Changing CentOS in mid-stream

Posted Dec 16, 2020 17:54 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Changing CentOS in mid-stream by paulj
Parent article: Changing CentOS in mid-stream

> They should just not be able to use it to prevent others from exercising their copyleft rights to distribute.

Private contracts are used to place far more onerous conditions on things far more basic and important than copyleft software; what makes software so special here?

For example, as part of my severance package from the last gig, there was an anti-disparagement clause. If I trashed-talked my former employer within a certain period of time, I'd have to return the money they paid me. I was free to say no, and trash my employer all I wanted, but instead I voluntarily entered into a contract that restricted my freedom of speech and used that money to pay off some debts.

Should this "Waiving my rights to X in exchange for certain considerations" sort of contract be made illegal? (if yes, why? If no, how X == free speech materially different from "X == redistribution of copyleft software"?)

Changing CentOS in mid-stream

Posted Dec 17, 2020 12:26 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Your employment contract doesn't really involve the software of others.

The copyright holder can't stop others exercising their freedom of association either.

The copyright holder can however require that the obligation to distribute modifications to the source be broader, such that others can not wield freedom of association as a weapon to restrict copyleft rights.

And if such parasitic companies don't like that, they're still perfectly free to not use that software. The authors are free to choose their licence for their software, and others are free to make their own decisions.

Changing CentOS in mid-stream

Posted Dec 17, 2020 13:20 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Your employment contract doesn't really involve the software of others.

Oh, yes it does; if I make use of or incorporate certain software in my last two jobs, I can be terminated on the spot.

> The copyright holder can't stop others exercising their freedom of association either.

Their attempts to create "ethical licenses" certainly do; under "field of use restrictions"

> The copyright holder can however require that the obligation to distribute modifications to the source be broader, such that others can not wield freedom of association as a weapon to restrict copyleft rights.

The actual "software" has no rights or permissions -- only "persons" do. I (or my employer), as a "person", have the permission granted by the software's author (ie the license) to redistribute that copyleft software. I can chose not to do so for any reason -- Because I don't like you. Because it's Tuesday. Because I promised my mother that I wouldn't. Because I signed a contract with my employer/supplier/whatever to not do so. And so forth.

What you are asking is for the license to unconditionally force/compel folks to redistribute the software to unrelated third parties. There are significant practical and legal problems with that. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's going to take a lot of care to draft, and the resulting license will probably see even less use than the AGPL -- Which is already considered so toxic that it's only significant use is as a deliberate poison pill.