Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Aug 26, 2019 20:57 UTC (Mon) by MarcB (subscriber, #101804)
Parent article: Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

In the OSI discussion, there is a comparison of this license with EU regulations that require giving users the ability to export their data.

However, there are significant differences: While the legal regulations are between you, your customer and, in escalating cases, the courts, this license brings in an additional party in form of the software's copyright holder. That party might well be placed in a completely different jurisdiction. This is an absurd complication that is not worth bothering with.

Additionally, the legal regulations place some "obviously sane" limitations on data access. For example, you do not have to grant criminals access to their stolen data ("The right ... shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others").

In general, data freedom is a thing better enforced by laws instead of licenses because there is an inevitable clash of interests, likely with multiple involved parties.

The energy spent discussing this license would be better spend campaigning for proper data portability laws in the US. This is battle conservative think tanks have long since entered.

Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Sep 1, 2019 17:37 UTC (Sun) by mlinksva (guest, #38268) [Link]

I also agree completely, but extend this analysis from data freedom to software freedom. If software freedom is a human right, copyright holders are distracting third parties and licenses distractions from law.