Hi Mark! Mark Wielaard <[email protected]> skribis:
> On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 03:33:20PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote: [...] >> I think copyleft is a “salient feature” of GNU, compared to many other >> free software projects, and indeed, GNU has its own licenses for that >> purpose. So to me, copyleft has its place in the social contract, >> rather than in a separate policy. We still need to leave room for the >> rare exceptions (Speex, ncurses), but there should be a clear stance in >> favor of copyleft licenses IMO. >> >> WDYT? > > I agree. But it feels like we can describe this more concise without > having the explain the exact policy we are following. For example > could we just state here: "The GNU Project prefers to distribute > software under /copyleft licenses/, designed to ensure that users' > freedoms cannot be strip off."? I think such a document has to be self-contained, and that’s why I think it’s good to concisely define copyleft and its intent here. Outsiders reading the document may not know what “copyleft” means; yet we want them to have a good grasp of what we’re trying to achieve. WDYT? >> > What are other policies that would/should follow from the social >> > issues? Or should maybe be in the contract itself? >> > >> > For example one core policy seems to be that we prefer the copyright to >> > be held individuals or the FSF (instead of being held by corporations) >> > so that the user freedoms are actually upheld when copyleft is used. >> >> I don’t think there’s such a policy right now, is there? > > There certainly is for various (older?) GNU projects. At least all > that I contribute to have such a policy. It is explained here: > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html > And the FSF itself has a larger explanation here: > https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2014/spring/copyright-assignment-at-the-fsf I’m aware of this, but it is a policy for copyright assignment to the FSF; it’s not a policy to avoid copyright “held by corporations”. The motivation stated in why-assign.html is that assignment allows the FSF “to enforce the GPL most effectively” and doesn’t mention corporations. > The reason I want to call this out is because when you don't have a > policy to keep copyright with the actual developers or assigned to a > foundation that comes up for user freedom you might accidentially > loose a way to defend user freedom for GNU software. > > If you pretend that who holds the copyrights is no big deal then, for > "popular" projects, you might slowly but surely see that the > copyrights will be held by corporations employing the developers. This > is a problem because corporations in general don't have any incentive > to defend user freedom. They don't want to upset their partners and > customers when they don't pass through the freedoms required by the > license. And they will just ignore the issue. It isn't that companies > are evil, it is just that they don't care (it isn't in their business > interest to care). But that also means they are often more than happy > to move the responsibility (assign the copyright) so that the issue is > out of their hands (companies do like a level playing field). I don’t believe “corporate takeover” is a realistic threat, at least not in the majority of cases. In my view, there are two situations: 1. Projects with many stakeholders, including companies. In those situations, a company may hold parts of the copyright, but it’d have to rewrite the whole project to really “take it over”. That’s practically impossible and useless. 2. Projects developed in-house by a company and “open sourced” (sic). Those projects may be free software but are, for all practical purposes, under the control of a single company from the start. That’s why I don’t think corporate takeover, among all the threats to user freedom, deserves a special mention in the social contract. Regarding the pros and cons of copyright assignment, we could discuss at length. :-) However, regardless of what we think of copyright assignment, I believe the social contract should be positioned at a higher level. IOW, I view copyright assignment as a policy issue, and not as a defining principle. (Note that currently copyright assignment is not mandated for new packages, and in practice only a fraction of GNU packages require it.) >> > Is that something that should be in the social contract? Does it >> > follow from what is in it now? Or should we add something to make the >> > (abstract) idea clear? (e.g. The GNU Project prefers policies that >> > encourage and enable developers to actively defend the users' >> > Freedom.) >> >> I think it’s implicit that project policies cannot contradict the >> higher-level goals set forth by the social contract. > > But does the current text of the social contract really sufficiently > clear that we will try to actively defend user's freedoms? For example > by the above policy. I think it does. What modification would you suggest to make that clearer? Thanks for your feedback! Ludo’.
