"useful freedoms" [LWN.net]

"useful freedoms"

Posted Nov 21, 2003 0:31 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: Before this gets out of hand... by ekj
Parent article: Thomas Bushnell is no longer Hurd maintainer

("important freedoms" would have been a more accurate phrase)
Public domain is free. But this includes the freedom to abuse. So RMS invented the concept of copyleft which gives people the important freedoms, but takes away the freedom to abuse. With Eben Moglen, he drafted the GPL which is an implementation of copyleft that can be used for software.

With the GFDL, RMS tried to create an implementation of copyleft that is suitable for books. In doing this, he had to figure out what the important freedoms are, and what restrictions are required to protect these important freedoms.

In my opinion, he did not get the balance right, he put too many protection clauses into the license.

Unfortunately, my first comment was rushed, and touched too many topics to explain each fully. I hope this clears up what I meant by "useful freedoms" (more accurately, "important freedoms").

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