Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft [LWN.net]

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 14:40 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
In reply to: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft by silvas
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Note that copyleft has nothing to do with freedom. If you download the LLVM source code from the public repository and build it yourself, you can verify that the resultant program satisfies the Four Freedoms <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> and is therefore free software.

But what if you modify the software and distribute it only as a binary to other people? Which of the four freedoms remain for those people?

The whole point of copyleft is that the four freedoms remain, and it seems disingenuous to claim compliance with those freedoms by just observing the software at a given snapshot in time (when you were able to take advantage of those freedoms) and to disregard the process that guarantees them for everybody.

That's what copyleft has to do with freedom.

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Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 15:46 UTC (Sat) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link] (1 responses)

> But what if you modify the software and distribute it only as a binary to other people?

Then this specific software is non free same if said vendor has written one from scratch.

> That's what copyleft has to do with freedom.

Copyleft just ensures that derived work is free as well. (which isn't a bad thing at all) but this in itself is a restriction so you cannot really argue that copyleft is free while non copyleft open source isn't (which actually allows the user to do more).

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 26, 2014 14:18 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Copyleft just ensures that derived work is free as well.

Yes, that's what I wrote.

but this in itself is a restriction so you cannot really argue that copyleft is free while non copyleft open source isn't (which actually allows the user to do more).

Yes, it has to be a restriction in order to guarantee something: the continued availability of the four freedoms for any future form of the code and for any recipient. Without that, the immediate recipient can enjoy the benefit of shipping a binary at the expense of the subsequent recipients who may then only get one or two of the freedoms. So much for user freedoms then!

(I'm not arguing that copyleft-licensing is the only way to release Free Software: that's a classic misportrayal of copyleft advocacy and isn't even a position of the FSF.)

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 25, 2014 15:47 UTC (Sat) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]

An optimist is one who believes himself to be living in the best of all conceivable worlds.

A pessimist is one who knows it.

Copyleft has shown itself to be an effective and robust tool against software freedom either getting eroded or evaporated. Since it has to balance conflicting goals, one has to adapt this tool as the world changes and reevaluate the compromises taken and their respective drawbacks.

That involved both the license itself as well as how to make sure that its coverage of "the work as a whole" manages to actually affect what it is designed to be good for. That will always remain an issue, even though the current facts are, uh, not quite the state that Eric Raymond assumed to be working with.