Copyleft Licensing and the Challenges of Software Freedom Community

Bradley M. Kuhn

15 June 2011

Who Am I?

Executive Director of Software Freedom Conservancy.
- a non-profit home for permissive and copyleft projects
Member of Board of Directors of the FSF
- FSF are the authors of the GPL.

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In The Beginning …

There was a computer.
There were terminals.
There were users.
… and the users had freedom.

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Ye Ol’ Four Freedoms

to use.
to learn and modify for yourself.
to copy and share.
to modify and share modified versions.

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… Then Freedom Eluded Us

They built licensing walls.
By separating the software from the computer.
Who Invented Licensing?

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Who Invented Licensing?

Some think he did:

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. … [If] software is something to share … You prevent good software from being written.

Gates convinces IBM to license rather than acquire DOS.

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Who Fixed this Problem?

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Who Fixed this Problem?

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RMS

Job at MIT’s AI lab in late 1970s and early 1980s.
Programming their PDP–10!
In the Golden Age.

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MIT AI Lab: The Golden Age

academic computing.
software sharing.
no licenses!

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MIT AI Lab

MIT changed.

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MIT AI Lab

patents == $$$

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MIT AI Lab

spin-offs == $$$

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GNU

Changes the world.
For the user of individual computers.
How does it do this?

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Copy, Right?

Most software uses a contract EULA.
This doesn’t work for Free Software …
- … which needs worldwide distribution.
Copyright, which governs software anyway, can do this.

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Free Software Copyright License

Roughly two different types of Free Sofware licenses:
- permissive vs. copyleft
- both want software freedom.
Permissive licensing:
- no legal requirement to share improvements.
- authors usually still want it.
- use social pressure.
Copyleft.
- prevents proprietarization by power of copyright.
- share and share alike.
- failure to do so is copyright infringement.

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On Requirement By License

Social pressure does work …
- … and should be used (and is), even for copylefted software.
GPL == Constitution of Software Freedom Land.
- a “written down” embodiment of core principles.
GPL’s a detailed implementation of the four freedoms.

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It Takes a Village

GPL doesn’t operate on its own.
It’s a legal framework.
Most people are good; they follow the spirit of the law.
Like most laws:
- its spirit can be ignored.
- it needs to be enforced.
- it can be manipulated and abused.

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How Do You Build Community?

Well, you don’t build a community.
One grows when the water’s fine.
You need diversity of:
- ideas
- contribution
- ownership
GPL fosters this diversity:
- each contributor typically owns their copyrights …
- … but it’s contributed to the commons.
- ideas are shared and flourish.

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GPL Corruption: MySQL

Proprietary relicensing (by holding all copyright).
GPL enforcement with profit as its primary (and only?) goal.
MySQL would shake down GPL users to buy proprietary licenses they didn’t need.
I wish I’d identified this as corruption sooner.

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How MySQL story ended?

MySQL AB, Bought by Sun, then both by Oracle.
Forked by multiple communities.
Most thriving one doesn’t require assignment to a company.
But it’s named Drizzle.

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What’s in a Name?

Names aren’t copyrighted.
- thus not copylefted either.
Trademark is legal system that governs names.
Often the name stays with whoever controlled it first commercially.
New communities form new names (e.g., Drizzle).
Ultimately this rarely matters.

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Ongoing Prescription for Health?

Develop in public
- share improvements, even when you don’t have to.
Take academic attitude about the software.
- publishing results means publishing related software.
Control is an illusion anyway.
- If you love our software and your work, set it free.

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More Info and This Talk’s License

More Info about GPL?
- FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
About me:
- I co-host an audcast, Free as In Freedom: faif.us
- I’m on identi.ca (not twitter!): @bkuhn
- I have a blog: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog

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