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Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

> Most of these non-open-source licenses aren't free software

Free as in beer? They are. BSL and SSPL and FSL and friends are free, with some restrictions which are usually extremely reasonable and boil down to forbidding reselling.

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In context of GNU and FSF, when we say free software, we always mean free software with the basic freedoms

    Freedom 0: The freedom to use the program for any purpose.
    Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
    Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.
    Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

If you do price segmentation and prohibit billion (trillion?) dollar companies such as Amazon.com from using it, it is no longer free software

Which freedom does that violate?

Freedom 0.

Amazon is prohibited from using it for their commercial offering.

Based on the current definitions. If we go back in time to the early 80s, there were no rights for non-user vendors being discussed.

You omitted an important clarification stated before those freedoms:

> The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom

It's free as in libre, not free as in gratis. They don't prohibit the exchange of money.

That is a moot point. It could be a million dollars but the person who received it can them pass it on for zero dollars.

If you’re going to throw the commandments of software freedom at someone to make your point you do not get to exclude exactly the part that explicitly contradicts what you say with a dismissive “except that, that doesn’t count” because it doesn’t fit your ideas.

A license that gives freedom but not gratuity fits the rules you quoted. The general topic is far from an open and shut case so I’m happy to debate arguments with you, but not the lazy, disingenuous way.

> forbidding reselling.

You absolutely cannot forbid reselling and call yourself Free Software. So what are you talking about?

I am talking about the 4 rules posted by GP above [0] from FSF’s definition of free software, after selectively removing the part that wasn’t aligned with their point, then calling that part “moot”. I was not talking about the content of the article. The comment thread starting at the link below will provide all the context.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45604819

I don't see freedom two as having a qualification of "helping your neighbor".

My interpretation is you can share anything you have with anyone else, even Amazon dot com and it (Amazon dot com) will have all the rights you have.

Sure, but that zero-dollar copy comes with no guarantees from the person passing it around. You could, as a billion dollar company, provide the software freely but offer additional warranties and support for a licensing cost. This was and is a really common business model for companies that package Free Software for pay.

I would not call all of them "extremely reasonable" - "forbidding reselling" also significantly discourages forking. If the original company is bought by Oracle/Broadcom, and raises the prices to unreasonable amount, all their users are likely screwed.

As a user, it's pretty important for me that someone can continue to provide software under reasonable conditions even if original authors can't.

(FSL and other licenses which convert to open source are much better in that regard, but there is no excuse for BSL / SSPL)

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