Underfunding or why I am not interested

[Aaron Wolf]

>
> I believe that the point of conflict is that somebody is earning money,
> and others do contribution (for him) for free. That's discouraging. And to
> avoid the discouragement people invented GPL and (later) AGPL.
>

This is historically inaccurate. This motivational issue is indeed real,
but not for everyone in every case. What you are describing really applies
to the problematic non-commercial restrictions of a license like CC-BY-NC.
The reason people like me go out of the way to emphasize that GPL and AGPL
are *not* anti-commercial is to distinguish them from licenses with NC
restrictions.

The invention of the GPL / AGPL arose from a desire not to see the sorts of
restrictions and anti-features that are common with proprietary software.
It was definitely *not* from a motivation of avoiding a situation where
some contributors were paid and others weren't. That speculation is simply
false. Richard Stallman, the original author, has said over and over from
the very beginning that there is nothing wrong with being paid and that he
himself was often paid in one way or another to write the earliest GPL
software.


You skipped the part about "freedom to maintain your branch private".
>

Because that is not differentiated. The AGPL permits that freedom. It only
says that you must share your source and license freedoms if you publish.
There is no such thing as a "private branch" that is public. That's a
direct contradiction. If it is public, it's not private. The AGPL puts no
restrictions on what is done privately.

Freedom of one's is a restriction for others.


It can be said, "your freedom to swing your fists stops where my nose
begins". Freedom to restrict others is not included in the range of freedom
I'm talking about. That's the definition. Yes, there are conflicts. Once
you are talking about restricting others significantly, freedom starts
turning into "power".

I will restate what was confusing from before.

There are two logically consistent positions that oppose AGPL in principle:

1. You say that you care about freedom. So, you reject the AGPL and also
reject proprietary licenses. You believe both are not free enough. In your
view of freedom, AGPL is non-free. You are not a hypocrite because you also
say that proprietary licenses are at least as bad if not far worse.

2. You say that you don't care about freedom. Thus, you think proprietary
licenses are fine and you don't like that the AGPL hampers proprietization.

There is a third position that is like position one but does not oppose
AGPL in principle. It says that AGPL is fine and is free enough but is just
a bad tactic.

The hypocrite's position says that AGPL is bad *because* it is not free
enough but that proprietary licenses are fine. This is nonsense because if
your reason to reject AGPL is because of concern for freedom, it is
inconsistent not to apply that same reasoning to proprietary licensing.

I'm not trying to say we always agree on exactly what freedom is or when it
matters. I'm just saying that we are indeed talking about the same general
topic. I do not appreciate your attempts to mark what I'm talking about as
some sort of pedantic unusual interpretation. I'm not talking about
whatever you think GNUfreedom is. You are misunderstanding a basic fact:
All the GNU folks *know* that the GPL clause restricting license changes
*is* a restriction of freedom, they just think that is a good tactic for
freedom overall because their motivation is to discourage proprietary
licenses which are even more non-free.

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com


On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 4:09 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 12:29 PM, Aaron Wolf <wolftune at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I just mean freedom in general.
>
> There is no freedom in general.
>
> Freedom of ones is a restriction for others. People use the generic terms
> to
> hide specific and sensitive topics, views and beliefs. They are free to do
> so
> unless there is a conflict. If people are interested to resolve this
> conflict,
> they should switch to more specific definitions, language and topic.
>
> I chose terminology from the black Fear deck. When people say they
> protecting something, they protect it from somethingelse. This
> somethingelse is what people are afraid of - it is their "fear". Probably
> there
> is a different word for that in other deck, but I said "fear", because
> among
> my cards it is the best one that describes an unspoken or hidden reason to
> choose between alternatives.
>
> In order to move forward in this discussion I propose to list all the
> specific
> relevant permissions and restrictions explicitly and define several types
> of
> freedom.
>
> For example GNUFreedom:
> - allow everything
> - deny usage of private branches publicly
> (later rule overrides earlier one)
>
> I also would like to distinguish between requirements and effects.
> GNUFreedom places requirements, but it is not describes the effects.
> When you say "freedom" I read it also as an effect. Let's keep those clean
> and use more descriptive and lengthy definitions of wanted and undesired
> effects. We need to estimate the role of these effect on our mutual goal -
> make an excellent open source software for accounting.
>
> > Someone who says, "AGPL restricts people's
> > freedom to choose their license terms for derivates" is correct
> objectively.
> >
> > Some people think that is an acceptable restriction because the AGPL is
> > adequately free otherwise, and that the particular freedom of derivative
> > license choice isn't important. Nobody thinks it isn't a freedom at all.
>
> Right. But we object of this discussion is not a "generic freedom". It is
> those peculiar differences between two camps. That's why it is important
> to choose a better terminology/
>
> > Now, if you think the AGPL restrictions (they are restrictions) are
> > unacceptable, then you must take the position that proprietary
> restrictions
> > are also unacceptable -- if you both (A) want to argue from a principled
> > freedom-focused reasoning and (B) don't want to be a total hypocrite.
>
> "(A) want to argue from a principled freedom-focused reasoning" - I must
> admit that this phrase is beyond the comprehension limits of my English
> skills. If you don't want to leave me in confusion, some efforts should be
> made to set some terminology.
>
> In other words - I don't understand your assumptions about what position
> should I take (and why) to think that AGPL restrictions are unacceptable.
>
> > There are still a couple ways to argue against AGPL restrictions while
> > accepting proprietary restrictions and not be hypocritical:
> >
> > One is pragmatic: you argue that proprietary may be bad for freedom, but
> not
> > fighting against it is simply a better tactic for success of the Free
> > Software.
> >
> > The other position is you don't mind proprietary at all, don't care that
> it
> > is non-free, and the reason you oppose AGPL are not about freedom because
> > you don't think freedom is the goal.
> >
> > So we're both talking about freedom here, and we agree what it is.
>
> No. I don't get the feeling that I agree with you, and to explain where
> do I think we disagree I need you to accept that there is a specific
> meaning of freedom as put by GNU project values.
>
> I am trying to tell you that I see your understanding of freedom in what is
> best described as "desired effects of GNUFreedom", without specifically
> stating these effects. GNUFreedom says that "software freedom is only
> possible with Free Software". This is where I disagree.
>
> > Proprietary software restricts freedoms. AGPL restricts a very particular
> > freedom. Advocates who support AGPL and who do so from a freedom-focused
> > position believe that the restriction is net good for freedom overall.
> You
> > don't have to agree. We are still talking about the same thing with the
> same
> > words. We don't need to redefine anything.
>
> It can be simple misunderstanding, but I've got a feeling that your
> position is
> weak, and you don't want to accept it. Why? Because you say "We don't need
> to redefine anything.". But I proposed to define _more specific terms_ and
> not
> redefine existing.
>
> > We are still talking about the same thing with the same words.
>
> No. I am not talking about freedom at all. I try to agree upon this
> terminology
> while you say we already agreed. This is a point of conflict past which no
> understanding and constructive discussion is possible.
>
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