[ale] Open-source software license manager

[George Carless]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 01:45:18PM -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 13:46 -0400, George Carless wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 01:26:03PM -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 12:57 -0400, George Carless wrote:
> > > > Well, license management typically implies restrictions on use which are 
> > > > antithetical to the nature of free software, right?  
> > > 
> > > I think you are misguided.  "Free" has many facets.  Even the GPL, from
> > > certain angles, limits your "freedom". 
> > 
> > I'm not especially interested in getting into a terminology war, 
> > here, but I do think that it's pretty evident that license 
> > management software is at odds with virtually every facet of 
> > "freedom" that is out there:
> 
> You live in a free country that requires you to have a license to drive.
> Granted it's not software, but it emphasizes my point that freedom
> depends on the person's vantage point.

When we talk about living in a "free country" we're referring to very 
specific freedoms, provided by the constitution.  When we talk about 
"free software," we're talking about specific freedoms provided by 
the licenses of said software.  I don't think it's particularly 
useful to say "but you're not free to use it in EVERY regard"-- 
the analogy you use is rather along the lines of saying "well, if 
it's free software, why can't I use it in service of murdering 
somebody?"

Of _course_ there are different degrees and definitions of "freedom," 
but I think that amongst Linux enthusiasts in particular there are 
certain core principles - freedom of copying and reuse ('free as in 
beer') being a particular one - which are commonly understood; hence 
my assertion that it seems a little incongruous to be looking to 
Linux enthusiasts for a free tool designed to restrict this kind of 
freedom.  (And note that in my case I've not been talking about "open 
source" software in general but rather about "free software"--the 
difference isn't trivial.)

Now, to your last point, you may well be right that there are 
examples of 'free' software being used to restrict the freedoms 
available to users of other software (heck, I built the 
X-Formation Web site using PHP on a LAMP platform), but that doesn't 
make it any less incongruous.

--George
--------------------------------------
George Carless ... kafka at antichri.st
Words are just dust in deserts of sound