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> On 13 Nov 2018, at 03:02, Eon S. Jeon <esj...@hyunmu.am> wrote:
>
>> On 11/12/18 8:25 PM, Alessandro Pistocchi wrote:
>> I just want people to be able to do proprietary software no questions asked.
>> Some of my users may not know anything about copyleft and do stuff that is
>> wrong without knowing it and I don’t want this to happen to them.
>
> That doesn't sound like an okay approach.
>
> All developers must learn to respect copyright, because they're collaborating
> with others. It's a basic rule that every participants must know beforehand.
> Of course, if you're targeting non-professionals, it makes sense to choose
> loose licenses.
Agreed in principle that professionals should know a bit about licenses.
However I don’t feel like it’s my role to educate people about licenses. That’s
probably for lawyers, who are of course way more competent than me regarding
licenses. I just want something as simple as possible for this project.
What do you mean exactly by mine not sounding “like an ok approach” ?
I am targeting different kinds of people from this point of view. Some of them
may be professionals and some of them may not.
I don’t want a kid or a young person getting in trouble because he or she did a
beautiful thing but used the wrong license.
As long as I am fully respecting the terms of the licenses of what I am using,
I don’t feel like I am doing anything wrong.
Besides, when people see what they cannnot get without GPL/LGPL libraries, they
may actually see how much it matters and make their own mind about which way
they want to go in life regarding this matter.
Also, consider that even amongst so called “professionals” there is a lot of
ignorance about licenses.
I work in software as a programmer ( not in open source unfortunately ), and
I’ve heard people saying all kinds of crap about licenses.
Ultimately, licenses are to be dealt with by law professionals.
>
> Also, business entities are legally *more* responsible than individuals. They
> are the ones who must ask questions, not wait to be questioned. "I didn't
> know" doesn't work for businesses. But then, they will find a way no matter
> the situation (like working around GPL contamination), so it's pretty silly
> to worry about them.
I am not too sure about this. I fully agree that licenses should be respected
but not too sure about the rest.
And there is nothing wrong in “working around GPL contamination”, as long as
that is done within the license terms.
>
> TBH, choosing open source license is really just a matter of preference,
> until you face a problem (like Cedega ripping of Wine[1]). Just don't try to
> fix any hypothetical problems.
I remember also all the discussion regarding “tivoization” after that company
digitally signed some software together with gpl libraries. I believe that that
was one of the main reasons why GPL3 has been created and promoted.
What you call “GPL contamination” is actually a real problem in some areas of
software.
And having a solution to that is a good thing. Even a tiny thing like I am
trying to do here.
I believe that people should be able to choose what they want to use and how.
With GPL, despite the ideals behind it that originated it, people have no real
viable choice in some areas.
Software has become so complex that you cannot even think of replacing any GPL
library with a proprietary one. Sometimes there are no replacements available.
>
> [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedega_(software)#Controversy
>
