Re: Hacking License
Hi David, thanks for your considerations.
I will take them into account for the next revision.
Il December 8, 2018 7:46:13 PM UTC, David Given <dg@cowlark.com> ha scritto:
>On Fri, 7 Dec 2018 at 23:02 Giacomo <giacomo@tesio.it> wrote:
>[...]
>
>> So basically that definition is there to prevent discrimination
>against
>> any group or minority or even against people affected by genetic
>issues
>> and so on.
>>
>
>Why not just say 'people'?
"People" meant different things at different times and latitudes.
I want something more reliable.
I was to write "has a homo sapiens sapiens among genetic ancestors" but then recalled there are people refusing Darwin theory.
I thought that such wording was safer (given the context of a court of people who don't want to be excluded by the definition of human).
>To my mind the biggest problem with this license is that by trying to be
>precise you're just introducing additional ambiguities. [...]
>
>Example: you redefine 'Human' to have a non-standard meaning. But then you
>never refer to the word 'Human' ever again; instead you refer to 'human'. [...]
If capitalized names are easier to understand I will capitalize them. Thanks for pointing out.
>(And remember that the license text needs to stand up on its own ---
>you won't be around to explain it to me!)
Sure that's the goal.
>('Use' is even worse. As far as I can tell, from your definition *looking
>at a floppy disk* containing a copy of your software counts as Use.
The definition states:
`To "use" a software means to generate a new copy of the software from its source, to run it for any purpose, to install it, to interact with it through any medium or proxy (even asynchronously), to provide data used for its input or to consume its output (or any part of it), to perform it in public or privately, and/or to store and use a Derived Work in place of the software itself.`
I don’t know how "looking at a floppy" can match.
Mind to elaborate?
> But it's not clear whether a User is someone who Uses the software or not.)
The definition of User is wider than "one who use".
If you have a copy of the software, you are a User.
If you study the software, you are a User.
If you use the software, you are a user and so on...
The term use by itself should be clear and general: even just providing data fed as input to the software by a third party, qualify as use.
>After having read this several times, I still can't figure out what your
>actual intent is.
The ultimate intent is outlined in the preamble: to turn all users to hackers that understand and modify the software.
To this goal the license is designed to:
- maximize the number of forks of the covered works
- maximize the free software available (not necessarily under the Hacking License, see 3.3)
> What makes this different from other copyleft licenses?
>Do you *really *need your own license?
There are several differences with all other copyleft licenses I have read so far.
Some have been outlined before in this thread, for example the conditions on Wrappers that grant to Users the right to self-host all applications they use. Or the non-exclusive copyright assignment upstream (still subject to all the conditions).
>Remember that custom licenses cost serious money to work with: if I'm
>an organisation who wants to use your software, I need to book actual
>lawyer time to get an analysis done, and that's *before* we know whether it's
>compatible with our existing code. It's so much easier to just use
>someone else's software instead!
And you are welcome to! :-)
I respect the freedom of people to NOT use my software if they don't want to.
This doesn't mean that the license must be hard to understand: on the contrary, you shouldn't need a lawyer if you read the license and you are in good faith.
So I will do my best to make it short and easy to understand for the laymen.
>If you *do*, and of course it's your choice to do so, I would urge you
>to write down, in one simple sentence, what you actually want to achieve,
A world where 'human' and 'hacker' are synonym. :-)
>why existing licenses don't do this
Several reasons, among them
- existing licenses don't assume a distributed computing system where people do not physically access all the executables they use (the AGPLv3 does a first step into this direction but it's too weak to grant the right to self-host large applications that include the covered work as a component)
- existing licenses don't assume everybody can hack and don't propagate copyright and patent licenses enough to ensure software will stay free.
- existing licenses let organisations modify the software as if they were actual humans, the Hacking License just grant them the right to copy and convey (including selling) the software for their members.
> and then try to modify an existing license
>to do what you want, rather than starting from scratch. It'd be much easier
>to understand and less ambiguous.
It's not that simple.
I've read tons of licenses in these months and tried the process you suggest several times from several starting licenses.
It didn't work.
The resulting texts where longer and convoluted.
Giacomo
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