[copyleft-next] Platonic ideals, restrictiveness and weaker copyleft

Bradley M. Kuhn bkuhn at ebb.org
Wed Aug 1 00:12:59 UTC 2012


Richard Fontana wrote at 21:35 (EDT) on Monday:
> I don't see how it is achievable, because we know that there are
> multiple, clashing ideals of copyleft -- at least if we mean strong
> copyleft.

I would agree with you, but then the question becomes: won't
copyleft-next be "just another" copyleft, somewhere on the weak/strong
spectrum, and ...

> At most, in allowing for outbound compatibility with GPLv2+/AGPLv3+,

... if you have pure outbound compatibility to the FSF license suite,
I have to wonder what the point is of copyleft-next.  Who are the potential license
users who *wouldn't* just use some existing copyleft license?


You talked in some of your interviews about copyleft-next as a way of
experimenting with new ideas in copyleft.  Perhaps we have to look at it
that way, philosophically.

In other words, maybe we SHOULD pursue the Platonic ideal of copyleft,
knowing full well that we can't live in the land of True Forms, but we
should strive to it and see what happens.

We're rounding about 20 years out from the genius idea of copyleft.
Some people don't like RMS or his ideas, but I think no one denies that
copyleft was an invention of great genius.

Here we are, the next generation, rearranging little ornaments on the
tree of the genius idea of copyleft.  I long ago made my peace with the
idea that my life's work is to merely rearrange ornaments on the tree of
software freedom.  In that vein, I suggest that copyleft-next is
perhaps, a licensing drafting placeholder, that keeps trying to
rearrange these ornaments until someone among us looks at it and has an
epiphany.  Those only come along once every generation or two on any
given topic.

There's value in doing this exercise, but we should be realistic about
what we're doing.  Copyleft-next, in my estimation, is looking for the
Theory of Everything for copyleft licensing.  It's slow work and there
may not be a breakthrough in our time.  And, it may not exist at all.
But we should look anyway and see what we find in the meantime.
-- 
   -- bkuhn


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