Steve Dice

This argument only works if you assume everything that isn’t the GPL is feeding the rich.

The only reason you perceive my comment as disingenuous is because you’re on the authoritarian side of the political spectrum. Again: me writing new code on existing software and wanting to license it as MIT takes away nobody’s freedom, it just doesn’t comply with your dictator’s fantasy.

The rest of your comment is really just you trying to cope with the insanity of the licence you choose to defend. There’s legal precedent saying adding to code doesn’t count as using the code but the FSF will still sue you if you license your work how you see fit. Authoritarianism at its best.

It is mutually exclusive. You cannot “protect freedom” and impose restrictions on freedom. Also, no, you just explained how the licences worked and didn’t provide a single argument as to why having the freedom to licence your work however you want is a bad thing. The GPL doesn’t ensure that the software stays free, it ensures that it keeps control of the software and all future additions to it even if they’re completely unrelated.

Also, copyleft is just newspeak for copyright.

You’re not unless you keep the licence.

You’re again assuming that the GPL only restricts non-free licences. This is not the case. If I add a feature to a piece of GPL software, I can’t use BSD on my new code even though the new code isn’t derivative work. Hell, if I write a completely independent piece of software that links to GPL software, my new software has to be GPL even though not a single line of GPL code was used. All of this also applies to free licences like BSD. The GPL doesn’t protect freedom, it protects itself.

That’s also false. The GPL doesn’t only restrict non-free licences, it restricts any licence change on the derivative work. If I fork a GPL project and want to redistribute my changes with a free licence such as MIT, the GPL will prevent it to protect itself. It’s an authoritarian licence that doesn’t respect your freedom.

That’s false. Derivative software that doesn’t use the BSD licence has no bearing on the BSD-licenced software itself. For example, Sony using FreeBSD for the PS3 operating system has zero impact on the freedom of a FreeBSD user. The GPL, on the other hand, directly infringes on the user’s freedom to fork and redistribute the software.

BSD is freer than GPL. Fight me.

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