[copyleft-next] exceptions/additional-permissions & weak copyleft (was Re: Some initial comments on the copyleft-next draft)

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Wed Aug 1 02:12:23 UTC 2012


On 07/31/2012 07:57 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote at 21:49 (EDT) on Monday:
>> I've become more skeptical of the value of additional permissions (or
>> 'exceptions' as they were called in the pre-GPLv3 era) because of the
>> complexity cost they add to a given licensing situation.
> 
> To argue against additional permissions is effectively to argue against
> weak copyleft. 

No, because common weak copyleft licenses aren't structured as "strong
copyleft plus additional permissions". The one exception is LGPLv3, of
course.

> Are you saying there should be no weak copyleft?  (I'm
> not trolling; I'm asking a philosophical question: particularly given
> that you're the author of LGPLv3 as an exception set to GPLv3.)

I think the policy case for weak copyleft (vs. noncopyleft) is getting
progressively weaker, as it were. I'm not prepared to say there should
be no weak copyleft licenses, but it is significant that I have no
intention of copyleft-next either being a weak copyleft license or
having some official LGPL-like weak copyleft variant.

>> A suitable integral weak copyleft variety of AGPL presumably could
>> have been applied to stet such that the clever notice wouldn't have
>> been necessary. (I'm not sure if the notice even *was* necessary, but
>> I don't remember much about how stet and RT fit together.)
> 
> But... but... there's no philosophical difference between a weak
> copyleft and an additional-permission set.  They are the same thing!

There's more to licenses than philosophy.

- Richard






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