proprietary relicensing & software freedom morality in revenue-generation
proprietary relicensing & software freedom morality in revenue-generation
Posted Jul 28, 2016 19:27 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)In reply to: On the boundaries of GPL enforcement by gwg
Parent article: On the boundaries of GPL enforcement
Even tough it is possible to generate revenue a particular way does not mean that method of revenue generation has a positive impact. Often, it has a negative impact. There are plenty of examples outside of software (fracking comes to mind).
As long as proprietary software is legally permissible, which it admittedly is, there will be proprietary business models, and people who use them. The danger in proprietary relicensing is it is designed as a trick to convince people to rely on copylefted software, and actually hope that they fail to follow copyleft terms and gouge them.
I deeply dislike Gitlab's business model, but it nevertheless honest and fair, and gives no special powers to Gitlab. Gitlab is not copylefted, and anyone who wants to can take their community edition and make the same business model Gitlab does. It's fair.
Using copyleft for proprietary relicensing takes a tool designed to advance software freedom, and warps it in a nefarious way to turn it into a scare tactic and nearly a shareware-like system. The usage is by default unequal, because it has one of the same flaws that proprietary licensing: certain entities have more rights and powers that other entities do not. This is why I criticize proprietary relicensing almost as harshly as I criticize “mundane”proprietary licensing.
As to your point about how much extra copylefted code is generated as part of the process, I'm not sure that's inherently good, if the tool of copyleft is actually being used to promote proprietary software adoption and creation instead. I don't believe copyleft is a moral good unto itself; it's a tool that can often be utilized to advance software freedom, but any tool can be used for a purpose not within its original intent. I believe the usage of copyleft for proprietary relicensing usually does just that.
Finally, we're past the business model discussion: it's clear that one can earn a living doing only Free Software, but because proprietary software is still permitted, it's really difficult to do so — proprietary software has an unfair advantage over Free Software. Copyleft is a tool to help mitigate that problem, but it's not a perfect tool (as we're discussing). As such, making a living with only Free Software means you probably will be paid less for your work, but I know plenty of people who make a true living wage doing so. It's a question of commitment and values.