Re: Licence of ts-comint

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Jostein Kjønigsen]

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Hey Jean.

Thanks for the email.

I'll be frank and admit I don't really care *that* much about licensing
as long as software I use is open-source. That applies to stuff I write
and maintain myself.
(Prepare for a slight rant)

With that said, I'm a bit put off by how much effort the FSF/GNU puts
into copyright and licensing of code, as opposed ... the code itself.
The whole GCC AST thing and debate about the "freeness" of the AST lead
to LLVM being made. For similar reasons, Emacs and GUD has for a long
time not supported a Elf-3 capable debugger, because before GDB got that
capability that would mean supporting LLDB, which would be "bad" (it not
being GPL-licensed and all).
I've seen this quote on some forum online: "The FSF was formed to
replace proprietary software with free software. Having succeeded, it
now lives on to replace free software with free software".
It's obviously meant as a joke, but I hope you can see where that joke
is coming from. Is this really where your effort is best spent?
And now this... I honestly find the *churn* the FSF is putting on its
GPL licenses quite baffling.
If the GPL v1 was good enough for free software... Why on earth should
the FSF develop and deploy a new license which renders all former GPLed
code "incompatible" (as you put it)? I'm lost for words. Are there
really anyone besides Richard M. Stallmann who condones this move?
If you now make the GPL-license incompatible not only with BSD or
MIT-type licenses, but also the GPL license itself... Prepare to be
even further berated next time the GPL vs BSD-license is up for
debate in online forums. Why put so much effort into making license
compliance so hard?
From the outside looking in, it looks like needlessly inconveniencing
the very people who made stuff for your platform.
You're obviously free to do whatever you please, but to me this just
seems a  misguided. If your goal is to  promote free software, how do
you see this helping?
(End of rant)

That said... My  small and pretty insignificant package is already
licensed "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along".
If you still think this is "incompatible" and needs an upgrade, and if
you are willing to do the leg-work... You know where my repo is. Feel
free to issue a pull-request and I'll have it merged.
--
Yours truly
Jostein Kjønigsen

jostein@kjonigsen.net 🍵 jostein@gmail.com
https://jostein.kjonigsen.net


On Sat, Aug 12, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In a thread in the emacs-devel maillist, the licensing situation for
> emacs
> packages provided through Emacs package archives has been under
> focus. I> have
> volunteered to contact the authors of packages that have a
> license that> is
> incompatible with Emacs, which is now under GPL-3+.
> 
> See
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2017-07/msg01069.html> 
> So I wonder if you could consider to change the license of your
> package> to
> GPL-3+?
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that the package from which ts-comint is
> forked has recently moved to GPL3+.
> https://github.com/redguardtoo/js-comint/commit/eb4744122724b24e492c2171fff438e3ee2045a8> 
> Yours,
> 
> Jean-Christophe Helary


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Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

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Jostein,

Thank you very much for the reply.

I must apologize for the hassle because the script that automatically checked for GPL2+ (or other equivalent wordings) did not catch "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along" and I did not take the time to actually check for myself.

Thank you very much for your work, and for making the effort to use a license that makes your package compatible with Emacs.

Regards,

Jean-Christophe 

> On Aug 13, 2017, at 12:58, Jostein Kjønigsen <jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net> wrote:
> 
> Hey Jean.
> 
> Thanks for the email.
> 
> I'll be frank and admit I don't really care that much about licensing as long as software I use is open-source. That applies to stuff I write and maintain myself.
> 
> (Prepare for a slight rant)
> 
> With that said, I'm a bit put off by how much effort the FSF/GNU puts into copyright and licensing of code, as opposed ... the code itself.
> 
> The whole GCC AST thing and debate about the "freeness" of the AST lead to LLVM being made. For similar reasons, Emacs and GUD has for a long time not supported a Elf-3 capable debugger, because before GDB got that capability that would mean supporting LLDB, which would be "bad" (it not being GPL-licensed and all).
> 
> I've seen this quote on some forum online: "The FSF was formed to replace proprietary software with free software. Having succeeded, it now lives on to replace free software with free software".
> 
> It's obviously meant as a joke, but I hope you can see where that joke is coming from. Is this really where your effort is best spent?
> 
> And now this... I honestly find the churn the FSF is putting on its GPL licenses quite baffling.
> 
> If the GPL v1 was good enough for free software... Why on earth should the FSF develop and deploy a new license which renders all former GPLed code "incompatible" (as you put it)? I'm lost for words. Are there really anyone besides Richard M. Stallmann who condones this move?
> 
> If you now make the GPL-license incompatible not only with BSD or MIT-type licenses, but also the GPL license itself... Prepare to be even further berated next time the GPL vs BSD-license is up for debate in online forums. Why put so much effort into making license compliance so hard?
> 
> From the outside looking in, it looks like needlessly inconveniencing the very people who made stuff for your platform.
> 
> You're obviously free to do whatever you please, but to me this just seems a misguided. If your goal is to  promote free software, how do you see this helping?
> 
> (End of rant)
> 
> That said... My small and pretty insignificant package is already licensed "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along".
> 
> If you still think this is "incompatible" and needs an upgrade, and if you are willing to do the leg-work... You know where my repo is. Feel free to issue a pull-request and I'll have it merged.
> 
> --
> Yours truly
> Jostein Kjønigsen
> 
> jostein@kjonigsen.net <mailto:jostein@kjonigsen.net> 🍵 jostein@gmail.com <mailto:jostein@gmail.com>
> https://jostein.kjonigsen.net <https://jostein.kjonigsen.net/>
> 
> 
> On Sat, Aug 12, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> In a thread in the emacs-devel maillist, the licensing situation for
>> emacs
>> packages provided through Emacs package archives has been under focus. I
>> have
>> volunteered to contact the authors of packages that have a license that
>> is
>> incompatible with Emacs, which is now under GPL-3+.
>> 
>> See https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2017-07/msg01069.html <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2017-07/msg01069.html>
>> 
>> So I wonder if you could consider to change the license of your package
>> to
>> GPL-3+?
>> 
>> Also, you may have noticed that the package from which ts-comint is
>> forked has recently moved to GPL3+.
>> https://github.com/redguardtoo/js-comint/commit/eb4744122724b24e492c2171fff438e3ee2045a8 <https://github.com/redguardtoo/js-comint/commit/eb4744122724b24e492c2171fff438e3ee2045a8>
>> 
>> Yours,
>> 
>> Jean-Christophe Helary
> 


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Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > I must apologize for the hassle because the script that automatically checked for GPL2+ (or other equivalent wordings) did not catch "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along" and I did not take the time to actually check for myself.

In general, it is risky to make changes in accepted legal wording.
What seems semantically equivalent to hackers like you and me might
have a different legal meaning in some situations.

Could you please show me the full license notice used in that package?
I'd like to check that it is really equivalent and won't give strange
results that perhaps none of us would like.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Paul Eggert]

Jostein Kjønigsen wrote:
> My  small and pretty insignificant package is already
> licensed "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along".

Ah, so the answer to Jean-Christophe Helary's question is, "ts-comint is already 
redistributable under GPL-3+, since its license is GPL-2+." Thanks.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Stefan Monnier]

> to LLVM being made. For similar reasons, Emacs and GUD has for a long
> time not supported a Elf-3 capable debugger, because before GDB got that
> capability that would mean supporting LLDB, which would be "bad" (it not
> being GPL-licensed and all).

I explicitly said I'd be happy to integrate LLDB support into GUD.
The only reason why it's not there is because that package was removed
from the upstream repository at that time.

I know Richard had a different opinion, but he was not maintainer.
I don't know what is the current maintainers's opinion about include
support for LLVM/LLDB/... into Emacs.  I'm personally have no issue
with it.

> I've seen this quote on some forum online: "The FSF was formed to
> replace proprietary software with free software. Having succeeded, it
> now lives on to replace free software with free software".

FWIW, there is currently a lot of effort from various companies to
rewrite GPL'd Free Software into non-copyleft Free Software.

Maybe the FSF also wastes some time doing so, but it's very far from the
worst culprit in this regard.

> It's obviously meant as a joke, but I hope you can see where that joke
> is coming from.

Oh, yes.  I see a lot of anti-FSF bashing behind it for ideological
reasons, indeed.

> If the GPL v1 was good enough for free software... Why on earth should
> the FSF develop and deploy a new license which renders all former GPLed
> code "incompatible" (as you put it)? I'm lost for words.

GPLv1+ is compatible with GPLv2+ which is compatible with GPLv3+.
So you'll only find problems with those people who used "GPLv2-only"
such as the Linux project.

> If you now make the GPL-license incompatible not only with BSD or
> MIT-type licenses, but also the GPL license itself... Prepare to be
> even further berated next time the GPL vs BSD-license is up for
> debate in online forums.

The FSF will be berated no matter what it does, because its goal irk
influential people.

> That said... My  small and pretty insignificant package is already
> licensed "GPL 2 or whatever newer comes along".
> If you still think this is "incompatible"

If someone said it's "incompatible" he was confused.


        Stefan

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

SM> I don't know what is the current maintainers's opinion about include
SM> support for LLVM/LLDB/... into Emacs. I'm personally have no issue with
SM> it.

I have no issue with it, either. I think allowing Emacs to interoperate with
other systems extends its reach, which in the end is more helpful, than shying
from the possibility that someone might then prefer to use LLDB over GDB. I
prefer to let the programmer use what he wants to use with Emacs.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2017 16:35:14 -0700
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >>>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
> 
> SM> I don't know what is the current maintainers's opinion about include
> SM> support for LLVM/LLDB/... into Emacs. I'm personally have no issue with
> SM> it.
> 
> I have no issue with it, either. I think allowing Emacs to interoperate with
> other systems extends its reach, which in the end is more helpful, than shying
> from the possibility that someone might then prefer to use LLDB over GDB. I
> prefer to let the programmer use what he wants to use with Emacs.

I prefer to wait until LLDB implements a decent emulation of the MI
protocol, then we don't have to do anything to support it.  GUD is the
obsolescent interface, modern debugging should use MI.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

"Support for LLVM/LLDB" is too broad to say anything about.  It makes
sense to include support for compiling Emacs with LLVM or debugging it
with LLDB, provided that doesn't require contorting the code.
When it would require that, we should tell them to fix their compiler
and debugger.

Running their programs from Emacs is a different matter.
Through generic interfaces, such as M-x compile, it will just work.
But we should not add code to Emacs to help people
replace GNU tools with competing tools that outflank copyleft.
We should not help defeat our work.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> But we should not add code to Emacs to help people replace GNU tools with
> competing tools that outflank copyleft. We should not help defeat our work.

I think the suggested is to add backend support for LLDB if it ever comes to
support MI, and so it should not require too much additional work. Saying that
we won't accept any such work from volunteers, however, would be an
unfortunate decision.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 13:54:57 -0700
> Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >>>>> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > But we should not add code to Emacs to help people replace GNU tools with
> > competing tools that outflank copyleft. We should not help defeat our work.
> 
> I think the suggested is to add backend support for LLDB if it ever comes to
> support MI, and so it should not require too much additional work.

LLDB already has MI support, it's just lacking a few commands that
gdb-mi.el expects to be available, without which it is impossible to
start a debugging session.

Someone on the LLVM list recently said they will try to add those
commands.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

It is true that some people ridicule us for using the GNU GPL.  Mostly
they either don't value the purpose, or don't even know what the
purpose is.

If you don't understand the job the GNU GPL is meant to do, you can't
make a rational argument that it fails to do the job, or that it is
unnecessary.

The purpose of the GNU GPL is to make sure all users of GNU programs
get the freedom to control them.  For an explanation of these
freedoms, see https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

We have seen free programs be replaced by modified versions which are
proprietary.  That happened in 1984 with Tex: the original version was
free, but TeX for Unix was nonfree.  That happened in the 80s and 90s
with X Windows -- the original version was free, but Unix variants
typically came with nonfree versions of X, and no free version would
run on them.

Now it is happening with LLVM.  Because LLVM is under a weak license,
it gave nVidia an easy way to make a proprietary compiler for its GPU.

If LLVM were GPL'd -- or if it did not exist -- nVidia would have had
to use a GPL'd starting point, would have had to make its version
free, would have had to reveal the GPU's instruction set -- which
would have been a great and important victory for freedom.

Copyleft is vital for the cause of freedom.  Apple opposes freedom,
and Google doesn't care much either way.  That is why they support
the development of a non-copylefted compiler.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "RS" == Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

RS> If LLVM were GPL'd -- or if it did not exist -- nVidia would have had to
RS> use a GPL'd starting point, would have had to make its version free, would
RS> have had to reveal the GPU's instruction set -- which would have been a
RS> great and important victory for freedom.

Not necessarily. nVidia has enough money they could write their own backends
from scratch, which would mean users losing out on all the research that's
gone into LLVM, any chance of compatibility with standard tools, etc.

No company with sufficient resources is forced to participate in free
software, and saying that a world full of GPL'd compilers would push them in
that direction is incorrect, I believe. Without free software, we would simply
descend into further fragmentation, lack of interoperability, and no chance at
all to benefit from the work of others.

I think the GPL ultimately ends up pushing companies in that direction,
whereas Open Source better allows for the free flow of ideas (by not
necessarily require that the implementations of those ideas be free). In my
own company, for example, we can never use GPL libraries, because they carry
too much legal burden to be worth it. Instead, we reach for Open Source
libraries; and, if none exist, spend money to write our own.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Not necessarily. nVidia has enough money they could write their own backends
  > from scratch,

The GPL does not allow linking GCC front ends with nonfree backends.
They would have had to write an entire compiler.

		  which would mean users losing out on all the research that's
  > gone into LLVM, any chance of compatibility with standard tools, etc.

These are side issues when our freedom is at stake.

  > No company with sufficient resources is forced to participate in free
  > software,

nVidia could, in principle, have written a compiler from scratch.  In
practice, that is a big job and success is not guaranteed.  nVidia's
compiler might not have worked as well.  It might not have worked well
at all.  It might have been too expensive to finish.  nVidia might
have given up, at the outset or after a couple of years of work.

The GPL has induced many basically uncooperative companies and
organizations to contribute their code to the free world
so that they could use GPL-covered code.

They are pretty strongly pressured, and that's usualy good enough.

If only the developers of LLVM had not given nVidia a way to bypass
our pressure, I think we would have a free compiler for a known
instruction set.

  > Without free software, we would simply
  > descend into further fragmentation, lack of interoperability, and no chance at
  > all to benefit from the work of others.

When that work is nonfree software, the invitation to use it is hardly a
benefit.  It's a trap.

Of course, there are various sorts of secondary benefits and secondary
problems.  Everything that happens causes secondary benefits and
secondary problems.  Those are side issues.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> The GPL does not allow linking GCC front ends with nonfree backends. They
> would have had to write an entire compiler.

Just to clarify on this point: There are nonfree frontends you can buy in
order to build your own compiler, such as the one from Edison Design Group. I
know Texas Instruments uses it to build a proprietary compiler for their
chipsets. The GPL has not stopped this from happening, it's just prevented
them from using free software, and thus the community from receiving any of
their work (which a looser open source license may have permitted).

The GPL is polarizing: There's a group of people who use only that, and a
group who use none of it. LGPL is the only license I know of that bridges the
two sides, while still being within the interests of the FSF.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

[OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Stefan Monnier]

> Just to clarify on this point: There are nonfree frontends you can buy in
> order to build your own compiler, such as the one from Edison Design Group. I
> know Texas Instruments uses it to build a proprietary compiler for their
> chipsets.  The GPL has not stopped this from happening, it's just prevented
> them from using free software, and thus the community from receiving any of
> their work (which a looser open source license may have permitted).

If they were willing to distribute their frontend under a weak license
(as used in LLVM), it would work just fine with GCC's license.
So I strongly suspect that if GCC's license were weak it would make no
difference: they simply want to keep their code proprietary.

> The GPL is polarizing: There's a group of people who use only that, and a
> group who use none of it.

Indeed.  But not for real legal/technical reasons.
It's due to political/ideological reasons.  IMNSHO,of course,

To a first approximation, in my experience, weak licenses are promoted
by people who don't like to say "free software" (and even less talk
about software freedom) while people who use the word "free software" or
"software freedom" will usually promote the GPL.


        Stefan

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Radon Rosborough]

> To a first approximation, in my experience, weak licenses are promoted
> by people who don't like to say "free software" (and even less talk
> about software freedom) while people who use the word "free software" or
> "software freedom" will usually promote the GPL.

There are also those people who will argue that weak licenses are
"more free" than the GPL because they allow the licensee more freedom
of use and distribution.

I don't think you can say it's black and white: you have to trade off
the freedom of the licensee against the freedom of the sublicensee. If
you think the freedom of the licensee is more important, you'll prefer
a weak license; if you think the freedom of the sublicensee is more
important, you'll prefer the GPL.

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Paul Eggert]

Radon Rosborough wrote:
> There are also those people who will argue that weak licenses are
> "more free" than the GPL because they allow the licensee more freedom
> of use and distribution.

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the 
same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases 
with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may 
mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other 
men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called 
by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the 
respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and 
tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks 
the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act.... 
Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word 
liberty.

-- A. Lincoln, Address at a Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, April 18, 1864.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/address-at-a-sanitary-fair/

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Wiegley]

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>>>>> "PE" == Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:

PE> The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep
PE> thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the
PE> same act.... Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a
PE> definition of the word liberty.

That's a great example, Paul. Not sure I see it fitting our legal discussion
(which has more complex dimensions), but I like how it clarifies the
importance of "point of view".

I'll desist from further debate on emacs-devel about licensure, however, since
I don't want anyone to confuse my opinions as an individual with my role as an
FSF project maintainer. I have no issue with Emacs choosing to use the GPL,
and have always licensed my own contributions to Emacs under the same.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

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Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Your citations are very interesting.

When I started the free software movement, I knew it was a vital issue
of freedom for computer users.  I did not know that it would raise
questions which had appeared long before in other issues of freedom in
other fields of life.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Stefan Monnier]

>> To a first approximation, in my experience, weak licenses are promoted
>> by people who don't like to say "free software" (and even less talk
>> about software freedom) while people who use the word "free software" or
>> "software freedom" will usually promote the GPL.
> There are also those people who will argue that weak licenses are
> "more free" than the GPL because they allow the licensee more freedom
> of use and distribution.

Notice that I did not talk about which license is more free (which
I find to be a meaningless debate), only about correlation between two
different behaviors.


        Stefan

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > To a first approximation, in my experience, weak licenses are promoted
  > by people who don't like to say "free software" (and even less talk
  > about software freedom) while people who use the word "free software" or
  > "software freedom" will usually promote the GPL.

You've said that "not copyleft" usually implies "don't say free
software" and "say free software" usually implies "copyleft".  Those
two statements are equivalent.

But the converse is not true.  There are companies that don't
particularly care about freedom, and don't say "free software", but do
release code under the GNU GPL as part of their business model.

They don't support our ideals, but their practical support does help.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Stefan Monnier]

> You've said that "not copyleft" usually implies "don't say free
> software" and "say free software" usually implies "copyleft".  Those
> two statements are equivalent.

Almost.  Except that I said "promote not copyleft" usually implies
"don't say free software" and "say free software" usually implies
"promote copyleft", so the negation is not quite at the right place to
make one the contrapositive of the other.

> But the converse is not true.  There are companies that don't
> particularly care about freedom, and don't say "free software", but do
> release code under the GNU GPL as part of their business model.

Indeed, my statement doesn't intend to cover all cases.


        Stefan

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I'm posting to explain the reasons for some of the GNU Project's
decisions and policies related to copyleft and defending it.  It isn't
a matter of arguing about them, because these decisions were made long
ago and are not going to be changed.

The purpose of GNU is to give computer users freedom, which nonfree
software seeks to take away from them/us.  Success, in the context of
GNU, means success in defending and extending users freedom from this
loss.

  > Just to clarify on this point: There are nonfree frontends you can buy in
  > order to build your own compiler, such as the one from Edison Design Group. I
  > know Texas Instruments uses it to build a proprietary compiler for their
  > chipsets. The GPL has not stopped this from happening,

I didn't know about that.  It's a shame that exists.  Developing that
was a blow against freedom.

Perhaps nVidia would have used that instead of GCC, but not
necessarily.  Does it do as good a job as GCC?  I don't know, but I
would guess not.  nVidia might have chosen to respect its customers'
freedom as the price of using GCC instead.

Our means to defend freedom are not all-powerful, but we have won
substantial victories with them.  GCC supports several languages,
including C++, specifically because cppyleft required organizations to
release those front-ends.

We can't win every battle, but recognizing that fact is not a reason
to give up without a fight.

This is part of the GNU Project's basic philosophy, which I state here
so people will understand the principles that Emacs development is
based on.  If you want to argue against them, please do it in
gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org, not here.

  > The GPL has not stopped this from happening, it's just prevented
  > them from using free software,

That's exactly what it is meant to do: to stop them from using our
free code in a program that will be nonfree.

By using the GNU GPL we allow the use of our code to projects that are
free -- that will allow us the use of their code in like fashion.  As
for the projects that will refuse to share with us, they don't deserve
our cooperation, and the GPL is designed not to give it to them.

I am confident that using some copylefted free software in their
nonfree products would have made those projects easier -- which means
that the GPL has done good service by stopping them.

				   and thus the community from receiving any of
  > their work

The developers of these proprietary programs deny the community their
work by making their work proprietary.  That work was never meant to
be available to the free world.

Those programs work against people's freedom, so we aim to discourage
them from being written at all.  One way we do this is by refusing to
let them include our code.  Another way is by denouncing those
programs as unjust.  Another way is by organizing people to write free
replacements for them.  GNU Emacs started as one of those
replacements.  So did GCC.

  > The GPL is polarizing: There's a group of people who use only that, and a
  > group who use none of it.

The free software movement is polarizing because it raises a moral
issue and takes it seriously.  We don't just moan about loss of
freedom (for instance, due to proprietary software), we resist it.  We
fight it.  We develop large software packages to such as GNU Emacs and
GCC in order to fight it.

Educating people about the moral issue of freedom is a central part of
our mission.  Thus, Polarization R Us!


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Yates]

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On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 12:12 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
​                                                 ​
​. . .
 they could write their own backends
>> from scratch which would mean users losing out on all the research that's
>> gone into LLVM, any chance of compatibility with standard tools, etc.
>
> These are side issues when our freedom is at stake.

Wow!  For many your freedom is a luxury​ when there exists no other
realistic
approach
 to
 achieving a
​n objective​
​
​
 beside leveraging LLVM
​.  In this instance
realistic
mean
​s​
within a realistic time-frame and a realistic
​ ​
budget.

Reminds me of the importance a population
​ experiencing widespread famine
attach
​es​
to
​
freedom of the press.

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Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Paul Eggert]

On 08/22/2017 10:33 AM, John Yates wrote:
> Reminds me of the importance a population
> ​ experiencing widespread famine
> attach
> ​es​
> to
> ​
> freedom of the press.
>
Although we're straying from the subject a bit, it's well known that a 
free press and other democratic institutions help combat the threat of 
famine. For more, please see Amartya Sen's writings on the topic. Sen 
was inspired by the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed three million 
people despite the fact there was adequate food supply in the area! 
Nothing like this famine has happened in India since it became free of 
British rule and has enjoyed some measure of democracy.

The analogy to software freedom should be obvious.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[John Yates]

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​
​
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 1:54 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> On 08/22/2017 10:33 AM, John Yates wrote:
>>
>> Reminds me of the importance a population
>> experiencing widespread famine
​ ​
attaches
​
to
>> freedom of the press.
>>
> a free press and other democratic institutions help combat the threat of
famine. For more, please see Amartya Sen's writings on the topic.
 Sen was inspired by the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed three million
people
​
I am well aware that a free press is one means of buttressing good
governance.  I am unfamiliar with Amartya Sen's writing nor the history of
the Indian famine of 1943.

I note that you wrote "help combat the threat of" not "solve" famine.​
I would
​have been
 surprised if you
​attempted to argue
 that parents
​ desperately​
trying to
​provide​
 for starving children demonstrate much awareness or interest in the
presence or lack of a free press.
​​
Perhaps I should have invoked Maslov's hierarchy of needs.
​

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Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Paul Eggert]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:
 > could you give me some more specific pointers as for the books
 > I should want to read?

Sen A. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford 
University Press, 2013. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/994777557

John Yates wrote:
> I note that you wrote "help combat the threat of" not "solve" famine.​

Of course. Nobody is saying that democracy solves all problems unaided, just as 
nobody is saying that free software does. That's not the issue here.

> Perhaps I should have invoked Maslov's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's hierarchy would have taken us even further off topic....

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Discussing whether Emacs helps prevent famines is off topic for this
list.  Please take that discussion elsewhere.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > I think the GPL ultimately ends up pushing companies in that direction,
  > whereas Open Source

This seems to be an instance of a widespread misuderstanding about the
definition of "open source".  All the important free software licenses
are also open source licenses, and that includes the GNU GPL.

See https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for
a full explanation of this.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Licence of ts-comint

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  >  In my own company, for example, we can never use GPL libraries,
  > because they carry too much legal burden to be worth it.

Is this because the company makes nonfree programs?

We release a library under the GPL when we want to prevent it from
being used in nonfree programs.  When we decide it is advantageous to
allow use of a certain library in nonfree programs, we release it
under the Leser GPL or something like the libGCC exception.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.