Picking a license

[Paul Boddie]

On 10 Mai, 20:36, Patrick Maupin <pmau... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've addressed this before.  Aahz used a word in an accurate, but to
> you, inflammatory, sense, but it's still accurate -- the man *would*
> force you to pay for the chocolate if you took it.

Yes, *if* you took it. He isn't forcing you to take it, though, is he?

> You're making it sound like whining, but Aahz was simply trying to state a fact.

It is whining if someone says, "I really want that chocolate, but that
nasty man is going to make me pay for it!"

> The fact is, I know the man would force me to pay for the chocolate, so in
> some cases that enters into the equation and keeps me from wanting the
> chocolate.

If the man said, "please take the chocolate, but I want you to share
it with your friends", and you refused to do so because you couldn't
accept that condition, would it be right to say, "that man is forcing
me to share chocolate with my friends"?

>  This isn't whining; just a common-sense description of
> reality.  Personally, I think this use of the word "force" is much
> less inflammatory than the deliberate act of co-opting the word
> "freedom" to mean "if you think you can take this software and do
> anything you want with it, you're going to find out differently when
> we sue you."

The word "freedom" means a number of things. If you don't like the way
Messrs Finney and Stallman use the term, please take it up with them.
But to say that someone entering a voluntary agreement is "forced" to
do something, when they weren't forced into that agreement in the
first place, is just nonsense. It's like saying that the shopkeeper is
some kind of Darth Vader character who is coercing people to take the
chocolate and then saddling them with obligations against their will.

Paul