Morosoph's Journal: GNU General Public License

I'm writing this in part because I moderated in the Government-Funded GPL Software discussion, and so cannot post without losing my mods ;-) I know that this is a tedious source of flamage, but it seems to me that in spite of ourselves, many of us don't appear to have understood the concept of free software. This appears to be the case even for many of those who understand the concept of a free market. So I will attempt to draw a simple distinction that hopefully should be clear to even the most hardened BSD enthusiast.

It is this: it is the software that is free, not the programmer. Just as a free market is fully able to optimise without government restraint, so the free software perpetuates without being "locked up". We do not claim that the marketplace is less free because a contract to enslave or be enslaved [which, like copyright, would require judicial enforcement] is invalid, yet when it comes to software, many of us consider not being able to bind subsequent users as a serious restraint on freedom.

To be fair, it does limit the programmer's range of action slightly, but not noticably, in that they retained the bulk of their freedom in having access to others' source code, and being able to code what they wished, as they wished. This is where those promoting BSD over the GPL stop, for the inability to bind subsequent users in law is seen as a loss of freedom.

But here we need to look to the meaning of free software. Just as in a free market, certain contracts that overly bind contractees are invalid, so free software recognises that there is a balance of freedoms between programmers and subsequent programmers or users. If we are to maximise freedom in our actions, we surely need to consider the freedoms of all those who might be effected, not only the "next generation".

So there remains one argument: that of "incentives". The GPL reduces the incentive to produce, for the opportunity to make a profit is reduced. This is to mistake the nature of the marketplace, though. The marketplace is where one has the opportunity to trade in order to maximise what one values. Differing values and specialisation create the opportunity to trade. To only look to monetary gain is to make the fallacy of money: that money is valuable in itself rather than as a medium of exchange. If I wish to increase the freedom of the world, a BSD-style license might not give me a sufficient incentive where a GPL one would.

So what license should a government produce software under? The answer to this is not necessarily a BSD-style one, as it might not maximise the people's interests. A BSD-style license might indirectly lead to more litigation and restraint of freedom than a GPL-style license would. In fact, a government that wished to maximise freedom, and to use the law to enhance, rather than diminish freedom might well choose to license under the GPL. It can do this without hypocracy, for it is supposed to act in the interests of the population, whereas those companies who create from scratch have no such requirement upon them, and indeed, they retain their freedom to do so.

Those inclined toware libertarianism can note that there is no growth in government engendered through such use of th GPL; indeed, fewer knots in intellectual property that would follow from taking such a course would likely means fewer court cases, and thus less government.

Emancipation

[peacefinder]

[...] it is the software that is free, not the programmer.

I finally grokked this just the other week, while reading the OpenBSD mailing lists about the Apache dilemma. BSD focuses on the freedom of the user, it seems, and GPL on the freedom of the software.

And, of course, it's that sort of statement that is so vague it leads to flamewars. :-) So let me suggest an alternate word to use when speaking of this.

GPL software isn't so much free as it is emancipated. It has been released or is born free, and it

Re:Emancipation

[Morosoph]

Emancipated. It's a nice term :-)

For my money, I favour the software/programmer freedom distinction, not least because it in fact makes pro-GPL programmers and "activists" face up to exactly where the freedom lies. It's a difficult freedom, like that which I advocate here [slashdot.org], and the software/programmer distinction focuses the mind, and help you to decide exactly what license you do want to write software under. It helps to ensure that the programmer knows why they've chosen the licence that they have, ra