copyleft licenses are in decline and for me it feels increasingly 
> > > like I
> > > am one against many.
> > > 
> > > As to your first question the arguments I mainly hear are two:
> > > 
> > > 1. The minority says that GPL requires you to keep the same license if you
> > > fork. That isn't heard much from my side. And I wouldn't count it that 
> > > much.
> > > Since the people that usually say it want to close source stuff or that 
> > > GPL
> > > is communistic. Yes this people exist sadly.
> > 
> > We are varieties of people, and not each of humans is capable to read,
> > or read and understand the licesne, or read and understand the legal
> > terms, implications and consequences of a license. It is simply not in
> > capacity of each person to understand. It is also not a real purpose
> > of the license for everybody to understands it, what matters is that
> > they share the software, modify and enjoy it.
> > 
> > Those programmers who cannot understand legalities should rather get
> > third party opinions and advices.
> 
> It's not clear what you are trying to say here. Can you rephrase
> please?

Not everybody is capable of programming, and not every programmer is
capable of understanding legalities of licenses. Legalities are mostly
interpreted and many times wrongly interpreted.

If you find specific case for this subject here:

> > > 1. The minority says that GPL requires you to keep the same license if you
> > > fork. That isn't heard much from my side. And I wouldn't count it that 
> > > much.
> > > Since the people that usually say it want to close source stuff or that 
> > > GPL
> > > is communistic. Yes this people exist sadly.

Then present the case to proper person, authorized and capable of
understanding your specific case.

> > > 2. The second criticism that I usually hear is much more serious to me. 
> > > The
> > > say that I can't easily link GPL to anything else unless I check the
> > > license. And even then I end up changing the license of something else. 
> > > Even
> > > if they don't want it.
> > 
> > Be practical, when you have other specific need to link software, why
> > not just ask for opinion from FSF licensing or other person who can
> > help you like Eben Moglen, so when you have legal issue, ask legal
> > people to help you, don't assume that average programmer knows
> > legalities.
> 
> If you imply that it is not true. Here is a link from wikipedia saying the
> same thing:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Reception

On that link I do not see nothing new, GPL is not compatible with
proprietary apple stuff, yes, that is well known, and I am wondering
why is that a problem. I see nothing to worry there.

> Also:
> https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/issues/2381#issuecomment-158745140

I do not see a problem, and probably we are not part in that
discussion, people are free to use free software licenses as they
wish. I know those discussions since 20+ years. 

> > Purpose of copyleft is not to enforce licensing terms, but to have
> > people enjoy free software. So if average African sells me GNU/Linux
> > distribution, there is no way that I can ask from such seller not even
> > a receipt, as they simply may not have a receipt, unspoken of asking
> > to provide me a source code by request or to respect the GNU GPL in
> > full. What matters is sharing, not enforcing. I do not feel abused if
> > they cannot give me source code, and if I would be interested, they
> > would probably try to find it for me.
> 
> What you are talking about seems to be MIT then. But for now we need at
> least GPL if you ask me. Maybe even more.

I am talking about freedom, in the world with freedom, there would be
no licenses, that is why and how GPL began, as we do not have freedom,
GPL is there to use same legal limitations to ensure of freedom in
future.

In East Africa or many other parts of the world, no license is
respected, so there is simply practical freedom, so, you will be able
to distribute and modify, patch, proprietary software as well as free
software, but do not expect that free software will be respected in
such areas, that is practice. Find your source code yourself. You
cannot enforce laws in many countries, especially not something seen
as ridiculous as licenses for software. Radio, TV, are copying media
as well and cannot be attacked by US or European copyright holders,
and so is same for software, it can be copied, distributed, do what
you wish. That is freedom in practice, it may become less and less in
those countries, but currently it is so.

When I arrived to Germany in 1993, I was used to freely sharing
software in Yugoslavia, we purchased proprietary or free software from
software dealers which were not authorized, all software was patched
or cracked that games and applications can be played, nobody bothered,
movies were freely copied, yet in Germany in the same time, there were
licensing issues, one could get serious legal problems for copying the
software.

Such areas are still on this planet, there is freedom in certain
countries beyond proprietary and free licenses. 

Jean