Re: Mixing GPL and non-copyleft code in source files

[Alexandre Oliva]

Hello, Kosior,

Happy GNU year to all
https://www.fsfla.org/blogs/lxo/2023-12-31-happy-gnu-year

On Dec 27, 2023, Wojtek Kosior via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System 
distribution." <guix-devel@gnu.org> wrote:

> These legal means can be considered brutal.  Even if I did something
> bad to someone (which I'm trying not to), I wouldn't like them to make
> efforts to have me imprisoned or fined.  Similarly, I wish not to have
> others imprisoned/fined but rather pursue justice via as peaceful means
> as possible.

I acknowledge your preference to avoid litigation and coercion in
general.  It's relatable.  I wish to make it clear that I don't intend
to dispute that.

What I wish to do is to point out that you appear to be equating
committing violence with intervening to stop violence.

I understand denying freedom as a form of coercion and thus of violence.

Refusing to give others power to coerce third parties is not violence.
It's a common mistake for people to assume that strong copyleft licenses
take freedoms away, because they establish boundaries to one's legal
rights.  But some legal rights are freedoms (i.e., about one's own
life), and others are powers (i.e., over others' lives), and it's
important to distinguish them to grasp the ethics underneath copyleft.

The legal rights that copyleft licenses grant are freedoms that everyone
should have, that copyright law takes away by default, so a license must
grant them in order to abide by ethics.

But the legal rights that copyright law reserves to copyright holders,
and that copyleft licenses do NOT extend to licensees, are powers that
nobody should have over others; those would be means of coercion, that,
if used, would amount to violence, to abuse.

When facing a situation of abuse, of violence, it may be morally
defensible for someone to turn a blind eye and allow it to proceed.
It's questionable, but unlike the abuse itself, it's not uniformly
reproachable.

But it's also frequently considered socially valuable (courageous,
heroic) to intervene, even when placing oneself at moderate risk, by
using proportional force to defend oneself or third parties from abuse
and violence.

It's ok if you choose not to be a hero.  But making it a point to
announce publicly that you won't stand in the way of violence does not
look to me as good as quietly planning not to do so, which in turn
doesn't look to me as good as standing against violence to the point of
intervening when you witness it.


I hope this makes sense to you,

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                    https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                           GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but
very few check the facts.  Think Assange & Stallman.  The empires strike back