Hello Ben, Thanks for titling it correct. On Wed, 2015-11-04 at 10:09 +1100, Ben Finney wrote: > Conversely, without the obligation written into the license > conditions > and a credible body to enforce those conditions, the chances of a > corporation voluntarily releasing their changes as free software is > also > very low. > > Capitalism impels every corporation to seek the removal of any > barrier > on its operation, without regard for the good of any other party. > That > alone is sufficient to explain why corporations tend to object to > copyleft. > Yes. That is why BSD has been the preferred license for years, and now ASL. > Some specific corporations have more specific reasons, of course, but > even without those we should expect by the nature of a corporation > that > they will in general prefer any license to have as few terms > restricting > them as possible. > > Copyleft is for the good of society and community as a whole; we > should > not expect that corporations will of their own accord seek licenses > that > restrict their actions we consider harmful. We must as a society > impose > (through legal means) restrictions on corporate abuse of freedoms. > So what would be the gradual next step? Revise the license again? The last time FSF revised it, there was outright rejection from the most famous GPL project. I'm afraid but looks like now, freedom is not the value that matters much. A decade ago it mattered because, then, only enthusiasts and freedom valuers opted it. But today, that does not look to be the case. In fact, some of the newly derived licenses have been born just to circumvent the copyleft aspects. So given the trends, is it time to look for the next step? > > It turns out most people find GPL type licenses too restrictive > these > > days. Just that who is it "restrictive" for ? > > The ‘debian-legal’ forum isn't really good for discussing this; it's > certainly not special to Debian, it is a matter to be discussed in > the > wider software community. That said, I can point you to some > resources. > I don't know of the other lists, but if you feel, we can extend it to other lists. I think given the values that Debian follows, and the way that Debian functions, Debian is one of the prime affected projects of it. Not that others are not. But of the many other projects, most have a commercial motive. Not explicitly mentioned, but you get the idea. And not that Debian does not have a commercial motive. Just that it is not the highest on the list. Thanks for the links below. Meanwhile, I'll go through them and hopefully be back with more concerns. PS: At DebConf15, John Sullivan's talk gave similar vibes. That the world is changing and we need to adapt better to fight the new ways freedom is being undermined. > Bradley Kuhn has a talk presented several times (one recently at > LinuxConf Australia 2015) that addresses this in detail. > > Considering the Future of Copyleft: How Will The Next Generation > Perceive GPL? > <URL:http://lca2015.linux.org.au/schedule/30148/>; > <URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ItFjEG3LaA>; > > Stefano Zacchiroli presented at DebConf 2014 on the recent decline of > the technology world away from software freedom, and what we must do. > > Debian in the Dark Ages of Free Software > <URL:http://debconf14-video.debian.net/video/240/debian-in-the-da > rk-ages-of-free-software>; -- Given the large number of mailing lists I follow, I request you to CC me in replies for quicker response
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