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Comment by delotrag | Hacker News Reader

You seem to misunderstand the GPL.

> if people make modifications to the software and keep that private later on, let them.

This is perfectly legal under the GPL. What's not legal is redistributing that software you modified but not giving _your_ users the same rights to modification that you yourself got.

Nothing in the GPL requires you to release or distribute personal modified versions of GPL software.

If by "keep that private later on" you mean "plagiarize GPL code to add to a proprietary program and distribute it," yeah that's not allowed- but unless you're a fan of pilfering the commons for personal profit, this is an unmitigated good feature of the license.

As an aside, copyleft is on the exact same legal foundation as the EULAs you seem to respect. It is extremely confusing that you think copyleft is bad but EULAs which provide significantly more restrictions are good.

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> This is perfectly legal under the GPL. What's not legal is redistributing that software you modified but not giving _your_ users the same rights to modification that you yourself got.

That's still controlling what users do, and worse, it's what they do with modifications, not even your own original work!! and without even agreeing to a contract of such terms.

It's plagarism if the activity was done under some system that required attribution, or if they misrepresented the change's provenance. neither is the case.

I agree with you on EULA's, they've been rendered useless in some cases and jurisdictions. But at least EULA's have a software prompt that enters their users into an agreement. There is a reason they require you to scroll all the way down and read it before agreeing, it is because how inherently weak they are.

I don't necessarily think EULA's are good, but at least as a user, i actually agreed to them. No one is trying to force me to agree to an EULA simply because EULA.txt exists somewhere in the directory tree of the software. And even if they did and had legal grounds, I still would disagree with any terms I didn't explicitly agree to, or any terms of agreement that are lopsided to the advantage of one side.

copyleft is an attempt at corporate greedy litigious manipulative behavior, except the greedy party doesn't actually want money, they just want control.

It is explicitly _not_ controlling what _users_ do. It is a restriction on _distributors_ of software. As a user of the software, you may use it for any purpose, modify it to your heart's desire, and even redistribute it. You just can't redistribute it and then refuse to give downstream users the same rights.

That is not meaningfully a restriction unless you're trying to unjustly profit off the work of others. The copyright holder doesn't exercise control over users here.

I think I am failing at communicating my view. What I am saying is those rights you speak of are invalid. I could use it,redistribute it, profit from it, backdoor it, or print it and make a door stop from it. It is mine. The original author has no say in it.

Perhaps it would help if I mentioned that my objection stems from an overall revulsion at copyright and anti-piracy laws. It is hard for me to object to those and at the same time support the application of those same laws. I either accept the law being used this way by everyone (open source, bigcorp, bigmedia,etc...) or I don't.

Set it free, and if it was meant to be yours, it will come back!

In my opinion, the proper way to solve this is by requiring users agree to a non-distribution, and/or non-commercial use, prior to being allowed to download the open source software. And that agreement is strictly between the person publising it and the person downloading it. If I obtain a copy of it from someone else, I am not bound by the terms of that agreement. Another approach is to actually charge for the open source software for commercial use, yet allow downloading of the software (with a confirmation prompt for non-commercial use prior to download) free of charge. That way, the publisher has a commercial claim, loss of profit, something under tort law against whoever is using their code and profiting from it.

But even then, I don't get in what world a modification, which by definition is new original work that was added to the software, could be a thing the original author have any say over. If publishing software is speech, then that is compelled speech. and you're being coerced into speech, not because you agreed to any terms, but simply because someone put a license term in a file and presumed agreement to those terms, not by the person that obtained a copy from the publisher, but by absolutely anyone who happened to obtain a copy of that software.

My problem if it isn't clear, is that those same laws are used to control what people do with their software and devices in many other contexts. What's good for the goose and all..

In a world where everyone by default had unlimited rights to use, modify, and redistribute software, sure, copyleft would be unnecessary. But we don't live in such a world. You believe users ought to have unlimited rights to do what they want with their software- copyleft hijacks the copyright system to ensure these rights can't be removed downstream. "What's good for the goose" is exactly the rationale behind copyleft- if large corporations can use it to restrict user rights, the community can use it to protect them.

By not supporting copyleft, what you seem to think you're doing is consistently opposing copyright encumberances. But practically speaking, you're just giving up the fight- large corporations can enforce copyright and restrict users, and you don't support fighting back because you believe it would be philisophically inconsistent.

My contention here is that you're wrong, in the sense that we share a goal (software freedom) and your strategy will less effectively accomplish that goal than the one you oppose. Opposing copyleft will not end copyright, but it _will_ give all the benefits of copyright to those looking to restrict user freedom.

We just have different approaches. In my view, I will use the law when I don't have a choice, but in this case there is a choice. I think the copyleft approach is in fact giving up, because as you put it, it is using copyright laws, justifying means by ends.

The fact is, there are public domain licenses, and they work well, they only exist because of legalistic reasons. My view is that the world is what we make of it. Oppressing others because you're oppressed isn't right. I make no distinction between "users" and "redistributors" like you're making. this isn't class warfare from my perspective.

Think of it differently, with public domain, everyone gets the same access. In my view, if the software is modified and redistributed, I don't care, because as a publisher I never claimed any rights over the software I published to begin with. The license is "do whatever you want with it". to be more prescient, property rights, and the ability to freely share what I own is more important to me than the free accessibility of software. I also believe that good free software shouldn't rely on the contributions of commercial entities. From redhat to Google, I've seen good contribution from them, but they also wield an unfair influence over open source projects. From the kernel to systemd, there are endless complaints about them.

copyleft is attempting to entice corporate beneficiaries of open source, whereas I think I'd like to see the opposite of that. Maybe that made sense at the founding of the FSF, but these days the power dynamics are wildly different. I prefer for governments and individuals alike to fund good open source software, and for that software to be truly free. I don't want some corporation supporting the project so that they can wield undue influence over it, and corrupt it to serve their own self interests.

There is no shame in asking for funds or monetary support. Or with asking users to pay for the software directly. the open source community is very large, it isn't a small band of devs writing code on their free time anymore.

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