
The Linux Foundation: Not a Friend of Desktop Linux, the GPL, or Openness - zulrah
http://fossforce.com/2017/04/lin-desktop-linux-gpl-openness/
======
jordigh
My, how the tides have changed.

Those of us old enough to remember, the landscape looked a lot different 15
years ago. There was optimism, there was a desire to install Linux on
everything possible, and the GPL was the default license for most new free
software that was getting written.

It was not without strife. Since 1998, people like esr have been saying how
the GPL is passé and is no longer needed because open source won, because open
source was superior, because companies would naturally want to share their
source code. Nobody needed anymore to be coerced into respecting user
freedoms. Then the corporations started to take note and through their clout,
they have convinced their employees that nothing is worse than keeping code
free. Only unimportant scraps of code can be free, but the real code must
remain secret, restricted, proprietary. AGPL is the ultimate evil to be
avoided at all costs.

I don't like this shift. I miss the Slashdot days. I miss the jokes about
installing Linux on dead badgers. I wish we had a collective desire to do
something about the most widely deployed proprietary software controlling our
lives in the pocket computers so many of us carry around with us. We haven't
won. The code is locked up, the spying is worse than ever, and the
corporations are winning. They even influence the direction of Linux, actively
trying to subvert GPL compliance efforts such as the VMWare GPL lawsuit by
pulling Conservancy's funding.

The GPL is a much-needed defence. Software controls ever more things of the
internet. We need to bring back the rebellious attitude of the late 90s and
early 00s. Linux needs to be installed on _all_ of your phone, down to the
radio firmware (and the dead badger).

~~~
Arizhel
I miss those days too. Computing was a lot more fun.

But the way things were back then depended on peoples' attitudes, and those
have all changed, for the worse. You might as well give up; those days are
over. People don't care about FOSS, GPL, Linux, etc., except as a means to an
end (more profits). The corporations have won, and we might as well get used
to constant spying.

Also worth mentioning is that this is part of a bigger problem in society.
Everything in western (particularly American) society is going downhill, and
has been for the last 16 years. We just need to realize that this is
inevitable and unavoidable: all societies collapse and fail at some point. The
Roman Empire didn't last forever, nor did the British Empire. Internal
stresses, corruption, etc. eventually take their toll and it becomes
impossible to reverse course. Every big society has collapsed at some point,
or at least turned into a has-been, and it's our turn next.

~~~
pdelbarba
People don't care about FOSS -> society is going to collapse.

I would argue that if "western" society collapses, it's pretty much the end of
humanity. I don't think the Roman Empire was responsible for half the world's
GDP and at least half the world's nuclear arsenal... Also, the British are
still around. They just gave up trying to control the whole world in an era
before speed of light communication.

~~~
Arizhel
I never said that people not caring about FOSS was going to lead to societal
collapse, I said that it was a symptom of a much larger problem in society
that will lead to collapse.

As for the British, they're completely irrelevant these days, and becoming
even less so with Brexit.

~~~
pdelbarba
Realistically, the colonial era and Brexit were symptoms of two totally
different issues. The greater British empire disintegrated in much the same
way as those belonging to the Dutch, French, and Spanish. Brexit was the
result of the EU being very dependent financially on England (and Germany etc)
but it wasn't an issue of England disintegrating, it was the EU falling apart
(and if you like a little conspiracy for breakfast,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)).

------
ckastner
Here's the full quote by Greg Olson that was supposedly so offensive:

    
    
      The most permissive licenses present little risk and few
      compliance requirements. These licenses include BSD and
      MIT, and others, that have minimal requirements, all the
      way to Apache and the Eclipse Public License, which are
      more elaborate in addressing contributions, patents, and
      indemnification.
    
      In the middle of the spectrum are the so-called ‘weak
      viral licenses’ which require sharing source code to any
      changes made to the originally licensed code, but not
      sharing of other source code linked or otherwise bound to
      the original open source code in question. The most
      popular and frequently encountered licenses in this
      category are the Mozilla Public License and the Common
      Public Attribution License.
    
      Restrictive Licenses present the most legal risk and
      complexity for companies that re-distribute or distribute
      software. These licenses are often termed ‘viral’ because
      software combined and distributed with this licensed
      software must be provided in source code format under the
      terms of those licenses. These requirements present
      serious risks to the preservation of proprietary software
      rights. The GNU General Public License is the archetype of
      this category, and is, in fact, the most widely used open
      source license in the world.
    

It is beyond me how this analysis, which appears to be as objective as can
possibly be, can be taken as an insult at all, let alone lead one to conclude
that the " Linux Foundation has no respect for FOSS".

~~~
rbanffy
Perhaps some people think "the preservation of proprietary software rights" is
a good thing. I have pointed out numerous times the only restriction the GPL
imposes on developers is on the "right" to deny others the freedoms the
developer enjoys.

~~~
drostie
That's not quite right. Non-copyleft licenses say "I will not sue you"; a sort
of first-level copyleft license says "I will not sue you unless you
potentially threaten to sue other people"... but the GPL is fully recursive:
"I will not sue you unless you threaten to sue others in the ways that I don't
like or do not threaten to sue others in the ways that I do like (namely, this
sentence)."

As a concrete example of how this imposes real restrictions, the proprietary
macOS got ZFS and DTrace starting, oh, ten years ago or so; Ubuntu got ZFS
last year and there are still people who are pissed about it, wanting Ubuntu
users to be forced to jump through the Purity Hoops that they already have to
use for their proprietary drivers. Ubuntu's decision to ship ZFS cannot
possibly be read as an attempt "to deny others the freedoms that Ubuntu
enjoys." There is no freedom which Ubuntu enjoys which it is trying to deny
others by shipping ZFS.

You still need to jump through the Purity Hoops to run DTrace: the "official
channels" way is to not run DTrace (they recommend that you install systemtap
and use a GPL application named `dtrace` which makes systemtap take DTrace-
like input and produce DTrace-like output), and if you actually want to run
DTrace you have to grab the `dtrace4linux` project off of GitHub and modify
only your own system with it and then every time you load the thing your
syslog will remind you that "module license 'CDDL' taints kernel, disabling
lock debugging due to kernel taint," so I don't know what lock debugging is
but I hope you don't need it.

~~~
rbanffy
> Ubuntu's decision to ship ZFS cannot possibly be read as an attempt "to deny
> others the freedoms that Ubuntu enjoys.

You got it backwards. The CDDL does not ensure the same rights Sun gives to
whoever receives ZFS source can be passed further down to other users who
didn't get ZFS from Sun. Therefore, it's not compatible with GPL. You enjoy
rights Sun gives you but others can't enjoy the same rights unless given by
Sun.

~~~
drostie
Let me force you to be concrete. What right are you even talking about?

~~~
rbanffy
My understanding is that the CDDL allows one to include code under a non-free
license into a binary and only make the CDDL part of the code available.

~~~
drostie
"Any Covered Software that You distribute or otherwise make available in
Executable form must also be made available in Source Code form and that
Source Code form must be distributed only under the terms of this License. You
must include a copy of this License with every copy of the Source Code form of
the Covered Software You distribute or otherwise make available. You must
inform recipients of any such Covered Software in Executable form as to how
they can obtain such Covered Software in Source Code form in a reasonable
manner on or through a medium customarily used for software exchange."

~~~
rbanffy
If all freedoms granted by the GPL are ensured downstream by the CDDL, why is
it considered incompatible?

~~~
drostie
Because (a) it does not let you relicense as GPL, which is the only thing GPL
compatibility means ("Can you be press-ganged into our army later? Great:
you're compatible. We just haven't assimilated you _yet_."), and (b) the FSF
is under the impression that strong copyleft exists, which is practically not
true (there have always been Purity Hoops that you can jump through to make
the two interoperate) and may be legally not true (Ubuntu's stand in including
ZFS is precisely that all copyleft is weak copyleft, and the only difference
is if your walls are implicit and poorly defined as in the GPL or explicit and
well defined as in the MPL and CDDL). So it's in their ideological interests
to consider things as incompatible even if they grant the Core Software
Freedoms plus the Copyleft they like so much. Like, license incompatibility is
the core _selling point_ of GPL. The actual legalese of the license is really
rather confusing and long by comparison.

------
jlgaddis
I don't know enough about this to take sides but I do think that the author of
this piece is being a bit misleading on at least one point. This piece says:

> _... Greg Olson [referred] to the GPL and other copyleft licenses as
> “Restrictive Licenses” and “viral.”_

The original article, which he then quoted, reads:

> _These licenses are often termed ‘viral’ because ..._

So, while Mr. Olson _did_ use the term "viral" in his piece, _he_ didn't
specifically call them "viral". Instead, he said, quite literally, that "these
licenses are often termed 'viral'" (and they are).

Anyways, the open source world has been having this argument forever -- often
in the form of whether the BSD v. GPL is more "free" \-- and it all depends on
whose point of view you're looking at it from (the developer's or the user's).

~~~
TuringTest
> it all depends on whose point of view you're looking at it from (the
> developer's or the user's).

Myself, I like to see it with respect to what is protected by the license in
terms of freedom.

\- "Permissive" licenses (BSD-like) protect a single snapshot of the code, as
it exists the day it is released. That version can be used freely by anyone,
but the possibility to impose additional restrictions means that you won't
necessarily be free to use the versions derived from that snapshot.

\- "Protective" licenses (i.e. Copyleft) protect the whole project in the long
term, whether it is the snapshot released under the license or any later
modification of it. You are guaranteed access to any version that someone
releases of that code, under the same terms that give you the freedom to use
code.

~~~
Borealid
There's a dichotomy here. What you term "protective" here (GPL-style copyleft
licenses) actually impose a greater number of restrictions on the person who
obtains code under them: specifically, they lose the ability to distribute
modified versions under a different license.

So while one could argue that they are "protective" because they protect the
rights of future users, one could also argue they are "restrictive" because
they remove the right to add restrictions - which is, itself, a right!

BSD-style licenses give a greater number of freedoms to the user who initially
receives the software than GPL-style licenses. This has been used to argue
that they are overly free, and used to argue that they are insufficiently
free. But I think it's important to point out that there's a valid point of
view in which "the ability to prevent someone else from doing something with
my work as I choose" is considered a freedom that some licenses take away.

~~~
TuringTest
> So while one could argue that they are "protective" because they protect the
> rights of future users, one could also argue they are "restrictive" because
> they remove the right to add restrictions - which is, itself, a right!

While true from a local perspective (how many actions can you perform over
this snapshot of the code), you're missing the systemic point of view.

Every time someone adds an additional constraint over their released copy of
the project, they're killing off every possible action that downstream users
would have made starting from it.

Imagine for a minute that Webkit had been licensed as BSD or MIT rather than
with the protective LGPL, and Apple had released Safari with a fully
proprietary relicense. In that case, neither Chrome would exist nor any of the
other modern non-Firefox, non-Trident browsers (which depend on the cleanup
performed by Apple over KHTML). The share-alike clauses of the LGPL guaranteed
that Apple didn't have the option to restrict use of the software, creating a
whole world of possibilities for anyone starting from their improved version,
that wouldn't exist otherwise.

I'm not saying that a project under a share-alike license will _always_ have
more actions available overall; it depends on how the project is adopted by
their community of users. But counting only the restrictions imposed on any
particular snapshot of the software misses the forest for the trees.

~~~
Borealid
> While true from a local perspective (how many actions can you perform over
> this snapshot of the code), you're missing the systemic point of view. >
> Every time someone adds an additional constraint over their released copy of
> the project, they're killing off every possible action that downstream users
> would have made starting from it.

Preventing someone downstream from adding constraints is, in itself, adding a
constraint. The argument you make about other possible actions also applies to
the-action-of-closing-the-thing-off; the butterfly flaps its wings just as
hard for commercial software.

I'm not "missing the systemic point of view", I'm just pointing out that what
we've got here is a group that is arguing in favor of restrictions of a
certain type because they say that restrictions are, in themselves, wrong.
That would be more palatable if it were framed as a "lesser of two evils"
situation, but instead it's presented as being 100% undiluted moral right.

I wish that people who zealously supported BSD-style licenses would take a
moment to understand why it's important to others that software remain free-
in-whichever-sense. I wish that people who zealously supported GPL-style
licenses would acknowledge that they are taking away a certain set of
otherwise-available rights concerning what others are allowed to do with their
software - NOT maximizing possibilities, but instead restricting them to a
certain set they find agreeable.

~~~
TuringTest
> Preventing someone downstream from adding constraints is, in itself, adding
> a constraint.

Yes, it is. As in one (1).

> The argument you make about other possible actions also applies to the-
> action-of-closing-the-thing-off

Uh? How many actions are made possible by a company closing access to a
version of a free project? Even if this closing-the-thing-off creates some
possibilities, those will be limited to the company that keeps the version to
themselves. How can the amount of these actions be larger than those actions
available to all the other people, who are now unable to use that version?

> I'm just pointing out that what we've got here is a group that is arguing in
> favor of restrictions of a certain type because they say that restrictions
> are, in themselves, wrong.

This is not how I see it, and I'm an advocate of Free Software (including and
preferring the GPL share-alike version), so you may be attacking a straw man
there. In fact, I'd say that the people defending BSD-like licenses are more
prone to making the "restrictions are wrong" argument.

> I wish that people who zealously supported GPL-style licenses would
> acknowledge that they are taking away a certain set of otherwise-available
> rights concerning what others are allowed to do with their software - NOT
> maximizing possibilities, but instead restricting them to a certain set they
> find agreeable.

I do acknowledge that share-alike is restricting some actions that are
possible with BSD-like, but overall I believe that this constraint DOES
maximize possibilities when seeing the big picture.

As I've argued above, the idea of those constraints is that the constrained
environment should have more total possible actions in the aggregate, even if
every individual player has one less action available on paper. If you don't
acknowledge this possibility, you are not getting the point why the constraint
was added to this kind of license.

------
git-pull
The argument from the permissive licensing side:

The reason some programmers hold GPL in contempt isn't due to picking a sports
team. It's really annoying to have to explain to a true believer (of GPL) that
it potentially taints codebases it mixes with.

It's also a license that's complex and hasn't been tested in across
jurisdictions. So arguing about what happens on a message board isn't fruitful
since there is no case law. You may be recommended to "see a lawyer". I've
spoken to a few people who have, ultimately the lawyer throws their hands in
the air and say we don't have answers to the "What if's"; there isn't case
law. And at that, the consensus of a random person on the internet isn't going
to hold weight if you're accused of violating the terms of the license.

It's hard to pick GPL on the merits. Permissively licensed projects don't seem
to be having reciprocity issues. Can't remember the last time I heard these
thriving BSD, MIT, Apache2, ISC licensed projects complaining about
freeloaders.

By the way, really happy Nintendo Switch picked up FreeBSD recently. Looking
forward to upstream patches, even knowing it's _entirely voluntary_ for them
to give back.

Why? Because the _potential reciprocity_ from a big player is better than
having a license that obligates reciprocity strictly, even punitively. Which
could cause them to look elsewhere, to a proprietary solution. No entity wants
to risk their hard work to become a derivative of a smaller project they pull
in.

~~~
xorblurb
It would be unwelcome for BSD projects to complain about freeloaders given
"freeloading" is explicitly authorized.

You can take a quick look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_FreeBSD)
for a non exhaustive list of products based on FreeBSD. Some of them are doing
_some_ contributions, maybe some of them are 100% open source (I don't know),
but clearly some are not open sourcing their most added value stuff, even when
it is a clear derivative of BSD code.

~~~
jordigh
BSD projects sometimes do complain about their code getting put into GPLed
code (usually Linux).

It's bizarre. They'd rather have their code locked up into someone else's
codebase than having it always free in someone else's codebase.

~~~
snovv_crash
When it is in a proprietary codebase it can potentially be contributed back.
Once it is in GPL it is tainted and while similarly to a corporate codebase
the original contributer could give a BSD licenced patch back to the BSD
project, it diverts other open source contributors away from the original
project.

Look at OpenOffice compared to LibreOffice, for an example of this. If there
wasn't a GPL version the community would have rallied around the Apache
version.

~~~
igk
Sorry if I'm wrong, but wasn't libre office partially started because
OpenOffice stagnated?

~~~
josefx
The first release of Apache Open Office was 2012, almost a year after
LibreOffice. Open Office itself stagnated while still dual licensed under Suns
proprietary license and LGPL. I think one of the complaints was that they took
too long to merge patches by contributors.

------
AnkhMorporkian
I'm sorry, I'm not seeing it. One person involved with the Linux Foundation
wrote an article that used some terms this author and some others didn't like,
and after some outcry the Linux Foundation removed it. Somehow this makes the
entire organization a non-friend of Desktop Linux and the GPL?

It's just such a massive leap of logic. The GPL is in the most restrictive
class of open-source licenses for companies, and it _is_ viral by nature.
Should those terms be sugar-coated? I didn't read an ounce of contempt in the
quoted section.

~~~
belorn
If you want to combine viral open-source code with toxic proprietary code,
sure. Proprietary code is toxic by nature, so why should we not use that term?

> I didn't read an ounce of contempt

I disagree. Calling a _grant of permissions_ "restrictive", or calling it
"viral" has as much contempt as calling a offering of proprietary licensed
software toxic. Its insult flinging, plain and simple.

~~~
mrunkel
I'm not sure I want to wade into this religious war, but you can surely agree
that the GPL is more restrictive (as in, it adds restrictions) than say the
BSD or MIT licenses.

~~~
belorn
When you rent a hotel room you get permission to enter and sleep there, but
are also restricted to not destroy the room. However the restriction already
existed before you paid, so the change between the owner and you only exist in
added permission. No one is allowed to destroy property of someone else so
those restrictions are not additional part of the transaction.

GPL do not add restrictions. It is purely permissions given over what already
exist. In theory one could rewrite the GPL license text to be lines of "I
grant you permission to do X", and it would still have the same effect.

~~~
E6300
So, to bridge the analogy, what would be the "before paying" state of a GPL'd
work? The GPL does not, to my knowledge, clearly define this, and there's
disagreement among the experts.

~~~
TuringTest
> what would be the "before paying" state of a GPL'd work

Whatever the law is for copyrighted but unlicensed code.

~~~
E6300
What I'm asking is, at what time is someone bound by the terms of the GPL? See
for example the IPC loophole, dynamic linking, etc.

~~~
belorn
Let me give an example of how to rewrite part of the copyleft concepts as pure
permission rather then term and conditions.

"I here grant permission to distribute source code of the unmodified complete
work"

"I also grant permission to distribute a binary version together with the
corresponding preferred source code of the unmodified complete work"

"I also grant permission to distribute a compilation of a modified version of
the source code with the source code of all dynamic linked software that it
depends on"

Of course, to match a license like GPL you would need to make precise wording
to get the permission to mean exactly one and only exactly one permitted
action (lawyers, interpretation and loopholes), but they are just plain
permissions. You can use one, two, or ignore any number of them and mix and
match. Since they are isolated permission they hold no state and there is no
"I agree to all terms".

This is also the main argument behind the concept of software license not
being contracts. A contract goes beyond permissions and binds two parties
together in one document, while permissions just exist regardless if anyone
accepts it.

------
nolemurs
FOSS != GPL.

Saying the linux foundation is "[n]ot a Friend of Desktop Linux, the GPL, or
Openness" because they published a piece that is negative about the GPL is
sensationalist and absurd.

There's a legitimate debate to be had about copyleft vs. less restrictive
licenses, but articles like this aren't helping matters for GPL - all they do
is strengthen the image of copyleft advocates as being extremists who are
detached from reality.

------
linuxkerneldev
I'm no LF fanboy, but the tone of this article doesn't really help any cause.
I think the key question would be to ask what percentage of the funds LF
receives are effectively used for FOSS purposes. If it turns out some of those
funds are being wasted on having FOSS conferences in exotic places, followed
by karaoke in Seoul with "Linux partners" then it'd be good to expose things
like that. A cursory observation indicates most of LF's management aren't
coders so that makes me worry whether this is a management-heavy "charity".

------
kstenerud
And here we go with the politics again.

It's GPL vs all the other open source licenses. That's the way it's always
been, and that's the way it always will be.

Those who think it'll stifle innovation by locking up novelty in proprietary
code will chose GPL.

Those who think it'll stifle innovation by holding back adoption in the free
market will chose one of the others.

And the two will NEVER meet. This is a religious war, and neither side will
concede even an inch.

Meanwhile, the world goes on, people make things and money, and virtually
nobody gives a shit about your arguments.

------
red023
I think it sad that so many people are to hostile toward the GPL and the FSF,
especially GPLv3 my license of choice.

I love the GPLv3 because it ensures user freedom all the way and I think
people who claim that is not "open" because of that totally miss the point. It
makes sure the software stays open for the users. But of course the big
companies who want to close down their stuff, abuse open source to use in in
their proprietary stuff they make just for profit maximization (debatable if
this even makes a difference)

I see all the red Flags and I am totally with the articles author on this one.
I mean Microsoft is part of the Linux foundation and all this huge companies.
They are in there to push their agenda and its obviously not freedom and
transparency for the user. I think its sad how many people here in the comment
section are really fail to see it or intentionally side with this cooperations
because they are somehow involved and actually put themselves over the users
freedoms.

I wish Richard Stallman would be the same person as Linus Torvalds. I wish
Linux would switch over to GPLv3 and a Linux Foundation would be headed by
organizations like the EFF, FSF ... not some corrupt cooperations that are up
to corrupting this great thing.

I think people should really learn to read between the lines, the signs are
clear this is not good. Why would M$ have any interest in Linux or the
desktop? Even the companies who use Linux heavy in their servers have actually
years of investment into their software for the users that is often still only
windows and macOS so why would they want to maintain/rewrite their stuff for
Linux desktops? They care about their server farms not about how free their
users are.

When big money is involved chances are that its not used for good but rather
to gatekeep, protect and maximize.

------
leecarraher
I've always used licensing for indemnity and nothing more. Copyright
enforcement is a pretty costly pursuit, and it's fairly unlikely anything that
we develop would be worth that litigation, and the assumption that at no point
we ourselves were not culprit of some other infringements allowing for
counter-suit. so for just not being held responsible if someone uses something
of ours that blows up in their face (possibly literally) I just stick with
good old bsd.

------
cwmma
I'd note that the Linux foundation is in charge of more then just Linux, and
some of the other projects (i.e. Node.js or RethinkDB) use permissive
licenses.

------
pnathan
Corporations want to include code other people wrote, for free, and without
any legal obligations or liability.

That shouldn't be a surprise to _anyone_.

~~~
jdanisek
Not true - they wouldn't contribute if they thought everyone else would just
take their code and not put something back themselves... that's why the GPL
works!

------
squarefoot
What if Microsoft was secretly working on the next Windows incarnation as a
proprietary GUI on top of a Unix like kernel much like as Google did with
Android and to a lesser extent Apple did with MacOS? This way they could
profit from the work of the community (device drivers, low level security etc)
lowering their development and maintenance costs.

Being a big player in the Linux Foundation it could then make sense if they
and others acted against any support of OSS Linux on the desktop.

------
Stranger43
I really wish the GNU folks would stop playing committee politics every chance
they get, but then again thats what you get when an organization loosing all
of it's real world power despite being on the winning side of an argument.

~~~
wiz21c
>> an organization loosing all of it's real world power

Could you elaborate on that ?

~~~
Stranger43
30 years ago the FSF was the dominant organization in an obscure open source
movement, today they are a footnote in the history of an successful open
source movement that have gone completely mainstream.

This process have left FSF without the resources to do anything but create
drama inside the open source movement and predictably they have become the
PETA of OpenSource concerned more with proving their own purity and commitment
then anything else.

~~~
wiz21c
I'd say they prove their purity because that's what distinguishes them from
the rest. Now, if you talk in terms of projects successfully backed/run by the
FSF, you may be right, there are not as popular as they were.

But as guardians of the GPL ethos/politics, I'd say they do a good job
(considering that this ethos hardly translates to money)

------
known
Follow the money; You'll know the truth;

------
unlmtd
The GPL and openness are incompatible.

------
jdanisek
This article is an insane rant. She didn't even spell the ED's name right -
it's Zemlin. Did the author even ask the LF for a statement?

------
duck2
The tone of the article is very disturbing. I would think not supporting the
GPL is a deadly sin if I did not know about open source licenses.

Furthermore, as it is mentioned, one person's article does not automatically
determine the foundation's stance, especially if they "quietly removed" it.

Are there FSF snipers waiting around for anyone pointing out that their
license is viral and restrictive?

~~~
Millennium
I don't think anybody disputes that the GPL is viral and restrictive. The
debate is about whether or not that's a bad thing.

~~~
davexunit
I dispute both of those things. The GPL is neither viral nor restrictive.

~~~
snovv_crash
The code might be Free™, but the developers who want to use it are very much
restricted in what they can use the code for.

I guess it depends on if you think code, like corporations, should have
personhood.

~~~
Nursie
They can use it for whatever the hell they like.

It's distribution that comes with responsibilities as well as rights.

