I bloggered a post.

@pointlessone “These people figured that if they used different licenses that were more friendly to businesses it would help adoption.”

This is false. Nothing about the definition of what licences were acceptable differed from the “free software” conception of the same. In fact the Open Source Definition was (and is) the same as the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

It was entirely a difference of marketing: emphasising the business benefits instead of the human rights aspects.

In practice, yes, businesses often have preferred non-copyleft licenses to copyleft ones (though not entirely — e.g., corporations happily use Linux even though the BSDs are available); but this wasn’t because of Open Source claiming that copyleft was bad.

(And, after all, the non-copyleft free software licences — BSD, MIT, X11, etc — had all been around just about as long as the GPL had, if not longer.)

@benjamineskola I am confused.

I know that permissive licenses were around way before OSI came about, I didn't credit OSI for coming up with any of those licenses.

But wasn't the Open Source's approach to appeal to businesses by promoting permissive licenses? Meanwhile Free Software stayed with more hardline licenses.

If we only go off of Freedoms list and Open Source definition then it is hard to find substantial differences. But if we take licenses, the difference is quite big.

RMS distances Free Software from Open Source. His argument is that while practical definitions are nearly identical the underpinnings are completely different. His stance is that it's a moral imperative to make all software Free. It's not in the definition, nor in the Freedoms. And he went about it by introducing virality to GPL. It was intentional. Lack of this aspect in permissive licenses is unaceptable to him.

So unless we completely reject RMS’ views on the subject it's hard to accept that it's only marketing. And it seems really hard to dismiss his views since he put together the whole Free Software thing.

As for Linux, I believe, it’s used because it’s not combined with anything. Hardly anyone a reason to modify the kernel in a way that a module can't do. It’s not the case with libraries. This virality aspect introduces so much confusion that it's no wonder people stayed away from it in environments with even a slight chance of a law suite. FSF did a remarkably poor job making it clear when GPL's virality doesn't apply. I suspect it’s on purpose as well.

@pointlessone No, like I said, the OSI promoted the same licences. And the FSF never advocated *against* non-copyleft licences. (Though it does promote copyleft it also recognises that non-copyleft licences are often appropriate and has never suggested that those are less free — it considers the choice to be a tactical one.)

I agree, actually, that it’s not *only* marketing — it’s about whether to care about an ethical dimension versus a profit dimension. When I said “only marketing” I meant that what they were promoting was the same but the justifications differed.

@benjamineskola Well, as I said, I wasn't there. I know OSI has GPL on the approved license short list. So, like, sure? Open Source technically covers Free Software too. I don't think inclusion of GPL actually appealed to businesses though. After all, if the campaign treated all the licenses equally why permissive licenses are so much more popular?

Another thing, I have a strong feeling that Free Software is not so inclusive towards Open Source as you’re saying. Take this piece, for example: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

It doesn't strike me as particularly friendly towards Open Source. Yes, it doesn't advocate against per se, but it's not “yeah, it’s fine” either. It's more like “Open Source is the top of the conversion funnel”, “first dose is free" sort of thing. It points out how Open Source is deficient within Free Software's moral framework. It concedes that in practical terms there's nearly full overlap but still insists on imposition of it’s moral values.

I'm under impression that this is what led to Open Source fork in the first place. And this is what scared off businesses: no one wanted their core product “liberated” by accident. And this is what led to widespread adoption of permissive licenses.

And I suspect Free Software didn't openly advocate against permissive licenses because any combination of permissive license and GPL results in a GPL whole, which is tolerable to Free Software.

@pointlessone I didn’t say free software was friendly towards open source. There’s a philosophical difference there that matters to people (on both sides).

And I didn’t say that businesses necessarily like GPL either — it’s true that in many cases they prefer the non-copyleft licences. (Not universally though.) This is not because the OSI treated it differently but arises from the businesses’ own understandings of their own interests.

My sole point is that the Free Software versus Open Source split has never been the same as the copyleft versus non-copyleft split.

(There are plenty of people on the BSD side who’d come down on the philosophical freedom side of the split, for example, but would argue that ‘permissive’ licences are more free.)

And no, that’s not the reason FSF supports non-copyleft licences. That would imply that non-copyleft-licenced projects only have value in terms of being incorporated into copyleft projects. The real (and simpler) reason is that the FSF recognises that non-copyleft licences provide all of its “four freedoms”. In fact, the FSF will advocate for using weaker copyleft or non-copyleft licences in certain circumstances; it’s a tactical matter, like I said. (The idea of the GPL is meant to be to promote the spread of free software; if using the GPL would not achieve that they’ll advocate using some other licence — eg this is why glibc is under the LGPL.)

@benjamineskola Ah, I stand corrected.

Could you please provide an example of FSF advocacy for permissive licenses? For future references.