Picking a license

[Patrick Maupin]

On May 16, 9:19 am, Ed Keith <e_... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Sat, 5/15/10, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l... at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> > >> But what about the “freedom” to take away
> > other
> > >> people’s freedom? Is that really “freedom”?
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > But that’s a “freedom” that non-GPL licences do not
> > give you, that the GPL
> > does. So which licence gives you more “freedoms”,
> > again?

[ stuff snipped]

> There is clearly some kind of communication problem here. Either were are speaking different languages with some faulty transaction program interviewing, or one of is is either stupid or senile (seems a bit early for me, but it is possible); or you are being disingenuous.

Lawrence is certainly being overly clever.  He is somewhat technically
correct, but is playing a shell game where he moves around who the
potential "freedom" giver is and who the potential "freedom" receiver
is.

The problem is, you have to handle this sort of argument very
carefully, or someone will come along and then point out (again,
somewhat technically correctly) that copyright law restricts the
"freedoms", and the GPL license only gives them out, so where's the
problem?  It's easy to lose sight of where the pea is, particularly
when you were expecting straightforward communication rather than this
sort of sophistry.

When people in this thread previously said that permissive licenses
give you the "freedom" to take away others' "freedoms", but the GPL
does not, the "you" they are referring to is "a person who has
received the software from someone else".

When Lawrence is now saying that the GPL gives you the "freedom" to
take away others' "freedoms" but other licenses do not, the "you" he
is referring to is the "author of the software", who I think we all
agree retains more "freedom" to restrict others' "freedoms" if he uses
the GPL than if he uses a permissive license.

So in this instance, the thing that disappeared under the shell where
you thought it was and reappeared under a different shell was the very
definition of the word "you".  But don't feel bad; some of the
thimbleriggers around here are quite accomplished, and very hard to
catch out.

Regards,
Pat