Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Proposal for "FUD responses" wiki pages

[Aaron Wolf]

I haven't seen anyone bring up one of the most important and compelling
GPL argument.

Let me first clarify the foundations. You don't worry about what the
person you're talking to has as their concerns, you talk about why they
GPL serves the concerns of the people who use the GPL, and the frame
their concerns honorably and not selfishly.

Keep these factors in mind:

GPL-FUD person is, in this case, not the dogmatic anarchist BSD person
but is an apologist for proprietary software, keep that in mind.

GPL-FUD person is apologist for corporate or proprietary power if they
promote the quality of proprietary software, games or otherwise.

GPL-FUD person is self-centered if they are focused on their own desire
to use GPL software in proprietary software whether for themselves or as
employee of proprietary developer.

So, this GPL-FUD person projects their apologetics and selfishness onto
others. If they see makers of GPL software as selfish as well, they are
annoyed at them but they relate. They may focus on the ways that
companies abuse the GPL in order to push proprietary licensing (like the
MySQL approach). They otherwise think that GPL software developers are
wanting to get code back because the developer selfishly wants all the
code contributions to flow back upstream.

So, here's the argument:

"The GPL isn't an upstream license. It doesn't actually require anyone
to ever share code back upstream. Although in practice the GPL *can*
help get code back upstream, which is why some people like Linus
Torvalds like the GPL, the primary mechanism of the GPL is *downstream*.
The developers [whether that's you or someone else] using GPL aren't
doing it to serve their own selfish interests. They are saying, 'I wrote
this software, and I give it to you under these free terms on the
condition that you will pass on the freedoms to others.' People who use
the GPL don't want just software to exist, they want it to be under free
terms for others, and they use the GPL to assure that people downstream
have freedom. It's not written for the benefit of upstream developers
but for the benefit of downstream users."

The point of this argument is that most developers who have to accept
this have to realize that the GPL isn't *meant* to serve *their*
interests. Thus, if they complain about that fact, it's not only
something we already know, it's just them being selfish. And we're
showing that the developers who use GPL aren't being selfish but are
being honorable and caring for others.

It boils down to: "using the GPL comes from the motivation of doing the
right thing for other people".

Now, if a developer replies by saying "I don't care about downstream
freedom, the GPL is in my way" then it's easy to say "well, you're just
being selfish". Most people won't even admit to being selfish when they
are confronted with unselfish people. If they admit to their own
selfishness, they will try to find ways to insist that everyone else
must actually be just as selfish somehow. That gets into a different
argument.

In most cases, the response to this "GPL is a downstream license"
argument is that it actually serves the downstream people *better* to
let them get the more advanced but proprietary software or that the end
users won't appreciate or care about their freedoms from GPL. We should
accept that *that* argument has enough merit to not just be FUD, and
thus we then need to engage in reasoned discussion about that claim. We
can share real (ideally not hypothetical) stories of how GPL freedoms
*does* matter to downstream folks, especially if they are not
programmers, because that shows the importance. One story of mine about
how I used Encore music notation software, the company went out of
business, software got outdated and incompatible, and I lost my tools
despite tons of people loving the software and wanting it to continue,
and today with MuseScore being GPL, I don't have to worry about it
disappearing because some company screws up. The community can always
pick it up and continue anyway.

We should accept that the argument "GPL software won't actually compete,
so it serves end-users better to just do whatever to help software be
better regardless of freedoms" is itself not just FUD but a reasonable
position that we can't just dismiss easily. In my case, I get to say,
"that's a good point, there may be some truth there. It's not always
that case, but that's a real concern. This unfortunate trade-off is a
huge problem, which is why I'm working on Snowdrift.coop to try to solve
this dilemma." And that almost always gets people on board because
nobody can say they are opposed to end users having freedom *and* great
quality software made by adequately paid developers.

In the end, as long as the critics accept that GPL is a *downstream*
license and the motivation of those who use the GPL is to pass on
freedoms downstream, then the entire discussion has to be about *that*
motivation and whether GPL is effective at serving it or whether that
motivation matters etc. and the whole discussion becomes the ones we
want to have. In my experience the *majority* of GPL-FUD spreaders see
the GPL as a relatively upstream license in terms of it being of concern
to developers of upstream software, and their entire concerns just die
once we say "yeah, but the GPL isn't being used to serve *your*
interests especially". Basically it's someone saying "waaah, the GPL is
annoying to me as a proprietary software developer" getting an answer of
"we didn't use GPL to help proprietary software developers".

So, with this approach, we end the GPL / copyleft focus and the
arguments then become about free software vs non-free broadly, and
that's a further different argument to deal with.