Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   🍒🌳 Hartmut Goebel (kirschwipfel@nerdculture.de)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 07:05:10 JST 🍒🌳 Hartmut Goebel

   • Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:
   • Risotto Bias

   Of course moral positions can be expressed in licenses. Licenses are just contracts, and if your don't agree with my terms, just don't use my software.

   Your statement only becomes true if "open source" is a premises.

   Also, moral positions could be expressed in copyright law, if wanted. Just imagine a copyright law not granting copyright on religious works. This would be a quite laizstic(?) copyright law.
   @jwildeboer @risottobias

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (moving to @lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br) (lxo@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 15:11:13 JST Alexandre Oliva (moving to @lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)

     in reply to

     Licenses are just contracts
     
     

     that seems like a common misconception. licenses are one-way permission grants. they can be contracts in some jurisdictions, but usually contracts are agreements involving meeting of minds. licenses aren't like that, they don't impose obligations, they can at most delimit the permissions that are granted for the licensee to do things that, by law, require permission from the licensor. if it goes beyond granting permissions, say requiring the other party to refrain from doing things that the party could do before, then it's an agreement. the agreement (thus contract) may contain some licensing, which makes it a licensing agreement, but the licensing by itself doesn't require agreement
     翠星石 and 🍒🌳 Hartmut Goebel like this.
   • Embed this notice
     🍒🌳 Hartmut Goebel (kirschwipfel@nerdculture.de)'s status on Thursday, 28-Nov-2024 17:07:42 JST 🍒🌳 Hartmut Goebel

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva (moving to @lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)

     Thanks for the explanation. I now understand that you can not write everything into a license.

     Still, distinguishing between "contract including a license" and "license is contract" seem to be legal nitpicking for me - esp. if the "contract" part only is about "use the software and follow the terms of the license", not even including payments.

     Anyway - I assume this difference has no actual effect on the base topic of this discussion. Or has it? (Otherwise we could stop here.)
     @lxo

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (moving to @lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br) (lxo@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Saturday, 30-Nov-2024 15:40:48 JST Alexandre Oliva (moving to @lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)

     in reply to
     the difference is pretty fundamental, because contracts require a meeting of minds and explicit assent. that's why proprietary software that attempts to regulate use has tightly controlled distribution, so that you only get access to the copy after having given up your previously-unlimited rights to run the program.
     
     writing in a license "you shall not run the program for " while distributing the program widely doesn't stick, because the recipient doesn't need any license to run the program.
     
     that's why amateurs who set out to imitate copyleft poorly without understanding the underlying legal mechanisms set themselves up for failure, and end up fooling and hurting others in the process