Underfunding or why I am not interested

[Aaron Wolf]

On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 12:47 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Aaron Wolf <wolftune at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> What are you protecting from with AGPL?
> >
> > The purpose of AGPL is to block software from becoming proprietary.
>
> I believe it is far-fetched argument. Nobody can turn what is already
> written
> under non-restrictive license to become proprietary. They can build
> something
> on top of it - yes - is it what AGPL supporters afraid of? But they
> can not force
> people to use their paid and proprietary versions and these people are
> free to
> develop their own branch as before.
>


Sorry, I did not mean to imply that the software would be subsumed in
proprietary versions. All I meant was, the purpose of AGPL is to hamper the
development of *any* proprietary software.

It only works, of course, if enough people in the community embrace it. A
large community embracing AGPL can do as well as a large community
embracing a permissive license. In that case, AGPL will hamper any
proprietary forks and thus the net freedom will be higher since the
creation of proprietary forks is a negative for freedom.

If the community will *not* embrace the AGPL and will only embrace
permissive licenses, then using a permissive license may be better for
freedom. So while the best thing for overall freedom is for *everyone* to
together embrace the AGPL, *if *that is not possible, then the balance of
compromises must be weighed. Hence, it is a tactical question.


> I have a good understanding of licensing issues and can even explain some
> of them. I just want to clarify the exact position of NPO accounting
> project members to ensure that I got it right that people are afraid of.
>
>
I cannot speak for others here, but it is inappropriate to assume a
position of fear. License choice may be one made from other thoughtful,
pragmatic, idealogical, dogmatic, tactical, or other reasons.



> > It is also consistent to say that you care about freedom and believe that
> > AGPL is less free than CC0, but only if you also recognize that
> proprietary
> > software is obviously much less free. If you're ok with proprietary, you
> > should be ok with AGPL, which is clearly much much more free than
> > proprietary.
>
> Let's talk without "only if".
>
> For my accounting purposes I am not ok with limiting my personal freedom
> and the freedom of others in either way.
>
>
Sure, and as I said, that is the consistent respectable position. Just be
aware of the need to distance yourself then from those who oppose copyleft *in
order* to advocate for proprietary interests.


> > But you seem to be arguing not that AGPL is bad for freedom but merely
> that
> > it isn't a good tactic for making the software successful. That's a fine
> > argument. Not everyone may agree. It's complex how to choose the right
> > compromises.
>
> Right. But the project had goal, and didn't reach it. The AGPL tactic
> already
> failed, before the battle began. I don't really care that the project
> chooses to
> continue slaughter soldiers anyway, but just want people to know the
> opinion.
>
>
If the AGPL has failed to get support from the community and the battle is
truly lost, that is an important thing to recognize. I am not convinced
this is the case, but I agree that many aspects of the situation do not
look good. I think it is more important here to bring up concerns than to
be simplistically conclusive in your claims. It's an important concern to
be addressed. Maybe you're right. I just don't think it's as simple as you
make it out to be.



> > Either way, please don't conflate the words "commercial" and
> "proprietary"
> > though. It is perfectly fine for Free Software to be commercial and stay
> > free-as-in-freedom.
>
> I don't care about both of those. I care about limiting the freedom of
> people
> to maintaining and even selling their own modification that may not be
> useful
> for the main line at all.
>

AGPL does *not* restrict selling of software in principle. Yes, in
practice, it is harder to sell software if you don't use your
government-enforced monopoly control to do it.

Respectfully,
Aaron
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