On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 11:44:17AM +0100, Gervase Markham wrote:
On 18/06/13 06:16, Richard Fontana wrote:
> Of late I've been trying to do something I believe I talked about
> before, re-implement copyleft-next as a 'file-based' copyleft that is
> less minimalist than MPL.
That would seem to me to be a sigificant change of direction for the
project; the difference in copyleft scope between a GPL-like and an
MPL-like licence is not trivial.
My intuition is that the idea that the difference is vast (I know you
didn't say vast) is based more on mythology (however powerful) and is
contradicted by actual, tolerated practice by well-meaning actors in
the real world. BTW I am *not* making a Larry-Rosenesque argument that
the legal theory underlying FSF-orthodoxy strong copyleft is flawed
(given, I think he would say, how the GPL is drafted).
Rather, it bothers me that there is this disconnect between a fantasy
world in which a strong copyleft scope exists, the boundaries of which
are thought to be broad in some technical contexts but are implicitly
determinable only by experts (or courts that, it is thought, might
sometime in the next century or two provide some guidance on GPL
interpretation), and the real world where something rather different
is going on. That something is not the same as what is implied by
MPL-like copyleft, but it is something admittedly weaker than what
you'd conclude from the seemingly influential doctrine implied by the
writings of the FSF and some of its sympathizers on GPL
interpretation. I say seemingly because what I actually see is that
such doctrine has had its greatest influence on two groups:
risk-averse or risk-aversion-selling lawyers, and anti-GPL developers
(whose hostility to the GPL is, I think, rooted in a doctrinal
abhorrence of what they assume to be the 'virality' of the GPL).
Those familiar with the history of jurisprudence may detect the
influence of Legal Realism on my thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_realism
Might there be those who are keen to see copyleft-next continue with
the
current approach? Are there enough of them that what we really have here
are two different -nexts?
I am interested in the answer to that question. I have thought about
extending copyleft-next into a suite of a few licenses with different
policies (like Creative Commons), and I even half-started a draft of
permissive-next. It might make sense in principle to have weak
copyleft and strong copyleft versions. I had actually assumed up to
this point that MPL 2.0 would occupy the field of well-designed weak
copyleft licenses and couldn't really be much improved on, so I hadn't
thought much about a lesser-copyleft-next (except in very vague ideas
for an Affero-style copyleft-next).
For those who don't like the direction I have been talking about
(still not in the master branch), I will only say that I am not sure
you have stared into the abyss to the degree that I have done. :)
- RF