Picking a license

[Patrick Maupin]

On May 11, 5:34 am, Paul Boddie <p... at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> 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?

No,  but he said a lot of words that I didn't immediately understand
about what it meant to be free and that it was free, and then after I
bit into it he told me he owned my soul now.

> > 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!"

But that's not what happened.  I mean, he just told me that I might
have to give some of it to others later.  He didn't mention that if I
spread peanut butter on mine before I ate it that I'd have to give
people Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

>
> > 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"?

But the thing is, he's *not* making me share the chocolate with any of
my friends.  He's not even making me share my special peanut butter
and chocolate.  What he's making me do is, if I give my peanut butter
and chocolate to one of my friends, he's making me make *that* friend
promise to share.  I try not to impose obligations like that on my
friends, so obviously the "nice" man with the chocolate isn't my
friend!

> >  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.

I explained this very carefully before multiple times.  Let me give
concrete examples -- (1) I have told my children before "if we take
that candy, then they will make us pay for it" and (2) if we included
(GPLed software) in this (MIT-licensed software) then we will have to
change the license.  In both these cases, once the decision has been
made, then yes, force enters into it.  And no, I don't think the
average shop keeper is nearly as evil as Darth, or even RMS.

Regards,
Pat