[copyleft-next] copyleft-next 0.3.0 released

Richard Fontana fontana at sharpeleven.org
Sun May 19 03:21:25 UTC 2013


On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 09:36:43PM -0700, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> On 05/17/2013 09:24 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> > 
> > This is a significant and suboptimally drafted change. Ideas for how
> > to draft it better (without massively increasing the size of the text)
> > are welcome.
> 
> "merely makes reference to" strikes me as pretty vague, but of course
> there may be a obviously precise meaning that I'm oblivious to.
> 
> But is it not disturbing that a significant and suboptimally drafted
> change is in a copyleft-next released version, as opposed to first being
> discussed publicly?

It's a fair cop, guv. It does relate to the more abstract things I was
saying in some threads from last month. 

I hope the issue I am trying to address is now clear from the
referenced cinder-rtstool example, which as noted had quite an effect
on me.

What we have, in a Python context, is a file, with an Apache License
2.0 notice, that says 'import rtslib', and the file uses functions
from rtslib (AGPLv3-licensed). The project that was distributing
cinder-rtstool was not also distributing rtslib. I express no view
(here) on the (A)GPL analysis of this situation, copyleft-next being a
different license. I think it is interesting, however, that some
believed that it was a foregone conclusion that cinder-rtstool was
"really AGPL", in a context where this was understood to be perceived
as a *bad* thing. The effect is the continued, yet inconsistent,
marginalization of strong-copyleft-licensed code. That
marginalization, and some of its roots, are motivations for the
copyleft-next project itself.

While I did not say this even as recently as FOSDEM 2013, because it
wasn't really clear to me then, I think that strong copyleft as a
legal theory needs to be weakened in order to escape this threat of
marginalization. 

I have come up with one approach. If you are writing a Python library
foo and you put it under copyleft-next, and you want me to use your
library, you ought to have the burden of making clear that the moment
I merely distribute a file that says 'import foo' my file is ipso
facto "really copyleft-next". If you did not bother to do this, I
ought to be free to rely on an assumption you intended something
'weaker'. I believe that approximates the real rule that the various
Linux distros are operating under.(I did not respond to warp's comment
about Debian in an earlier thread. I will just say that I believe
careful analysis of what Debian does will not reveal consistency.)
 
 - RF



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