Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Dealing with blind hatred for the GPL

[Blaise Alleyne]

On 27/02/16 12:27 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> On 02/27/2016 04:44 AM, Fabio Pesari wrote:
>> Many people (especially in the open source community) hate the GPL more
>> than they hate proprietary software, especially the GPLv3. I never found
>> an approach that works with those people.
>>
>> Mention "freedom" and they'll say the GPL is "restrictive" and "viral".
>>
>> Mention practical advantages and they'll say "corporations don't touch
>> anything GPL".
>>
>> Mention the dangers of proprietary software and they'll say it doesn't
>> matter if the program in question is practically better.
>>
>> Mention existing famous GPL projects and they'll argue that some of them
>> didn't switch to GPLv3 (like Linux and Blender).
>>
>> Actually, mentioning the GPL at all will get you covered with insults
>> and accusations of zealotry.
>>
>> Showing them articles from GNU.org doesn't work, and will only result in
>> ad hominem attacks against their author, Richard Stallman.
>>
>> This reminds me of Two Minutes Hate from 1984.
>>
>> How to reason with those people? They tend to gang up and it's very hard
>> to get your point across when everybody is agreeing with one another on
>> how stupid and brainwashed you are!
>>
> 
> It's pretty simple: if they think proprietary licenses are okay, then
> it's hypocritical to say the GPL is bad. In no sense at all does GPL
> have more restrictions than proprietary. So, you can simply say "this
> GPL software, you would be okay with it just being proprietary, right?
> You don't think that's bad? Well, GPL is just the copyright holder
> choosing to give the General Public extra permissions. You could argue
> that you think they should go to a permissive license, but if you think
> proprietary is okay, you have to accept that GPL is okay too."
> 
> I've never had a conversation with anyone in which they had any retort
> or reply to this at all. Either the conversation becomes productive
> because they accept this (maybe they start talking about how they do
> prefer permissive licenses, but they agree that people have full right
> to use GPL), or they just disappear.
> 

This is such an excellent point. I'm going to try that!