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

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Fri Aug 3 17:25:38 UTC 2012


On 08/03/2012 10:57 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote at 20:42 (EDT) on Thursday:
>
>> In any case, this vision of GPLv3 as the license to end all licenses
>> has (in 5 years) failed.
> 
> I wouldn't be participating in copyleft-next if I thought AGPLv3 were
> the perfect copyleft.  I just believe it's the best copyleft we have
> right now available to us.  Calling GPLv3/AGPLv3 a failure is just FUD.

Calling GPLv3 a 'failure' could be FUD. To me, it's just incorrect,
since GPLv3 is now one of the most commonly used FLOSS licenses.
(AGPLv3 cannot be similarly described as 'commonly used'.) In any
case, wide adoption was not a stated goal of the FSF, as you know.

But *I* did not say GPLv3 or AGPLv3 were "failures"; see above.  I
said the vision of GPLv3 as a license to end all licenses has failed.
When I say "license to end all licenses", I mean that rather
literally: there was a serious view that section 7 of GPLv3 provided a
framework that would enable standardization of FLOSS licenses through
recharacterization as GPLv3 + additional permissions and additional
restrictions. That never happened, apart from the existence of LGPLv3
and AGPLv3. As an experimental idea, the "license to end all licenses"
concept continues to be interesting, but it has proved to have little
practical significance.

- Richard


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