Quote from: RHorning on December 12, 2010, 11:25:45 AM

Quote from: appamatto on December 12, 2010, 06:45:11 AM

I think that you did, however, brush off my point: it's not about what terms I want, or what terms any person in particular wants. It's not about which particular pieces of information have which legal restrictions. It's about the innovations that won't happen because there are restrictions on the uses of that information.

It's about not wanting to threaten people with legal ramifications or make contributors feel like they're backing freedom when they aren't. Because really, that's what a license is: a legal threat masquerading as a platform for freedom.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion on this issue, but I will say you have a long and tough road ahead if you are trying to get your political ideas turned into public policy and law, or for that matter widely accepted custom if you hate the concept of laws themselves.

What I don't understand is the attack upon copyleft principles when most of those who are involved with copyleft content development mostly support your view that substantial legal restrictions on the use of copyrighted content is wrong. Copyleft supporters aren't your "enemy", but rather entities like Microsoft and Disney should be. Of course I'm repeating myself now. 90%+ of the "licenses" on content (I would say 99% but copyleft licensing has made some inroads) have nothing at all to do with "freedom" or even "copyleft", but are purely to do with "proprietary" copyright restrictions. By far and away the most common and to me the worst offender is the "end-user licensing agreement" (EULA) often seen with computer software but includes other products as well. This is the "shrink-wrap license" where some courts have ruled that simply opening a package is the equivalent of signing and notarizing a contract. Really, there are bigger fish to fry here, and attacking the copyleft community is only going to backfire any effort to further your cause.

Perhaps I guess the idea is to convince those in the copyleft content development community that licenses like the GPL are somehow evil and should be abandoned. The arguments here aren't don't a good job as they aren't dealing with the causes that create licenses like the GPL.

I think you're mischaracterizing my "attack" on the GPL. There are clearly licenses that are worse.

I don't think you're right about the causes of the GPL. The GPL is from an era when the BSD system was under legal attack, and there wasn't a developed tradition of public domain or permissive licenses. Now, there are exceedingly healthy commercially- and community-supported non-copyleft projects, many of which will replace their more restrictive GPL counterparts.

I think the two "causes" of the GPL today are 1) the viral requirement of useful GPLed components and 2) the notion that the GPL is a tool for freedom. I think the second is a faulty notion; it can be argued that there are eras where swords are tools for healing, but thankfully we're long out of harm's way on that one.

About the copyleft community: I'm not really going to dissuade anyone who has investment in the GPL. My goal is really to be a voice for those who hadn't really thought about the issue deeply or didn't notice the viable alternatives but are attempting to produce the least amount of legal threat to their fellow man.