On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 21:29:21 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 17:45:59 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> I wouldn't call closing source that they legally allowed to be closed antisocial.  I'd call their contradictory, angry response to what their license permits antisocial. :)
>
> Just because you're doing something legal doesn't mean you're not being antisocial.
Read my previous post.  Of course it's possible for a license to technically allow something but for the authors to disapprove of it, not that its antisocial to simply do something they disapprove of.  But, as I said earlier, the BSD crowd does not publicly broadcast that they disapprove of closing source.  In fact, they will occasionally link to press releases about contributions back from corporations who closed the source.

For people using the BSD license to then get mad when yet another person comes along to close source is the only "antisocial" behavior I'm seeing here.  It'd be one thing if they publicly said that while the BSD license allows closing source, they're against it.  Feel free to provide such a public statement, you won't find it.  It's only after you talk to them privately about closing source that you realize how many of them are against it.

As I've said repeatedly, I don't much care that their behavior is so "antisocial," :) as long as its legal to close source.  But it is pretty funny to cast that tag on somebody else, who is simply doing what their license allows and what their press releases trumpet.

> It's a pretty psychopathic attitude to conflate legality and morality, it's effectively saying "I have the moral right to do whatever I can get away with"
On the contrary, it's a pretty psychopathic attitude to make such claims about morality when

1. nobody was talking about morality

2. the BSD crowd doesn't publicly talk about their problems with closing source either, whether they think it's immoral or antisocial or whatever.

On Sunday, 30 June 2013 at 03:29:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 6/29/2013 5:08 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> True, distribution was mainly by physical mail. There was some via BBS's and Usenet, but these were severely limited by bandwidth.
>
> I'd receive bug reports by fax, paper listings, and mailed floppies.


This was also the heyday of the BBC Micro in UK schools, and I remember well the shelves full of books of sample programs in BBC Basic. We had lots of fun typing them up, working out how they worked, and then twisting them to our more evil designs.

On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 21:20:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/1/2013 2:04 PM, Brad Roberts wrote:
>> Actually, Boost was specifically chosen because it didn't require attribution
>> when redistributing. If BSD hadn't had that clause we probably would be using it
>> instead.
>
> That was indeed another important reason for it. But we were well aware of and approved of the idea that people could take it and make closed source versions.

It was always clear (and logical) to me why the core libraries were permissively licensed, but the no-need-to-give-attribution-for-non-source-distribution feature was a subtlety I hadn't considered before.

On 1 July 2013 18:45, Joakim <joakim@airpost.net> wrote:
>> In other cases there may be a broad community consensus that builds up around a piece of software, that this work should be shared and contributed to as a common good (e.g. X.org).  Attempts to close it up violate those social norms and are rightly seen as an attack on that community and the valuable commons they have cultivated.
>
> There's no doubt that even if they chose a permissive license like the MIT or BSD license, these communities work primarily with OSS code and tend to prefer that code be open.  I can understand if they then tend to rebuff attempts to keep source from them, purely as a social phenomenon, however irrational it may be.  That's why I asked Walter if he had a similar opinion, but he didn't care.
>
> I still think it's ridiculous to put your code under an extremely permissive license and then get mad when people take you up on it, particularly since they never publicly broadcast that they want everything to be open.  It is only after you talk to them that you realize that the BSD gang are often as much freetards as the GPL gang, just in their own special way. ;)
>

To be 'retarded' is to be held back or hindered in the development or progress of an action or process.  F/OSS comes with no such hindrance, unlike some other model that people falsely advertise as Everything Open and Free.  All the Time!*

--
Iain Buclaw

*except whatever I am selling.

On Tuesday, 2 July 2013 at 05:21:35 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 21:29:21 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>> On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 17:45:59 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>> I wouldn't call closing source that they legally allowed to be closed antisocial.  I'd call their contradictory, angry response to what their license permits antisocial. :)
>>
>> Just because you're doing something legal doesn't mean you're not being antisocial.
> Read my previous post.  Of course it's possible for a license to technically allow something but for the authors to disapprove of it, not that its antisocial to simply do something they disapprove of.  But, as I said earlier, the BSD crowd does not publicly broadcast that they disapprove of closing source.  In fact, they will occasionally link to press releases about contributions back from corporations who closed the source.
>
> For people using the BSD license to then get mad when yet another person comes along to close source is the only "antisocial" behavior I'm seeing here.  It'd be one thing if they publicly said that while the BSD license allows closing source, they're against it.  Feel free to provide such a public statement, you won't find it.  It's only after you talk to them privately about closing source that you realize how many of them are against it.
>
> As I've said repeatedly, I don't much care that their behavior is so "antisocial," :) as long as its legal to close source.  But it is pretty funny to cast that tag on somebody else, who is simply doing what their license allows and what their press releases trumpet.
>
>> It's a pretty psychopathic attitude to conflate legality and morality, it's effectively saying "I have the moral right to do whatever I can get away with"
> On the contrary, it's a pretty psychopathic attitude to make such claims about morality when
>
> 1. nobody was talking about morality
>
> 2. the BSD crowd doesn't publicly talk about their problems with closing source either, whether they think it's immoral or antisocial or whatever.

This is all a bit moot as I was making a general point, not specifically related to BSD. However, in their case, I think it is perfectly fine that some don't like closed source personally, but as a group they decide to endorse it. A group where everyone is forced to agree on everything isn't an organisation, it's a cult.

I think what I'm really trying to say is this:

A license is a description of what you will *allow*, not what you *want*.
I personally like to take in to account what people *want* me to do, not just what they will *allow* me to do.

On Tuesday, 2 July 2013 at 09:59:19 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> This is all a bit moot as I was making a general point, not specifically related to BSD. However, in their case, I think it is perfectly fine that some don't like closed source personally, but as a group they decide to endorse it. A group where everyone is forced to agree on everything isn't an organisation, it's a cult.
Of course there will be a wide variety of opinions within any community but the point is those who push such permissively-licensed software but privately dislike closing of source, then lash out at those who try to do it, are being silly.

> I think what I'm really trying to say is this:
>
> A license is a description of what you will *allow*, not what you *want*.
> I personally like to take in to account what people *want* me to do, not just what they will *allow* me to do.
You're really splitting hairs at this point.  If you _allow_ almost anything, as most permissive licenses like the BSD or MIT license do, nobody is going to then ask permission of the community for every possible thing they might do, to see who "wants" it, particularly since the community hasn't stated anything publicly.  Since the community likely has a variety of opinions, as you yourself just admitted, such a poll of "wants" would likely be meaningless anyway.

Unless the particular community puts out a public statement of "wants" that most of them can get behind, which very few of them do, it is silly to talk about what they might "want" which isn't in the license.  The license is essentially all that matters.

On Tuesday, 2 July 2013 at 14:40:42 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> You're really splitting hairs at this point.  If you _allow_ almost anything, as most permissive licenses like the BSD or MIT license do, nobody is going to then ask permission of the community for every possible thing they might do, to see who "wants" it, particularly since the community hasn't stated anything publicly.  Since the community likely has a variety of opinions, as you yourself just admitted, such a poll of "wants" would likely be meaningless anyway.
>
> Unless the particular community puts out a public statement of "wants" that most of them can get behind, which very few of them do, it is silly to talk about what they might "want" which isn't in the license.  The license is essentially all that matters.

The difference between what people allow and what people want is much more significant than just "splitting hairs". However, I agree that there is often no coherent set of "wants" in a community, which makes it hard to consider them meaningfully.

However, I do believe there's a level of common courtesy that should be honoured when using other people's work in a significant project, including at the very least making them aware that you will be doing so (anonymously, if secrecy is important). I know many people will just take whatever they can get and give as little as they can, but that doesn't make it right.


I suspect we will never see eye to eye on this. You are convinced that the letter of the licence is all that matters, I am not.

On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 17:45:59 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> Then they should choose a mixed license like the Mozilla Public License or CDDL, which keeps OSS files open while allowing linking with closed source files within the same application.  If they instead chose a license that allows closing all source, one can only assume they're okay with it.  In any case, I could care less if they're okay with it or not, I was just surprised that they chose the BSD license and then were mad when someone was thinking about closing it up.

The trouble is, even very weak copyleft licenses like MPL and CDDL can result in licensing incompatibilities.  Only by granting very permissive licensing terms can you guarantee that your software will be usable by the full range of free software alternatives.

For what it's worth, I have also made the argument on many occasions that projects shouldn't pick permissive licenses unless they're happy to see their work turned into proprietary products.  But if a developer releases software under a liberal license, saying "I'm doing this so that everyone can use it but please keep it free," I think they have a right to be pissed off when someone ignores their moral request.

> There's no doubt that even if they chose a permissive license like the MIT or BSD license, these communities work primarily with OSS code and tend to prefer that code be open.  I can understand if they then tend to rebuff attempts to keep source from them, purely as a social phenomenon, however irrational it may be.  That's why I asked Walter if he had a similar opinion, but he didn't care.

Yes, the conscious choice of an extremely permissive license for druntime and Phobos is a different situation.  It's completely right in this case to facilitate all forms of development and re-use, under all licensing scenarios.

> I still think it's ridiculous to put your code under an extremely permissive license and then get mad when people take you up on it, particularly since they never publicly broadcast that they want everything to be open.  It is only after you talk to them that you realize that the BSD gang are often as much freetards as the GPL gang, just in their own special way. ;)

It's a shame that you feel the need to resort to name-calling because someone has come to a considered moral or strategic position that's different from yours.  It also doesn't really help your position -- you're better off just getting on with developing software using your strategy and showing how it serves free software in the long run.

> I wouldn't call closing source that they legally allowed to be closed antisocial.  I'd call their contradictory, angry response to what their license permits antisocial. :)

Personally speaking, I find there are a lot of things in life which I prefer to be legally permitted, but still nevertheless consider antisocial -- and I don't think there need be a contradiction there.

> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=sprewell_licensing
>
> Note that this article was written when Android had less than 10% of the almost billion users it has today, by using a similar hybrid model, and I was thinking up these ideas years before, long before I'd heard of Android.
>
> My project was a small one, so it couldn't be a resounding proof of my time-limited version of the hybrid model, but it worked for its purpose and I'm fairly certain it will be the dominant model someday. :)

Thanks for the interesting read.  I think you have a point inasmuch as this is a model that clearly works very well from a business perspective where apps are concerned -- and if you're going to have open core, I'd rather it be one where the closed parts are guaranteed to eventually be opened up.  Of course, this is not the same as moral approval :-)

What I'd say, though, is that what works for apps isn't going to be what works for languages or their core development tools.  Most apps seem to be single- or small-team developments, not community projects, they are targeting niche requirements, and ultimately they're being delivered to a target audience that's used to paying for software.

On the other hand with a language your overwhelming goal is to grow the user community, and (unless you're Microsoft or Apple, who can dictate terms to software developers) the best way by far to do that is to secure the language quality while keeping the development tools available free of charge.  You'll get more mileage out of monetising other things -- e.g. bug-fixing services, support, consultancy -- than you will out of restricting access to tools that enable people to use the language effectively.

You also have to consider the user perspective.  If I was offered a new language whose tools were delivered with open core terms, I would almost certainly refuse -- I'd feel unable to trust that I wouldn't at some point find all future releases locked up, leaving me with the Hobson's choice of either porting all my software to another language or coughing up the licensing fee.