Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Posted Apr 1, 2016 9:34 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
In reply to: Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld) by paulj
Parent article: Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Sure. And it would be nice if GPL fans stopped calling BSD/Apache-licensed projects "unfree" or "closeable source".

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Posted Apr 1, 2016 10:33 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

"free" has a specific meaning in the realm of Free Software licensing. Deliberately chosen to play on other meanings no doubt, but within that context "free" and the mirror "unfree" are correct descriptions of BSD/Apache.

"closeable source" on the other hand is just a generally descriptive term. BSD/Apache licence are explicitly designed to allow further mods to be kept closed!

I'm always amused by the more dogmatic BSD/Apache proponents who try to cast the GPL's attempt to keep code under that licence open as some restrictive of freedom, but who will get huffy if take their BSD/Apache code and - exactly as the licence allows and their espoused view of "freedom" seems to be in favour of - close it off.

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Posted Apr 1, 2016 11:04 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

> "free" has a specific meaning in the realm of Free Software licensing. Deliberately chosen to play on other meanings no doubt, but within that context "free" and the mirror "unfree" are correct descriptions of BSD/Apache.
Then so is 'viral' for GPL. Why do you object to it? It has an entirely specific and accepted meaning in the realm of Free Software Licensing.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License for references.

> I'm always amused by the more dogmatic BSD/Apache proponents who try to cast the GPL's attempt to keep code under that licence open as some restrictive of freedom
Yes, it is a clear limitation of freedom. FSF tries to justify it by their political goals, but it's still a restriction.

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Posted Apr 1, 2016 11:28 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The issue with "viral" is that it is just incorrect.

"free", I can totally agree that some might value open-preserving freedom more, while some might prefer closed-preserving freedom. There's an inherent trade-off there between the freedom for recipients to do whatever they want with the code, and the freedom of the code itself. You can not preserve both the freedom of the code and the freedom of recipients to do what they want. That's fine. In the context of FSF and copyleft, "free" means placing the freedom of the code above the freedom of people to close it. In the context of BSD/Apache, etc., it means preserving the freedom of recipients of the code, over the freedom of the code. Completely fine, they both make sense, they both have their place.

"viral" as an analogy to describe the GPL is not very good. All analogies fail at some point, but a good analogy at least holds for a while. However, GPL as a "virus" falls apart almost immediately. One does not have a choice, typically, in whether a virus will try infect you. Incorporating GPL code is however a choice.