Kettling Wikileaks
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 3rd Jan 2011 11:53 UTC, submitted by SReilly
Internet & Networking "In the physical world, we have the right to print and sell books. Anyone trying to stop us would need to go to court. That right is weak in the UK (consider superinjunctions), but at least it exists. However, to set up a web site we need the cooperation of a domain name company, an ISP, and often a hosting company, any of which can be pressured to cut us off. In the US, no law explicitly requires this precarity. Rather, it is embodied in contracts that we have allowed those companies to establish as normal. It is as if we all lived in rented rooms and landlords could evict anyone at a moment's notice." Recommended reading. I'm no fan of Stallman, but despite a bit too much dramatisation towards the end, this article aptly illustrates in layman's terms why the 'net needs to be free, open, and unregulated.
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RE[2]: I would sign, but ...
by flypig on Tue 4th Jan 2011 19:38 UTC in reply to "RE: I would sign, but ..."
flypig
Member since:
2005-07-13

I have to second this: the GPL is obviously less free than a BSD for instance. The GPL **warrants** that I also publish as GPL in case I use anything GPL-licensed. I see this as a limitation of my freedom to publish my work as CC or Apache or BSD or whatever else license I want and this is why I don't use any GPL code.

I guess it depends on which you think is more important: the freedom of an individual to make use of your code as he or she chooses, or the freedom for society in general to access the source code of the software it uses.

Personally I'm not sure either are a right, but they both strike me as types of freedom (both of which are worth promoting).

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[3]: I would sign, but ...
by Kochise on Wed 5th Jan 2011 12:37 in reply to "RE[2]: I would sign, but ..."
Kochise Member since:
2006-03-03

True, and not so true. Keeping the code open never prevented people from making a bussiness out of GPL, several companies do 'sell' GPL-code. In fact, they sell the services to maintain the code and having it open ensure the client to 1/ control what's is inside the code 2/ switch maintainer if original publisher/maintainer disapear (bloody raging captalism)

Having GPL code is not *THE* problem all along, provided your product *CAN* be as open. No, *THE* problem is where the product have to *HIDE* something from eyes, like secret cryptography or receipe, drm, whatever. Thus using GPL should in some extend obligate you to open your code in GPL as well. On the other hand you could always give the finger salute to RMS and protect your 'privacy' bits inside a dll or similar. However RMS is a pitbull when it comes to defend his dogma...

I do (and prefer) using/releasing in zlib/png licence, which is pretty close to public domain ou MIT, to sum up : do whatever you want, close the code, open it, burn your guitar, listen to meatloaf, ... You ethic as a coder shouldn't be driven by someone's paranoid beliefs in "openess" but by providing the *BEST* solution to a problem, period. So do people's ethic shouldn't be dictated by religious means or similar tubes, common sense and citizenship should be enough. But that's another story...

Kochise

Reply Parent Score: 1