Especially if my approach has single handedly created the largest body of copyleft / collaborative / open source software out there with massive amounts of actual collaboration.
The irony is so strong here. Basically jerks, who can't get along with others (including each other, witness the battles between SFC and SFLC etc etc) with little value creation themselves want to force their view on others, even though folks have already voted with their feet.
By all means create the Affero GPLv3. Try to get folks to write software for it. That's fine.
But don't pretend to be on some moral high ground speaking for developers / creators who wrote the code. Let them speak for themselves. And don't go back and having lost the effort to get Affero GPLv3 or whatever adopted close the various SAAS and Tivo loopholes, go back and say some old license has these terms.
The exact same authority developers have when they tell their clients that they cannot run a 1,000,000 person site off the phone they forget to charge sometimes. Or even a designer telling a client their color scheme is poor (it clashes, isn't color-blind friendly, and renders poorly on anything smaller than a tablet)! It's a technical matter and they are paid SMEs.
They aren't saying Linus's goals are stupid. They're saying the methods he's using to achieve the goals are. Which makes sense. Because he's not a lawyer.
So if lawyers were in charge and rampaged around suing the shit out of every company that made a mistake when using Linux, that would better suit Linus's goals? Only Linus can speak to Linus's goals, but I doubt this is what Linus really wants.
This is like saying “If I want to write my code a certain way, what right do compiler authors and language designers have to tell me code contains ‘syntax errors’ and ‘obvious bugs’”. On some level you can write whatever code you want. But if you want it to work the way you intend, there’s some rules that have to be followed
That's not a reasonable comparison.
1. Licenses are fundamentally open to interpretation, programming languages have specifications. Yes, the specifications and compiler aren't perfect, however, code is designed to be specific. Legal agreements on the other hands are very intentionally the opposite. Legal agreements consciously avoid being overly specific in order to be broad and all encompassing. Legal agreements fundamentally have access to (and are evaluated with respect to) the concepts of "fair" and "reasonable"; which very intentionally have no strict definition. You need to argue your case.
2. More importantly, licenses are contracts. They're a civil matter (not criminal). Meaning the copyright holder can chose whether or not they want to enforce their license. That's a fundamental right of being a copyright holder. If you consciously don't enforce, you may lose the right to enforce (at least fully), but that is the license holder's call.
Why do I have to follow the SFC rules / interpretation (by the way very flawed) when I write my own code.
Seriously, what gives them this right over my code. I reject this, even if GPL licensed.
Of course, I get the argument you and they are trying to make. By releasing stuff with GPL software I may have written, I've somehow bound myself to release my decryption keys, unlock my devices etc etc. You are making my point for me, that is NOT what most authors of GPLv2 licensed code want or agree to. And just saying "because lawyers" doesn't make it so.
This is a good example of the hazards of involving lawyers I think. Wet becomes dry and dry becomes wet.
The first part of the statement--if you want to license your code a certain way--your lawyer should be to work with you to find a way to legally do that. Unless you want something patently absurd like "I want a way to let me murder any idiots who use my code without any consequences whatsoever."
It's the parenthetical that's problematic: you can't control how the law will be interpreted, and if you've got an incorrect interpretation of the law, you'll be laughed out of the courtroom. See, for example, any sovereign citizen case.
Look at the GPLv2 (written by a CODER).
Compare it to the GPLv3 (written by these expert lawyers).
Which is clearer, more understandable, just more rational?
Which is the license that has the larger adoption on more code used by more folks.
And despite all the claims here, intent is going to matter. When you sue Linus and say the GPL doesn't mean what he and everyone else actually creating this code think it means, then he's going to say, this was our intent. And you are going to have a VERY tall mountain to climb.
Are you willing to represent yourself in court? If the answer is no, then that's an admission you are stupider than a lawyer when it comes to legal matters. Nothing wrong with it, I have no problem admitting it myself. Let the programmers handle the programming and let the lawyers handle the law.
You fail to understand how copyright works. If I'm the creator of the work, I have the copyright to it.
And yes, I'd be happy to represent myself if SFC came along and told me I could or couldn't do something with the code I wrote because that makes no sense. I can choose a license, I can dual license, I can re-license future releases and I can stop providing updates under any of those licenses.
So sure, if you and the SFC want to go after me for my code, go for it.
There seems to be a modern confusion that the folks NOT doing any of the work in writing code have all sorts of rights with respect to it (or time of a dev to fix their bugs). False.
could any statement be less substantiated than pure FUD like that?
