Re: FSDG-compatibility of APSL-2.0

[Maxime Devos <maximedevos@telenet.be>]

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TBC, did you see my previous mail about cherry-picking and power
assymetry.


> FWIW, I think that adopting a different (more stringent) license
> policy hits two issues:
> 
>  1. Where do you draw the line?  Based on which concrete principles
>     to decide for this or for that?

I would like to refer to some blog article about something along the
lines ’free software is not about licenses, but about ???’, but I
cannot find it anymore.

zimoun schreef op vr 17-06-2022 om 11:06 [+0200]:
>  I think it is not affordable to adopt a different license policy than
>  the one listed by the GNU project [2].  It is a pragmatical line
>  because the Guix project does not have the manpower nor the structure
>  to do differently.
>
> And I miss what aim it would serve.

That page mentions:

> We classify> license according to certain criteria:
> [...]
> * Whether it causes any particular practical problems.
> [...]

Being forced to go to the US as a defendant seems like a very practical
problem to me.  E.g., apparently being imprisoned for 5 years or being
fined for $250 000 or such is a thing in the US[0], and the prison
situation in the US is reportedly bad.

The clause is also rather extra-territorial: what if $local_country
reforms copyright to make all sofware free, if we accepted ‘go to this
jurisdiction clauses’, then opponents could effectively block the
legally-enforced freeing of software by adding such a clause.   Such a
clause could potentially also be used to enforce a particular
jurisdiction that has forbidden modifying otherwise free software
entirely or somehting.

[0]
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1852-copyright-infringement-penalties-17-usc-506a-and-18-usc-2319

>  2. The GNU project is already strict on what is accepted; for good
>  reasons.  The Guix project is a niche and being more stringent would
>  lead to be an even more niche.

Not being subject to the US seems worth some extra niche-ness to this
non-US person.  Also:

>  I think it is not affordable to adopt a different license policy
>  than the one listed by the GNU project [2].  It is a pragmatical
>  line because the Guix project does not have the manpower nor the
>  structure to do differently.

... currently Guix isn't using the APSL2.0 anywhere (according to git
grep -F aspl), so it seems quite practical and effortless to just
remove apsl2 from (guix licenses).

Greetings,
Maxime.

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