Still no new license -- but draft text available

[Pat McCann]

pahajoki at voimax.cygnnet.jkl.fi (Kalle A. Pahajoki) writes:

> We need to separate the concepts of negative freedom and positive
> freedom (I knew those philosophy courses would pay off ;-)). Negative
> freedom is the freedom to do anything one pleases. Positive freedom
> guarantees everyone the possibility to do something. In your writings
> you are using the word freedom to refer to the concept of negative
> freedom. In effect, your are applying "a broad term in a narrow
> sense". 

It doesn't seem to me to have paid off.  I'd be interested in a better
(but concise) explanation of +/- freedom.  How does freedom guarantee
anything?  I thought guys with guns did that.  Are you simple defining
NF full freedom and PF to be a single freedom?  This sounds kinda like
the political news people who use "right wing" for anything they find
evil, be they skinheads, Baptists, or communists in modern Russia.

BTW, I fully recognize that full freedom is condition impossible to
achieve.  I just find GNU's use of the term to be an arbritrary and
unconventional use which is unfairly implies things about copyleft
software that is true only of other forms of priceless software.

> By writing a piece of free software and placing it under GPL, the
> author is in a way protecting his right to the source code, much the

Where "his right to the source code" means "his right to other people's
source code".  We're not complaining that you choose this form of
self-slavery in which you DO find certain freedoms; we're complaining
that you so often use "the" instead of "other people's" and that
YOU us the broad term "freedom" instead of your using your "positive
freedom" and supplying a definition for the naive.