@neil Wrote about this literally yesterday. Well, this but from the other side.

https://pointless.one/my-next-project-wont-be-floss/

@benjamineskola Ah, I stand corrected.

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

@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.

@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.

I bloggered a post.

It's about shortcomings of FLOSS and a possible next thing.

My Next Project Won't be FLOSS:
https://pointless.one/my-next-project-wont-be-floss/

#FLOSS #FOSS #FreeSoftware #OpenSource #GNU #GPL #OSI #MIT #BSD #BTPL #PolyForm

@jardo Have you tried this one? https://justcrosspost.app/