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   Jan Ainali (ainali@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 04:36:26 JST Jan Ainali

   A random thought struck me. Freedom 1 of the four software freedoms says: "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1)." and it seems to only care about the end result "so it does your computing as you wish". This leads me to believe that it should be possible to limit the development models through licensing as long as that model can produce that result in theory. Has this loophole already been discussed? #freesoftware #opensource

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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 04:36:24 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     those restrictions don't strike me as compatible with free licensing. ISTM the "as you wish" isn't supposed to be interpreted that narrowly.
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     Jan Ainali (ainali@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 04:36:25 JST Jan Ainali

     in reply to

     For example, a license could say: "you can change this to do anything you wish, as long as you are not using SCRUM to get there" or "you can change this to do anything you wish, as long as you are not using a proprietary code repository platform". In both, anyone still have the freedom to get to the end, but the road there is limited.

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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 07:43:19 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     *nod*. I really don't think it's generous though, it's the one that seems most natural and best fit to me. regardless, interpreting stuff without the guiding context, such as the entire free software definition with all its sections and examples, is error prone. I kind of doubt this interpretation would survive this sort of context-fitting test. but whether or not it does, it might be a bug worth pursuing and fixing. do you have a suggested wording to fix it?
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     Jan Ainali (ainali@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 07:43:20 JST Jan Ainali

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     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo I know it is not supposed to. It is kind of my point that it does anyway as generous interpretation shouldn't be needed in definitions like these.

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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 11:40:54 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     it occurred to me that this might be too broad
     there's the (in)famous (to me) example of the free software license incompatible with itself, that required modified versions to be distributed in the form of patches, so one wasn't permitted to merge separate forks. it was considered a free software license, but it would seem to be barred by the "in any manner"
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     Jan Ainali (ainali@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 19-Jul-2024 11:40:55 JST Jan Ainali

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     • Alexandre Oliva

     @lxo I think you are likely right, and then an ambiguous license wouldn't be deemed to be aligned.

     I haven't thought much yet but something like this might be enough "The freedom to study how the program works, and in any manner change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1)."