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

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Mittwoch, dem 03.01.2024 um 18:46 +0100 schrieb Wojtek Kosior:
> Before getting back to the discussion, please let me ask 1 question.
> Assume I submit a patch series that adds some useful and needed code
> and includes a copyright notice with a promise, like this
> 
> ;;; Copyright © 2023 Wojtek Kosior <koszko@koszko.org>
> ;;; Wojtek Kosior promises not to sue for violations of this file's
> license.
> 
> Will this weirdness be considered minor enough to tolerate?  I made
> sure the promise line takes below 78 chars.
It will be considered minor enough to be removed according to section 7
of the GPL.

> Now, my response to Liliana.  This is becoming a viewpoint-oriented
> discussion so if you want us to continue outside the mailing list,
> please tell.
Feel free to take this off-list anytime.  I will neither insist you do
nor you don't.

> > > 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.
> > > 
> > > Now, one could argue that I could just use a copyleft license and
> > > then not sue — that's what RMS said when we met in 2021.  But
> > > that's where the notion of threat comes to the foreground.  Just
> > > as I consider license lawsuits not to be in line with my
> > > conscience, I consider lawsuit threats (even conceales ones) not
> > > to be in line either.  And non-public-domain licenses fall in
> > > this category, at least as long as licensing is understood in
> > > terms of legal systems.  
> > I think you are (willingly or otherwise) drawing an incomplete
> > picture here.  When the FSF sues, rather than seek for damages,
> > they seek publication of software, which is exactly what the GPL
> > already tells you to do.
> 
> I disagree about my picture being incomplete.  It's perhaps just
> deeper — if a sued party got ordered to release the source code but
> did not, it would get punished for not complying with the court
> order.  Somewhere deeper in the background the copyright licenses are
> still backed by force.  I could "retain a clear conscience through a
> lack of awareness" of this hidden threat of force… but I somehow
> became aware of it years ago and that's how I ended here :)
Wishful thinking won't get you into a world where copyright law doesn't
exist.  I agree that in a vacuum, threatening a "person" (note, that
corporations aren't people, but pretend to be in court… anyway) with a
fine or violence if they don't give me some source code is silly. 
However, we live in a society where those "people" threaten the rest of
society on a daily basis for daring to share it with others.

See Alexandre's reply for a longer explanation.

> > > Whenever I publish some code under CC0, others could of course
> > > remove the CC0 license notices, put different license in place
> > > and legally redistribute that code — thus making it seem as if I
> > > were using a non-public-domain license in the first place.  I'm
> > > not doing anything about it because there's little I could do. 
> > > But if I were to somehow authorize or aid in something like this,
> > > I object.  Which is what we're discussing in this thread.  
> > This appears to be a case of wanting your cake and eating it as
> > well. By declaring some piece of software public domain you already
> > aid in its proprietary redistribution.  You simply retain a clear
> > conscience through a lack of awareness.
> 
> It seems there might be some misunderstanding resulting from us
> applying different sets of ethical criteria.  If one is e.g. a
> consequentialist, the overall outcome is what matters.  And the good
> of having all derivative programs released as free software can be
> considered to heavily outweigh the evil of making a not-very-explicit
> legal threat.
> 
> I don't know whether you are a consequentialist but I surely am not. 
> I am trying to apply the principle of double effect in my reasoning. 
> If I am to be criticized for making morally wrong choices, let the
> criticism at least concern incorrect application of that principle.
Even the principle of double effect goes against what you're imagining.
The potential threat of litigation is not intended and way outweighed
by the benefits of free software.  Now you can tick off that mark and
continue with your life.

> As a side note, if I were a consequentialist, I'd probably be much
> less of a software freedom advocate.
While there may be consequentialist critiques to the PDE, there are too
many consequentialist ethics to lump them all together.  I'd personally
even consider the PDE partially consequentialist, as it considers the
outcomes of an action to determine morality, even if it does a very bad
job of doing so.  Again, I believe your criticism to be born in
misunderstandings.

> > > RMS called my approach "pacifism" and he is probably right.  Even
> > > most Catholics like myself would disagree with me — many make use
> > > copyright, after all.  But my own conscience is telling me not to
> > > do
> > > certain things that seem harmful and I'm trying to obey it.  
> > The nice thing about holy scripture is that you can justify just
> > about anything with it, especially if you are liberal in your
> > interpretation. It gets even easier with classical reasoning: Just
> > pick two contradicting sentences (or even a self-contradicting
> > one), and it logically entails every sentence, even those that
> > large language models come up with.
> 
> I didn't talk about Bible anywhere.  I only talked about conscience —
> which is shaped by many things, not just Bible — and merely mentioned
> Catholicism.  And yet, the response I get on a public mailing list
> mocks the Bible.  That's sad.
If you're that pedantic, I didn't specifically talk about the Bible
either.  Now, I know you can be Catholic without having read the book
('t even makes it easier), but I kindly ask you not to justify your
views on copyright with it, as few of us are certified priests who can
correct you if you have been led astray in your faith.  Cool?  Cool.

> If you want, I'll happily take part in a discussion about Bible's
> value. We can talk about the cultural context, the symbolism,
> different levels of meaning of some texts, their history and that the
> Scripture is infallible with respect to theological, not historical
> truths — contrary to what some expect.
Now, I'm not here to debate theological "truths", but I can roll 3d20
on Gods and Cults if you insist.

> > Now pardon my agnosticism, but even you yourself remark that people
> > sharing your faith have different opinions on copyright.  I thus
> > highly doubt that it ought to have a big influence over yours :)
> 
> If we consider faith just a set of dogmas, I agree.  But if we
> consider it a relation or journey — why not?  Not everything can be
> dogmatized — there's a lot of place for personal experience and
> reflections.  And mine have led me to my views on copyright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I'll need an Orientation skill check real quick.

> > > I hope my issue is clarified, I am sorry it hasn't been so from
> > > the beginning.  It felt that including an explanation like the
> > > above one with the previous email would add up to an essay
> > > inappropriately long for this mailing list, I hope you agree.  
> > I do agree on the inappropriate size, but at the same time I
> > disagree on the clarification bit, in that your issue hasn't yet
> > been distilled to its purest form.  There instead appear to be some
> > misconceptions clouding your mind making it so that we (and perhaps
> > even you yourself) have to come up with a consistent belief about
> > copyright in the first place.
> 
> Perhaps while we are engaging in this viewpoint-oriented discussion,
> we can at least implement some temporary solution to the initial
> issue? :)
Scroll back to the top.

> > > I'll add that in the past I tried using the GPL while making it
> > > not look like a threat by adding a "promise not to sue" below the
> > > notice.  I have since switched to CC0 because it's less ambigious
> > > (promises could have legally unexpected/untested outcomes) and
> > > easier to use.  I could once again use such promise approach for
> > > some code if it is more welcome — it'd still require a
> > > "statement" to be accepted by the maintainers, tho.  Do you think
> > > it is more "possible" this way?  
> > I think the threat of legal dispute can much more easily be avoided
> > by [...]
> 
> Thanks for trying to help here.  Sorry to say, the suggestions you
> make don't remove what I called the "threat".
> 
> > Promising not to sue is not even good pacifism anyway.  It's like
> > advocating for worker's rights without even holding a sign in the
> > streets.
> 
> Well, there's no incentive for me to argue for a pacifist label.
You should go back and think about that PDE you were mentioning
earlier.

> To make things clear — promise not to sue has been found by at least
> one court to be equivalent to a license.  So GPL with a promise
> should have similar legal effect to a public domain waiver, all while
> hopefully making it easier to mix with others' GPL'd code when need
> arises.  That's the entire point of it.
Assuming I have said anything to the contrary, I will now stand
corrected.  Anyhow, you are probably better served with an actual
license that has been tried in more than one court, but if you want to
ask Jesus for legal advice instead, that's fine by me.

> > > > It does defeat the purpose of the GPL if you, however, because
> > > > whoever wants to make a proprietary spin-off will simply take
> > > > the CC-0, since whereas the GPL gives you access to all the
> > > > changes when they redistribute it, the CC-0 gives you bupkis.  
> > > 
> > > I agree that copyleft can be a powerful weapon against
> > > proprietors.  My issue is definitely about something else than it
> > > being ineffective  
> > Sadly, the message cuts off here.  (Or perhaps you are just missing
> > a sentence-ending period?)
> 
> I'm male hence the lack of period.
I would not have guessed until you pointed that out to me.

> Well, during my school years there was a meme in Poland about period
> at the end of a message being a "period of hate".  I simply retained
> a habit of omitting the last period.  I guess I can as well include
> it when writing english since few will get the joke anyway…
I… am not sure how this applies in the context of email, and you anyhow
leave a "proper" greeting below, so it doesn't make sense to drop the
period in that sentence.  It just makes people assume you wrote the
greeting first and then

Cheers