[copyleft-next] Deletion of first part of anti-anti-circumvention provision

Bradley M. Kuhn bkuhn at ebb.org
Sun Aug 5 15:13:45 UTC 2012


Richard Fontana wrote at 11:44 (EDT) on Saturday:

> If anything useful has come out of the recent mailing list discussions
> it's that Bradley seems to have a very different view of copyleft
> licensing reform from me. Bradley seems to think a GPL-like license
> should do as much as it possibly can (or at least should start out
> that way and only then consider possible pragmatic compromises). 

> I accept that it's pointlessly unrealistic to think a GPL-like license
> can solve all the world's software freedom problems, so we should
> prioritize in such a way that we maximize adoption of strong copyleft
> licensing (strong in my sense, not Bradley's sense).

By juxtaposing these two statements, you're using a common rhetorical
tactic to attack my position.  You're saying what I think (correctly)
then saying what you think (correctly) and using language in the latter
to make it seem like what you think is in direct contrast to what I
think.  Cute rhetoric, but it's not accurate.

I don't believe copyleft can solve all software freedom problems.  I
focus, as you later point out, on what we can effectively enforce:

> In fact, strangely, Bradley influenced my views on this in talks he's
> given on GPL enforcement and such.

I believe we shouldn't have even one single term in copyleft that we don't
have a plan on how to enforce.

If we can enforce it, and it's good for software freedom, why not
include it in the license?

There are plenty of weak copylefts now to chose from.  Developers will
chose those if they don't believe in strong copyleft.  Why would
copyleft-next want to be another weak copyleft?

Anyway, if the project is headed in that direction, I suggest it be
renamed "weak-copyleft-next", and maybe start from the text of MPL or
EPL. :)
-- 
   -- bkuhn


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