Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-20T02:14:18Z

On Jun 19, 2007, "Josh Williams" <yurimxpxman.lkml@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/18/07, Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:
>> Free Software is not about freedom of choice. That's an OSI slogan
>> for "if you like, you can shoot your own foot, regardless of whether
>> the shrapnel hurts people around you".
>> http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/139#1

> When it comes right down to it, the FSF is all about freedom, just
> as long as it benefits them.

How is "ensuring users have their freedoms respected" beneficial to
the FSF, specifically? I can see how that's good for users (and FSF
users software), how that's good for thriving Free Software
development communities (in some of which the FSF participates),
but it looks like you're aiming at more than that. Can you be more
specific about the benefits the FSF collects out of this

>> Free Software is about respect for the four freedoms.

> Yes, there *are* four freedoms, and they are very good. However,
> what happens when we have *only* these four freedoms? The FSF would
> do anything within their power to impose their "religious" beliefs
> upon the entire world, regardless of what's really good for us.

Freedom is good for you, such that you can choose.

> If we don't have the freedom of choice,

You do. That's a consequence of the four freedoms.

Without them, you end up without choice.

It's not a core freedom for the FSF precisely because freedom of
choice can be used to do common good as much as it can to hurt your
neighbor. The four freedoms are all freedoms with which you can help
yourself or your neighbor, never hurt anyone. You can choose not to
help yourself or your neighbor, and then the world is no better off,
but if you choose to help yourself or your neighbor, there's progress.

Now, freedom of choice can be used against the common good. Choosing
to shoot your own feet, on grounds that freedom of choice says you
can, could still hurt your neighbors with the shrapnel. That's why
freedom of choice is regarded as a secondary freedom. Which is not to
say that it's undesirable, just that it's not fundamentally conducive
of the common good. It is conducive of common good, as it turns out,
in as much as it is a consequence of the other four freedoms.

> Each person must be free to make *his*own* decisions of what's best
> for him,

As long as this doesn't hurt society.

> If the FSF insists on defining freedom for us

It doesn't. It only defines what Free Software means.

Do you by any chance have a problem that OSI defines what "Open Source
Software" means, even though it doesn't mean software whose sources
are open?

Why would you have a problem that the FSF defines what Free Software
means, then?

If there were other definitions of Free Software out there, it might
make sense to qualify them, but there aren't, and coming up with
one now that meant something different would be quite confusing.

> Yes, I understand and appreciate the problems with proprietary software, but
> that's not the _only_ issue that needs dealt with in this world.

Sure. I don't think anyone could disagree with this.

It just so happens that the Free Software Foundation is a foundation
with a registered mission to work on this particular cause. Whether
it's a good cause or not, whether it's the most important cause of all
or not, can sure be debated among those who'd like to debate it (I
don't :-)

But if RMS, myself and so many others decided to devote our lives to
this cause, and a lot of people agree it's good for society, many
agree it's a good cause, even if not everyone likes our methods, who's
to tell us we ought to work on some other cause? (FWIW, even if
someone asked me, told me or insisted that I do it, I wouldn't go
"ooh, they're *forcing* me to work on some other cause!", that would
be silly :-)

>> It was OSI that tried to create a definition that matched exactly
>> the meaning of the Free Software definition under "more objective
>> criteria". We already know they failed, since the Reciprocal
>> Public License is accepted as an OSS license, but it's a non-Free
>> Software license. There may be other examples.

> How could an open source license not being a free software license be
> considered a failure?

Err, see above. It didn't achieve the stated goal.

It's indeed difficult to define freedom.

> Pardon me for saying so, but I don't think the OSS developers really
> give a crap whether their software is considered to be "free" as
> long as their goals are met.

http://www.opensource.org/node/130

>> That said, since a number of people already understand the GPLv2
>> prohibits tivoization, your argument means that either the comment in
>> the OSD is wrong, and GPLv2 already fails to match the OSD, or that
>> GPLv3 complies with it in just the same way.

> *what*?? That's the first I've heard of this. Nonsense.

Ask Alan Cox, for example, he got legal advice about this. Maybe
Harald Welte shares the same opinion, certainly backed by good legal
advice.

That said, maybe it couldn't be upheld in a US court.

This was covered in great detail early in this thread.

> If that were true, we wouldn't be having this debate, am I correct?

It feels nonsensical indeed, doesn't it? :-(

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}