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

[Marinus Savoritias]

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?

> > 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

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

The second one is about the supertuxkart. There are also more examples.
The wikipedia one has also one interview with Stallman that says the 
same thing.

> > 1. Is FSF and GNU as a whole happy with the current situation? We
> > technically have more Free Software than ever. But the Copyleft and user
> > abuse is as high as it has ever been.
>
> I am from Europe, now in East Africa, I can tell you that all movies,
> music, software is freely distributed, including sold on street, and I
> am gladly purchasing movies duplicated on DVDs, and all kinds of
> softwar is just copied onto computers like any type of proprietary or
> GNU/Linux distributions are distributed without taking care of any
> license, and any consequences of any enforcements, so by principle
> that is type of society I would like to be in, I would not like that I
> am spied on by governments or that license holders enforce it on me,
> be it proprietary authors or copyleft authors.
>
> 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.

> Now I could assume a position that as user, I am abused here, or I can
> think I am in free country in respect to software and media, and that
> is how I feel
>
> > 2. Is FSF and GNU the center of thing anymore? Do we want it to be? Because
> > I can tell you that there are Copyleft Licenses outside of GNU. Few but
> > exist. And there are developers that left GNU for some reason but still work
> > on Copyleft software. And of course the young developers that haven't heard
> > of FSF or GNU. Or don't want/bother to join.
>
> It is good to be specific, generalized statements don't help.

My question was basically: Do we want FSF and GNU to be the main driving 
force behind Copyleft? And if so how do we get there.
Because most of Copyleft development nowadays happen outside of GNU and FSF.

Marinus Savoritias

> Jean