Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Sep 2, 2019 4:47 UTC (Mon) by raof (subscriber, #57409)
In reply to: Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License by giggls
Parent article: Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

I agree that this license is not Free Software, by the current definition.

However, I don't think that's a problem. Indeed, I think that the current definition of Free Software is not a good one - or, rather, it's not a good definition for ensuring user freedom¹. It is a good definition if you want to financially benefit from the free work of other. Freedom 0 is incompatible with ensuring user freedom.

¹: It is a good definition if you want to financially benefit from exploiting the software commons; see also the perennial “open-source software sustainability” discussions.

to post comments

Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Sep 4, 2019 7:19 UTC (Wed) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link] (2 responses)

Free software was never about *the users’ freedom* always about *the developers’ one*. Big difference which is too often overlooked.

Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Sep 4, 2019 10:21 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

You have that backwards.

Free Software is explicitly about the *users* but Open Source is about *developers*.

Debating the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Posted Sep 5, 2019 16:58 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Yup. And this licence is about the users.

Think of "parties to the action". This is a good licence because it doesn't try to give a 3rd-party rights. If I buy Office software and use it to create documents, the copyright holder is NOT a party to my creating documents. They shouldn't have any rights over said documents.

Aiui, this licence says "people *using* the software are parties to the action. They have rights". It may require the copyright holders to enforce the rights on behalf of the users, sadly, but the thing is the user has the right.

Cheers,
Wol