[copyleft-next] exceptions/additional-permissions & weak copyleft

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Thu Aug 2 02:50:31 UTC 2012


On 08/01/2012 06:07 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote at 22:12 (EDT) on Tuesday:
>> No, because common weak copyleft licenses aren't structured as "strong
>> copyleft plus additional permissions". The one exception is LGPLv3, of
>> course.
> 
> But policy-wise, that's what they are, even if they aren't structured
> that way.  Frankly, this finding may be the only actual interesting and
> new policy discovery that came from the GPLv3 process.

It is certainly an *interesting* theory of free software licensing,
but I now believe it was in some sense an error. It is an unnatural
way of looking at free software licenses. Licenses are tokens, as
someone once said.

> I actually think we need *more* weak copylefts along a spectrum.  I
> hoped GPLv3 plus additional permissions sets were more widely adopted to
> take us there.

I used to think that too. When you did that oggcast on GPL exceptions,
I was still generally thinking the way you still seem to be thinking
today. Although I think listening to that oggcast may have caused me
to begin rethinking the issue. Essentially the problem is that you are
ignoring the complexity cost (real, perceived or both) that
accompanies use of additional permissions.

> Anyway, Free Software licenses are about public policy and philosophy.
> The rest is, ultimately, just details.  Agreement on what the philosophy
> and public policy should be theoretically yields a rather
> straightforward drafting task, right?

No, because there are other valid goals too, like simplicity and
comprehensibility (and maybe practical goals like 'ease of
enforceability' which I wouldn't necessarily classify as public policy
or philosophy), and these affect drafting. I also have some ideas
about making legal improvements that were never made in GPLv3, though
that would probably conflict at some point with the simplicity goal.

- Richard





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