FSF Branding Problem - Libre-Licensed Software (LLS)

Faggot. Burn in hellfire.

where did stallman get these 4 "freedoms"?
did he make them up?
why is there only 4?

newfag asking for spoonfeeding

Amerifats problems. In decent languages there is a clear distinction between free and free.

that's not an answer
where did the 4 freedoms come from?
did stallman make them up?
why are there only 4?

The same reason we don't call America "The land of the libre"
We go off the assumption that humans are start enough to know what you mean based off the context.

Can you come up with another?

Libre is not an English word, you cannot communicate a message and expect people to have a dictionary at hand. If you have to explain a slogan or title, then you are doing it wrong.

I think "Free as in Free Speech" and "free as in free beer" are dumb analogies. "Free as in Freedom" and "free as in free of charge" sound better because they communicate directly the meaning instead of having to jump over an analogy first.

It excludes my freedom to get paid for my hard work. Not everyone can live on just a bunch of nerd cred.

Capitalism.
A small percentage of people are trying to destroy it though.

Issue only in english.

In french we say libre software anytime we speak about free software. Much more clear this way

Welcome to 1995.

I'd wager that most languages don't use the same word for gratis and free-as-in-freedom. I also don't think that trying to force "libre" is the right answer. Something like "freedom software" would be much easier to use, understand and remember for most people.

...

"Libre" isn't some obscure word. It's the root of "liberation" and "liberty."

You can get free tap water at most places that serve food or drinks.

It doesn't.

European countries have this "freedom" too.

It's still something free in the land of the free.

The word libre just reminds me of this.

Thanks for the contribution, Agent Fud.

Masked Ayumu's best friendo.

The FSF's biggest branding problem is the unkempt, bird fucking, foot-cheese-eating chimpout artist named Richard Matthew Stallman. Instead of gracefully moving to some kind of emeritus or honorary position as the founder, he's still the President of the FSF and its most visible public face. And that's going to turn off most people right there.

His autism is cute

There's nobody trustworthy to take his place. We're better with his autism and eccentric cheese preferences than with a tumblr faggot. Too bad he is against non-niggers having kids, otherwise we might have a rms2 by now.

use terminology that's descriptive and to the point, "free-market" could mean anything.

use terminology that's descriptive and to the point, "free-speech" could mean anything.

use terminology that's descriptive and to the point, "free-association" could mean anything.

use terminology that's descriptive and to the point, "free-movement" could mean anything.

use terminology that's descriptive and to the point, "free-software" could mean anything.

Nope, that's your biggest problem. Ad hominem is not a problem for the FSF.

The four freedoms didn't exist before GPLv3 before that it's was just 3 freedoms.
The fourth one (now freedom0) was introduced with the GPLv3 to counter the effects of Tivoization,
Freedom 0 is actually a safeguard freedom because without that, freedom 1, 2 and 3 are useless if you can't execute them.

The four freedoms is also a reference to this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms

You don't understand what an ad hominem is, and rms's eccentricities are very much a problem for the FSF.

For normies and most of them don't hear about his autism except if some BSD fag begins to sperg about RMS autistic nature.
He's the most trustworthy one that we have at the moment his autism for freedom has shielded the FSF of being taken over by awfully politicized people like Allan webber or Francis Rowe (even tho they try).

He's against having kids in general.

...

Because the terminology isn't the biggest problem.
If a group subverts the initial terminology like we already have seen if won't matter.
The thing is, is that free/libre software is a technical issue (which has philosophical extensions) that doesn't influence directly people but technologist first and then influence people indirectly.
Getting normies to understand the whole thing you need to explain a few abstracted concepts like black boxes.
The simplest way that I have to explain that to them is to explain what is:
-Binary: software understandable by computer but not by humans.
-Source code: software understandable by humans but not computer.
-Compiler: software that transforms the source code understandable to humans to binary which is understandable by the computer.

Once they understand this you can simply say that if we don't have the legal rights over the source code then the whole software/hardware doesn't belong to you.
Once this is done and if there's still some misunderstanding (which is common) you can make an explanation of the difference between virtual and physical belongings and this isn't simple for everyone to grasp.

The example I take is with a cupboard or any physical object without electronics.
Example:
You want to buy a cupboard, the cupboard has taken various resources for it to be made whether it is a few tools, manpower, time, wood and steal.
Once you buy it you can do what ever you want with it you can make a copy of it you just need the same amount of each resources to do so, if you want to make modifications to it you don't have any restrains but your own imagination.

Now lets compare software.
To make a software you basically just need a few tools, time and manpower.
If you want to make a copy of it you don't need the tools or the same manpower and time to do it, if you want to make modifications you need to not have any restrains either but most of the contracts of any sold software doesn't even make you the owner of the software they basically lend it to you, worse of all the software you have is a binary so it's impossible to know how it's made so you have nothing to begin with.
End of example.

If they understand this you are sure that they will understand the concept of the four freedoms.
But some people don't even understand these examples and I'm basically feel discouraged at that point.

You don't understand what an ad hominem is, and rms's eccentricities are not a problem for the FSF.

All software at the beginning respected the user's freedom by default. These four freedoms came about to describe what a software grants to a user so that the user can live in freedom.

Most of them don't hear about free software at all, let alone the free software movement, and the malignant 'tism of rms is absolutely a barrier to getting them to take it seriously if they do look into it.

Yes, on a voluntary basis. Which, in practical terms, means being against whites having kids, because whites are the only ones that will respond to ethical or environmental arguments against having kids, and who have the impulse control and planning skills to live their conviction. Mudpeople breed like rabbits as long as they have the bare minimum resources to do so, and often even when they don't, e.g. do a google images search for "starving African child". Speaking of Africa, its population is set to explode in the next 30 years. That's "explode" as in "grow significantly", not "explode" as in "be nuked", unfortunately.

You might be able to get some normies to understand, but you can't get them to care. They're too addicted to their iDevices, their Facebook app, their Instagram app, and their vidya games to care about the distinction between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-Stallman's idiosyncratic definition offreedom.

Goddamn, you're stupid. I really didn't think I'd have to explain this to you. An "ad hominem" is an assertion that a person's argument is incorrect because of the personal qualities of the person making the argument. I'm not addressing any of Stallman's arguments. I happen to agree with a lot of what Stallman says. I'm saying his appearance, his autism, and his disgusting personal habits make him a poor representative of the organization. That's not an "ad hominem", it's a fucking fact.

The vast majority of people have never heard of the FSF, and the minority who have are mostly hacker or techie types (or eccentrics themselves) who tend to tolerate spergs. When Stallman had his public meltdown in Brazil, do you think that people who didn't know much about free software, but went to the talk because they were curious came away with a good opinion of the FSF? Do you think they later told people about the Four Freedoms or did they say "Holy shit, this old man fucking flipped out at this talk I went to last night!"

We do, we call it the "Land of the Free (people)"

If we called it the land of the land of the Free Computer, everyone would think you were talking about a land where computers were being given away.

and libertinism

I think you're making an erroneous evaluation of Stallman's effect on the public perception of the FSF by not considering that while eccentric techie people who are culturally proximal to the FSF have a higher tolerance of spergs, that doesn't mean they approve of his particular sperg flavour. Furthermore, perception must map through those techie people in an exponential fashion to reach the mass public, so it is in fact that minority's opinions and their transmission of such are more important than anything else; the whims of the masses are mostly irrelevant.

Was responding to until I reread and realized I agreed and was essentially reiterating.

People who reject the message because the messenger offended them deserve a life subjugation and superficiality.

Debatable, everyone uses personality judgement heuristics to some extent to evaluate communities and their philosophies. Its effective use is contingent.

But his defects aren't limited to mere physical unpleasantness. His idea of free software tends towards antisocial fanaticism, and it turns off people who would otherwise mostly agree.

There are thousands of non-fanatic FOSS advocates. rms stands out for being a rock, unmoving from his stance no matter what.

No you pretentious autist. He's saying that having RMS at the FSF is bad optics.
Having Steve Jobs was good optics for Apple.

I personally like RMS because he appears to be the only person with enough conviction to live by his ideology of FreeSoftware in an uncompromising way.

This

You're not understanding me. His problem isn't an iron commitment to principles most people couldn't handle. His problem is a fetishism of those principles that makes him apply them when he shouldn't, and confuse them with his political and ideological leanings. He doesn't or can't understand how FOSS can fit into a larger social context, and seems to have no inclination to think about it or challenge his naive preconceptions.

In everything you've written here, I consider your opinions to be wrong. I believe your opinion of him does not accurately portray his views or acts.

I think this user is saying that RMS isn't a charismatic public figure, and that his appearance stands out more than his ideas.
I think the other user is saying that RMS' appearance doesn't really matter that much and that his adherence is more important than his appearance.

Personally, I think it would be nice to have a guy who could explain things in an approachable common sense way over at the FSF. On the other hand, RMS is the only one who really believes strongly in Free Software.
user here is partially right, I have NEVER seen the FSF make the argument for cultural ownership (cultural public domain, heritage) for example. The fact that software belongs in part to the culture as well as to the copyright holder.

Say what you will about Steve, he had common sense and could simplify 'complicated' topics in a way that was intuitive to any normie.

Steve in a College Lecture: youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI
RMS in a College Lecture: youtu.be/jskq3-lpQnE

He used to be better!!! I swear, the CIA saw him as a problem and did something to him: youtu.be/CcHfFOr6190

How would you feel when a university flies you over to their place to make a two hour lecture only to have them ask you to complete the rest of the lecture in a different language? This means that the first half of your lecture was not received and the second half of your lecture is ruined because nobody will have any context about what it means. This is what happened to Stallman in that video.

Comparing young jobs and old RMS isn't a good comparison.
Jobs isn't autistic, RMS is.
Jobs had Human management training, RMS only connects with software.

Oh for fuck sake user do you even know the context of this ?
He sperged out because he wasted 45 minutes of presentation because all the spics said they could understand English instead of saying no, RMS speaks fluently in Spanish he could have done it so that everybody could understand it but no they had to fuck it up themselves.

He aged that's what happened, he has health problems and the only thing that he did in the past 15 years was to repeat the same speech about free software around the world, you don't have to look far to know what happened.

That is possible, I'm pretty young and only have an impression of him from a small subset of what he's done, and quite a bit more from other people's interpretation of him. Anyway I am arguing more against the position I think he and his flock portend to rather than anything specific he has said or done.

Frustrated. Upset. Perhaps even angry. Those are all understandable emotions. The issue, however, isn't what I'd feel in those circumstances, or even what rms felt. The issue is how he behaved in response to those emotions: he threw a temper tantrum like a toddler who needs a teething ring and a nap.

Consider that this man is the public face of the FSF and the free software movement. Does his behavior, however sympathetic you may be to him personally, help or hinder the FSF and its mission? I would posit that it does the latter.

Linguistic and cultural misunderstandings happen. Live events like speeches run into snags. It's fair for people who care about free software to ask whether it would be better to have someone representing the FSF who can handle those situations with more tact and skill than rms. Stallman's best days, his best ideas, and whatever effectiveness he may once have had are long behind him. Instead of stepping aside gracefully, he just continues to circle the drain, repeating the same speech and blowing a fuse like a badly designed robot when something interrupts his spiel.

While his Brazil meltdown is the worst (recorded) instance of his bad behavior that I'm aware of, there are actually big compilations of rude, autistic behavior that he has exhibited at dozens of speeches and public events. He has turned a lot of people away from free software and the GPL licenses with his behavior. As his accomplishments recede farther into the past and he sinks further into irrelevance, the number of people who tolerate his antisocial behavior will continue to dwindle. It's a shame, and I feel for him.

But he hurts the movement more than he helps it now.

"sold software" conflates price with freedom though, in practice most of the software people use is gratis but not free. It is much more profitable to get people to pay without their awareness.

Ok. But just because the GPL pantamimes a speech by FDR doesn't mean those freedoms are the only freedoms regarding computer users or that those freedoms need be separate of each other. The limit of four is incongruent baseless nonsense.
It's all fantasy nonsense; disguising routed control of computer software through licensing similarly to Apple, Microsoft, and other proprietary licensing paradigms as 'freedom' is irksome.
It is irksome to have people tell me they are free with the GPL when the GPL stipulates how a user must operate or use software, but it is further than irksome with how a user as a person must behave regarding after their operation or use of software.

The Freedom to Profit from My Work

In which way?
You have that freedom, but only to the extent that it doesn't infringe on the freedom of others. As long as you don't violate the other four freedoms in the progress you can make as much money as you want.
The freedom of redistribution even means that you have to be allowed to charge money if you want.

You and your ilk who only care about appearances and superficialities are and have always been the biggest problem. You're style over substance, form over function and feels over reals. You hate RMS, because he is above your petty-minded trivialities.

All software should be free. It's that simple. Everything else is a FUD.

Look up what FUD means

The GPL, as I understand it, allows anyone to redistribute the code as if they were the owner. If you charge for binaries or source code, there is nothing stopping anyone with the code from redistributing it for free, or claiming it as their own. This is a minor potential problem for hobbyists and small enterprises, but becomes increasingly untenable as the business value of the code grows. If I want to make an open source game as an indie or small developer, I run the risk of my project being copied or stolen, the community or market fragmented. To a studio that puts millions of dollars into an IP, the risk is undeniable. To the people who finance writing professional software tools which are worth billions, the risk is absurd.

There are impressive open source projects, Linux and many of its userland tools, but this just highlights how FOSS, as it is understood commonly today, is only tenable for the kind of basic, modular, and configurable type of programs that software writers and enthusiasts appreciate.

I think the way past this, in the long run, is to make everyone understand and appreciate this type of software. One day we will write code as fluently as a native language, but this day is more than a millenium away, you're not going to get it by sperging like and signaling narrowly thought-out trans-humanist ideals. You're also not going to get there by chaining the people most capable of writing programs to a license that could cause them economic and social problems. Large corporations owning programming IPs and abusing closed source to do nefarious things and cut out competition is a problem, but in many cases those programs were written by people that would have liked to make it open source, but were pressured not to. Giving the programmer more ownership over their code will encourage better and more independent programming.
.

Correct
Wrong.

Copyright still applies and no one can take your work and just pretend they came up with it all on their own. They can distribute the software while acknowledging that it is your work.

However, think about it: even if people are not allowed to distribute software they will do it anyway. So what exactly are you losing here? People who value your work and want you to keep supporting the software will also be willing to pay for it. If this was not the case then the software industry (proprietary of Free) would have collapsed a long time ago.

Won't happen. Writing code is easy, a stree-shitting Pajeet can do it just like any street-shitting Pajeet can use a hammer, but writing quality software is just as much of a craft as using said hammer to build something for the ages.

What problems? If you don't want to make the source code public just put it in a ZIP and ship it along with the compiled binaries. If people want to copy your software without permission they will do it regardless. Who here hasn't been trading floppies, CDs or DVDs at shool when you were younger?

== R == run
== A == adapt
== D == distribute
== F == fork

why not just use this as the term? hard to confuse it with anything, sounds technical:

This is either bait or you are really missing brain parts.
The GPL isn't a speech it's a license.
The GPL never quoted FDR, the fact that the four freedoms of software coincide with the four freedoms of FDR aren just fun trivia that doesn't have any correlation but the name "four freedoms".
Yes but these four freedoms are just a reduced explanation of what the GPLv3 does.
Yes but these four freedoms are just a reduced explanation of what the GPLv3 does.
No it's responding to a technical problem that the software giants create back in the 80s.

Never go full retard.
literally all license does that faggot

Wrong, the copyright ownership is still in the hands of those who made it.
Wrong, the copyright ownership is still in the hands of those who made it.
That is true if you don't take into account that proprietary software is still being "pirated" and distributed via for example torrent.
Same reasoning has before, piracy has never stopped the industry, and if you fear that much to loose money, sell the assets the game assets and not the source code.

You really have no idea of how copyright applies.
The developer already has ownership of the software the licenses are extended rules so that people can control of their own computers.

How would you describe your mumbo jumbo then? If someone compares GPL to a walled garden like Apple or MS ecosystem, then it's obviously a Balmer-tier fear mongering against copyleft software. I don't even care what was your aim with your outdated nonsense.

Either that or he has just never read the license or he doesn't understand the technical benefits of copyleft for computing.

There is a BSD version with patent trap and relicensing is an option for the author. Also you can be an asshole and release patches like the grsec do or simply give support as usual.

BSD --> Public Ownership Not Enforced

GPL --> Copyleft clause Enforces Public Ownership

Can you explain how this works in practice? If someone just forks my project, makes a minor change, and puts it in a public github, with a ton of distracting marketing bullshit and the most obscure reference to me, has my copyright been infringed? What legal options does the GPL give me?

They can do it, but it would be illegal, which gives the developer legal options to fight it. Now, fighting all peer-to-peer redistribution is in my opinion not only a hopeless cause but a misguided one because we should be encouraging more peer-to-peer interactions. But the real use of copyright laws is to control how other business, entities with real market share and legal liability, can use or abuse your IP. There is a big difference between someone putting up some cracked game binaries on pirate bay, and a competing developer or media site hosting the binaries, potentially obscuring my ownership and any avenue of monetization I have set up.

In English, again,
the GPL is made up by Stallman and holds no founded reason with regards to preserving the freedoms of computer users. He uses his position and the position of the FSF to force compliance within _his_ opinion of how software use works at the expense of the user's freedom. This expense is similar to that of proprietary licenses like that of Apple and Microsoft. The four 'freedoms' are baseless, exclusive, and have not been proved as true freedoms regarding software use.

What the fuck? Games are copied/stolen/pirated all the time. It doesn't matter whether the source code is available or not.

read

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He has a point, you can't claim things are freedoms without acknowledging who the freedoms are for and why, and what consequential restrictions they place. FSF assumes their set of freedoms are somehow universal and exempt from any discourse analyzing their theoretical and practical application, and respond rudely when agitated, like Stallman does and you're doing right now.

...

Well you don't have to load software on your computer that you don't understand, and you can computer whatever the hell you want to with the tools you have. That doesn't mean that every program written needs to be made available to you, or that you should push the use of a license that requires you to give up ownership of anything you write. The world is not categorized into 'users' and 'parasites'.

If all software is free, then why won't you call it universal freedom? He just attacks rms while can't provide better option and even compare GPL to closed sourced EULA's that have many restricton regarded to usage while GPL don't.

The parts you wrote are your copyright and the parts he wrote are his copyright.
GPL would allow him to put all the marketing bullshit he wants in his program and users can go ahead and remove it too.

The point of the copyright under GPL?
Only the copyright holder can relicense the software. If you want Software X inGPL to be re licensed under Apache or BSD or a proprietary license, you would have to be the one to do that for the user.

The rest of your post is correct. It's possible that people violate the GPL and treat it like Public Domain code or simply didn't credit you, but that would be piracy and they'd be liable to a law suit if it was discovered. That would be a lot like stealing Microsoft's proprietary sourcecode and using it in a product or not getting the correct contract with Adobe to ship their font rendering shit, they'd need to get a license exception from the copyright holder to do it legally.

You're assuming that your definition of 'free', the FSF's ideology, is universally applicable and acknowledged as freedom, and then go on to say that if this was the case it must be universal freedom. This is essentially circular logic, and simply bypasses any argument about what your 'freedom' entails for who.

The GPL does have restrictions. You just don't acknowledge them as such because you don't mind them and are trying to maintain ideological purity.

I am not a lawyer of course, but yes, changing a line or two and pretending the entire thing is your original creation (donut steel) would be a copyright violation. It is up to a copyright lawyer to determine how much you have to change before you can call it your ow.

Any options you have under copyright law. A software license is you saying "people may do as follows with my code", so when you employ the GPL you are using your power as a copyright holder to give users of your sofware certain permissions and responsibilities. Among those are the four Freedoms, but also the restriction that users may not use the software in a non-free way. For example, I cannot take your shitlib, change the copyright notice, rebrand it as pooplib and make it proprietary. What I would be able to do however is share your shitlib around.

What options do you have? Are you going to fight the 1337 hax0rs? No software developer ever fights piracy because it's a hopeless endeavour. The only time they they do anything is if they can take down a profiteer who is making money off it. Realistically speaking there is no difference.

Let's suppose you made an office suite, call it Pajeet Office, and you decided to charge money for it. Microsoft doesn't like that, so they will buy a Pajeet Office copy from you and then host a free download on their site. They are legally allowed to do that, but think about it for a moment: this would be Microsoft admitting that they MS Office cannot compete with your Pajeet Office, their clients would look at this and think "why the fuck should we even bother with MS Office when even MS admits that Pajeet Office is better?". This is why Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Apple would rather see you pirate their products than use the alternative for free. Despite all the Free alternatives to the popular applications none of these companies have done anything. They would rather pretend those alternatives don't exists, because ignorance is their strength.

We can talk all day about what could be, but there is no need when the precedent has already been set.

Having read that short description in the OP's pic, I don't see why MIT/BSD licenses are considered non-free. They don't place any restriction on either of those points. In any way.

I agree with you there. Freedom is most often used as a buzzword where people say "if you're not using the GPL, you're against freedom", indeed a black&white fallacy over an ill-defined concept.
I've come to adopt a new perspective on this subject. And it is indeed addressable in the "4 freedoms" thing.
You ought to be free to study the code, indeed. But if the code has reached the millions of LOC, and it's a bunch of spaghetti, then there's no way you're going to be doing it. Indeed, part of the point of source-availability is lost already, since, while it may be in principle possible to actually go through all the mess, you're not likely going to do it and you can possibly keep a mental model of what is going on. Even malicious code may be injected at the source level at this point and there's no way to know.
Even worse at the binary level, where malicious code can still be injected and harder to trace, so source availability matters even less.
I would sat that some form of freedom has been violated, at least the freedom to audit the code you're running without going through seven rings of hell.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against the GPL license, I'd most likely use it for some projects in fact.

They aren't considered non-free. They are just considered cuck-licenses because anyone can take your work and run with it without giving you anything back. I think the BSD license obliges the user to give a (you) in the credits, but that's it.

You're right, that's why they ARE considered free licenses.
gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
*MIT is technically the "Expat License"

s/can/can't/
By the way, here I mean the code as a piece of engineering, not as a product in which case the user will most likely compile and run, as we all do.
I must clarify here as well, you could know if you're an active developer, or if you go through the whole source, or if you trace the commits over time from a point where you know it's not compromised, otherwise, you're in a hell of a ride to find that out, moreso if the code has shit source standards like those of GNU

To add to the above, I do use the MIT license on occasion. Usually it's with code I don't care enough about or code where I don't see the possibility of it being abused. There is no need to GPL a Vim plugin, MIT is simple and to the point. If I get bored or stop using a plugin I would like to make it as easy for people to pick it up and continue.

I mean, in some cases, the BSD license makes sense because it encourages people to at least USE the software in cases where they wouldn't.

For example, a company that moves fast in regards to their dev cycle might not have the time/resources to be certain of GPL complicance and can't bare the risk of violating it. Keep in mind that Apple, Sony, and Netflix are some of the top code contributors to BSD.
Here are some monetary donors too:
freebsdfoundation.org/donors/

Intel pirated MINIX by violating the BSD attribution clause.

In anycase, I agree with you, it IS a cuck license and I wouldn't want my work to frustrate Playstation, Netflix, and Mac users with shitty DRM for example.

Users don't/won't, the average person has very little care or knowledge about the developers of the programs they use. What does having the copyright on the code you wrote even mean if there is no control over how it's used or systematized acknowledgement of your work? If the only point is to re-license, that's pretty much admitting defeat as regards the utility of your license in the first place. You're essentially delegating IP control into a public-perception marketing battle, and all of society and developers especially lose when that happens.

No, of course not.

Fighting piracy is not the same thing as having sane intellectual property licensing. Software developers don't fight pirates, but they sure as hell manage who is distributing their software legally. The control of software distribution, closed or open source, is an intrinsically important enterprise consideration for monetization and marketing.

They wouldn't need to come out publicly in their attempts to undermine their competitors infrastructure. But that's not even the main problem, because the spectrum of well-meaning to parasitic to predatory people in your community of software users would do similar things on their own accord. One of the main problems with FOSS is the propensity for projects and communities to fragment.

Wasn't there a scandal recently where some companies where using GPL'd code (I think the linux kernel) violating the license and their stance was something like "what are you going to do, SUE us?".

Every license have some kind of restrictions, except public domain, but that's not even a license.

Better than proprietary. At least with open software, devs can make changes.

Your copyright lets you set the license and the license can define almost any restriction.

What...?

How is that different from any copyright, on say text or video? I think you're getting copyright confused with license.

Please, I like open source and am trying to give constructive criticism that would encourage more people to develop open source software. Don't mistake me for arguing for closed source or indefinite proprietary IPs like Disney.

It means that the only way for you to assert any authority as the copyright holder is to abandon the GPL for a different, potentially proprietary license that gives you that authority. Maybe I'm confused, but I thought we were discussing the utility of the GPL license, not other licenses.

Maybe, the concepts merge into each other outside of strict legal contexts. Is it copyright or licensing that allows for, say, a DMCA to be issued and processed legally, or a combination of the two? Obviously the C means copyright is involved, but isn't it licenses that detail whether it's legitimate? I've never heard of DMCA's issued against GPL'd code, so I assume what you get from copyright in the GPL isn't the same as text and video.

Where's the freedom to use whatever license you want?

spotted an american

Copyright isn't a part of GPL.
Basically, if you write software, you're the copyright holder. Only the copyright holder can define a license. That's all copyright is or does.

GPL is a set of rules in of it's own.

In that case, than it sounds like the GPL neither extends or maintains any rights the copyright holder might reasonably expect. That's pretty much my point. I like how the GPL keeps code in the public domain, but I don't think it provides enough protection or control to the developer, which discourages its use. It seems like what many developers might consider reasonable control is antithetical to the FSF's idea of open source software, which discourages any kind of creative licensing which you might begin to consider proprietary open source licenses.

* I like how the GPL keeps code in the open source domain* is more my point.

GPL gives the developer more control than permissive open sores licenses. Ergo you can only be arguing for proprietary software because you see yourself primarily as the developer and wish to maximize your personal gain from that. In practice even developers are primarily users of software and would be better off if all software was free software, including theirs, however most optimize for short-term profit instead, which from a purely individualistic perspective is indeed the rational thing to do. However it foes lead to an overall worse situation for society.

Jesus Christ, please watch youtu.be/Uiq42O6rhW4

GPL keeps software in a state of "Public Ownership"

You say this, but then say
Pick one. If a permissive open source license is non-free according the the FSF, than it must be giving the developer more control than what the GPL gives them, which is nothing. Furthermore, is what you're saying the only thing a develop would want control over 'personal gain'? Is that reduction consistent with your experience developing software, and does it in any way covary with the quality or utility of the software?

I disagree with your conclusion, and don't actually see any clear line of argumentation. I think it's self evident that software quality has some direct connection to the developers ability to control the evolution of their project. I don't fully agree that it would be better if everything was 'free' software according to the FSF. I think most of the benefits of FOSS lies in the open source part of it, and the FSF's interpretation of the 'free' part of it does not reflect the real world concerns of developers, sucks air out of the movement, and ultimately limits production of quality open source software
.

I corrected that in the post below. And nitpicking over terminology isn't a strong case.

And to be clear I don't consider retaining copyright and the ability to change the license as any control that the GPL grants.

That's wrong though, see this: gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses

I'll never understand why people forget that you can do this with the GPL as well, there are plenty of people that actively use GPL software in their own projects, plenty of people even sell software with unmodified GPL software projects, contributing no code and paying nothing back to the original author(s). This is all in accordance to the license too, it's not uncommon at all yet it's the number 1 thing I see GPL advocates criticize other licenses for.
I don't see why people just assume that because someone forks a GPL project that they're going to contribute something back, even in situations where they do modify it, how often do those published patches ever amount to anything upstream unless actively called to attention? It's not like project maintainers are going to go out of their way to find your derivative and merge things back in.

I understand the restrictions of the GPL and the possibility being there, but to just assume that it is the norm when that's anything but the case is so absurd to me. It's unfortunate that I see many other assumptions made by GPL advocates all the time, it's extremely deceptive in my opinion and sometimes I think it's even detrimental to their cause because it makes them seem disingenuous. Like when they automatically assert that if you use ISC/MIT/BSD for a license that someone is automatically going to fork and close it while contributing nothing back, it's the polar opposite of the other assumption, neither are true 100% of the time and neither are even true most of the time.

These people alone are the biggest reason I won't openly associate with or advocate the FSF or the GPL itself. I don't want to be pinned as some kind of lying cultist myself which I think is the general impression people have for these advocates.

I have no idea what you can even do about it either. It's frustrating.

They can retard, it's called you don't except other people's comits into your branch.
You are fucking retarded and clearly only pretending not to know the fundamental basics of copyright, ToS, and fukkin source repository.

You've derailed the thread for 50 posts for more by pretending to be flat-earth level brainlet, really your just a kike shill who doesn't want the FSF to improve.
Who paid you?

>That's wrong though, see this: gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses

Thanks! One of these could be exactly what I'm looking for. But FSF advocates frequently claim that only the GPL is true freedom, but it seems they admit licenses are categorized as free without several conditions of the GPL. This abuse of rhetoric is exactly what's wrong.

What is a fork?

Usually an useless attempt.

Slippery slope.

Sure, but it fragments the userbase and community, and the potential for it shapes how you handle development.

"Oh no, other people writing their own software somehow affects the software on my machine"
What level is your autism?

No they don't you lying faggot. They say anything that violates the 4 Computing Freedoms violates true freedom.

It certainly affects my willingness to commit to a project that involves a lot of people and money, and my ability to manage said project to a productive end.
Apparently not high as high as yours.

The GPL never sat well with me because they had to reinvent what freedom meant, it always felt like some kind of "no true scotsman" bs and they always play some slavery card.

Freedom can't be defended or tampered with, that's what makes it free. Even in a situation like preventing slavery, what you say you're doing is "fighting for freedom", which isn't inherently a bad thing, but it is still restrictive and goes against the idea of freedom. It's ironic to say you're defending freedom by taking it away from people. True freedom is true freedom, GPL faux-freedom is just that, false freedom. There's no denying or debating that, what you should debate instead are your opinions on certain liberties but these GPL advocates don't, they conflate everything into one issue under the wrong name because it is adventitious for them to do so, and that sucks.

Freedom is the right to do as you wish as long as you don't harm others and their own freedom. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire is not an expression of freedom. Taking up a slave is not freedom because slavery causes others to have no freedom. Exercising your power as a slave owner is a matter of exercising power, it is not a matter of freedom. Likewise, distributing proprietary software is not an expression of freedom. The GPL is written in such a way that ensures users have the essential freedoms that they need because without it, people are commonly inclined to distribute that software as proprietary software.

It's GNU/freedoms, GNU+freedoms is also acceptable.