An org's commitment lasts longer than any individual

Posted Dec 28, 2012 15:38 UTC (Fri) by hugoroy (guest, #60577)
In reply to: An org's commitment lasts longer than any individual by bkuhn
Parent article: GnuTLS, copyright assignment, and GNU project governance

You've made an extensive interpretation of what I wrote and what I was responding to. I was not talking about enforcement of copyleft (that would be protecting copyleft against people violating it) but about protecting software freedom from software developers themselves. Assignment or not, copyleft is enough legally to protect software freedom. Enforcement is another issue and may require assignment to be effective, we can discuss precisely how it's better achieved, but please note that it is totally not what my argument, or the post I was responding to, was about.

An org's commitment lasts longer than any individual

Posted Dec 28, 2012 15:46 UTC (Fri) by hugoroy (guest, #60577) [Link]

Re-reading the paragraph I was responding to in my initial comment: I may have missed the argument. Maybe he was actually writing about enforcement, but as the distinction was not clear I think I replied besides.

unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license

Posted Dec 28, 2012 17:22 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (4 responses)

Hugo, an unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license. (Gerv also made a similar point in this thread.) Therefore, I don't think it's logical to make some distinction about the usefulness of copyleft outside of enforcement, and I'm surprised that you've done so.

If folks want to comply voluntarily with copyleft, they could treat ISC as if it the same requirements as GPL. Indeed, even Theo de Raadt encourages (but doesn't require by licenses) that people to share all their software source code with everyone. Thus, it's only when someone violates that there's any distinction between copyleft and non-copyleft.

unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license

Posted Dec 28, 2012 18:43 UTC (Fri) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (1 responses)

> Hugo, an unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license.

Uhm. No. Maybe its that way for some companies but to the definitely existing mass of people/companies who actually try to adhere to licences its not even remotely the same.

unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license

Posted Dec 28, 2012 20:31 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

Let's try again:

Unenforced copyleft, from the point of view of a person that is licensing to an uneducated, impolite company, is the same as the ISC license. From the point of view of the licensor to an illuminated company, no enforcement would be needed.

unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license

Posted Dec 28, 2012 22:06 UTC (Fri) by hugoroy (guest, #60577) [Link] (1 responses)

I do not agree. A copyleft license is never the same as an ISC license, in one case the company is doing something illegal whereas in the other case it's legal. Of course, we can talk about the best way to enforce copyleft, but that's a different issue in my opinion.

Again, I was responding to the argument that was done that assignment is a stronger protection of freedom than copyleft, which implies that copyleft without assignment is less protecting. I disagree.

We can have copyleft projects which require assignments, that allow a single copyright-holder to make dual-licensing for instance. So of course, we can think of assignment only to non-for-profit which are supporting software freedom. But then we have a problem of ressources that such centralisation would need.
On the other hand, we can disagree on whether copyright assignment is the most effective way. I do not have strong opinions about that, because I have not been involved in enforcement very much nor in copyright and project governance. So I'm always willing to hear both sides of the argument to make myself an opinion. But again, assignment isn't the only way to enforce copyright, so linking these questions as if they' re the same is not addressing the issue.

unenforced copyleft is the same as the ISC license

Posted Dec 28, 2012 22:25 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]

hugoroy wrote:

I was responding to the argument that was done that assignment is a stronger protection of freedom than copyleft

I don't think anyone on this thread argued that. By contrast, I argued that if no one is willing to enforce GPL, the net policy effect is the same as if the code had been under the ISC license. Gerv argued something similar. Companies don't mind infringing copyright at all if they have a strong belief they won't get caught. That much is obvious, given that hundreds infringe copyright and violate GPL every day just based on the fact that the odds are relatively low they'll be enforced against. Imagine how many more would if everyone believed there was no chance at all enforcement would occur.

One reason assignment is useful is that developers can assign their copyrights to an entity you know will act to enforce the GPL, as FSF and Conservancy do. In my experience, it's very rare that developers have the fortitude to put up with how difficult enforcement is. I've never known anyone, except for myself and Erik Andersen, who have been willing to continually work on GPL enforcement for a period of decades.

It's strange you mention resource allocation. I'm in communication with everyone who does community-oriented GPL enforcement. None of them have adequate resources, and some never even check source releases once they come out due to lack of resources. As I said in my interview in The H, checking the CCS is the most important and most time-consuming task.

Indeed, CCS checks can be distributed. The problem is, there are very few volunteers forthcoming to do it. I've asked for volunteers for years, and I've been lucky if a volunteer does one before they get burned out. It's boring work, and requires practice to get efficient and do it correctly.

Therefore, I don't think centralizing copyright holdership causes the centralization of enforcement. The reason that enforcement is centralized in a few places is simply because it's very difficult, time-consuming work that requires a lot of knowledge and experience, and very few people are willing to do that work.

I often wish more CCS checkers would volunteer for Conservancy and FSF. The more people out there talking about how CCS check works, the less FUD would be spread. Yet, folks just don't want to do it. As I said in my interview, in fact, the few folks who have the skills to do often want more money than non-profits can pay!

Anyway, as mentioned multiple times above, there's more about this issue in the interview that I did in The-H.