Conversation
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@lxoliva I believe that proprietary software should be eliminated, and do not accept any justification for it. But to use the weight of law to prohibit it outright---rather than prohibiting specific issues surrounding it---cannot be justified constitutionally. Doing so would have dangerously broad implications. From a political perspective, what makes my position more correct than the position of hardcore capitalists that would seek to make the inspection of _any_ software illegal?
To draw a comparison: I'm not opposed to gene editing, or necessarily GMOs, depending on transparency and methods used. There are those that would like to make those types of things illegal---for perfectly valid reasons. I wouldn't agree with that. What makes their ideals more important than my own? I _would_ agree with bans on specific issues.
"Unjust" is strongly subjective. The presidential race in the US is an excellent demonstration of that. As such, we need to find ways to coexist.
- Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) repeated this.
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@mikegerwitz @lxoliva "to prohibit it outright [...] cannot be justified [...]" How about making copyright only enforcable for copyleft?
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@clacke @mikegerwitz @lxoliva Which brand of copyleft? ;) What makes a license free or not is very subjective and cannot be codified
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@jookia @mikegerwitz @lxoliva In principle, if today's copyright is constitutionally justifiable, surely a narrower one must be?
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@jookia "Free" as in "free software" is codified; it has a formal definition of four freedoms.
@clacke It as long been established that code is speech. As was discussed at length during the FBI v. Apple case, forced disclosure of code is forced speech.
That's not to say that laws can't be passed as regulations for certain fields where free speech isn't infringed upon. For example, mandating that all government programs are Free, or that all medical devices must publish their source code (even if it's not necessarily under a free license). But this is very different than saying "all code that you speak must be free", void of any regulatory domain.
Now, I don't want this to be construed as a defense of proprietary software---it's a consideration of a broader freedom that, if compromised, would be disastrous. I'm all for laws that would address proprietary software in a manner that does not pose a threat to constitutional freedoms.
cc @lxolvia
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@mikegerwitz @jookia Interesting angle! But forced speech would be valid with proprietary © gone, *or* makes copyleft invalid today, no?
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@mikegerwitz @jookia I didn't mean "force everything copyleft", I meant "copyright only enforcable when copyleft".
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@mikegerwitz @clacke Sure, free software itself is codified, but where the law comes in to play isn't- lots of us disagree on licenses
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@jookia @mikegerwitz The law can simply state "These are the allowable conditions to put on binary redistribution: #CCS, Change log, foo".
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@jookia @mikegerwitz The details are a technical and political issue, I'm talking about the overall principle.
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@jookia @mikegerwitz #CCS Complete and Corresponding Source code
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@clacke @mikegerwitz In general I'm not sure how good an idea it is to let the law dictate what free software is in practice
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@jookia @mikegerwitz Fair enough.
Mike Gerwitz
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)
Jookia
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