You can’t retrospectively relicence past contributions without explicit permission of the authors, but you can explicitly require a certain licence going forward.
(This sort of thing is why relicencing an open source project is a major goddamn pain in the backside, and why thinking really hard about it ahead of time is a good idea.)
This makes me think that a particular licence, that explicitly requires an approval of all future licences that unambiguously reduce restrictions imposed by any future licence changes, might be a good idea. (In more sane words: By agreeing, you grant us the right to move your stuff to an even freer set of rules than these ones.)
“You agree to release your work under licence X or future versions of licence X as approved by organisation Y” is pretty common, and hasn’t been seriously challenged (even when people whine about it, e.g. Wikipedia using the CC-by-sa provision of GFDL 1.3).
(Turns out that Stallman and Moglen knew what they were doing when they invented copyleft.)
Hey, cool, I didn’t know about that. I have yet to really dive into all the copyleft/creator’s rights stuff, but this sounds remarkably sane for what I know of Stallman’s reputation.
Stallman is a socially grating smelly geek of little personal charm who’s spent nearly thirty years consistently being pretty much completely right, and utterly uncompromising about it. This is, of course, unforgivable.
Why do people feel the need to add this sort of prelude when praising someone? (Can I also ask that David answer first before anyone else does?) David, suppose you deleted the preamble and looked at the resulting sentence—what does your brain object to?
Stallman has spent nearly thirty years consistently being pretty much completely right, and utterly uncompromising about it. This is, of course, unforgivable
Because I was stating the general source of this sort of view of Stallman’s “reputation”, per the comment I was replying to. The version with the preamble deleted doesn’t quite answer the comment I was replying to.
For what it’s worth, the preamble does a better job of explaining to me why Stallman has the reputation he does. Also, I am less sure about this, but I found the prelude to be a joke of sorts—it functioned to set up “completely right” as a negative trait. The edited version lacks some of the punch—it tells me that people hate Stallman for being right, but it doesn’t quite communicate the intensity.
I do see and largely agree with your point, and I did consider adding “and by the way, he built your goddamned world”, but felt that wasn’t really part of an answer to the post as such either.
What David said. If you hit one of his hot buttons, he will get worked up about it until you come around (using the term “intellectual property”, for example). But in general he’s forward-thinking and holds positions that he’s come to after a long time considering their implications and how they fit into his goals—I think very hard before disagreeing with him. (Even if he is lacking in social graces.)
You can’t retrospectively relicence past contributions without explicit permission of the authors, but you can explicitly require a certain licence going forward.
(This sort of thing is why relicencing an open source project is a major goddamn pain in the backside, and why thinking really hard about it ahead of time is a good idea.)
This makes me think that a particular licence, that explicitly requires an approval of all future licences that unambiguously reduce restrictions imposed by any future licence changes, might be a good idea. (In more sane words: By agreeing, you grant us the right to move your stuff to an even freer set of rules than these ones.)
“You agree to release your work under licence X or future versions of licence X as approved by organisation Y” is pretty common, and hasn’t been seriously challenged (even when people whine about it, e.g. Wikipedia using the CC-by-sa provision of GFDL 1.3).
(Turns out that Stallman and Moglen knew what they were doing when they invented copyleft.)
Hey, cool, I didn’t know about that. I have yet to really dive into all the copyleft/creator’s rights stuff, but this sounds remarkably sane for what I know of Stallman’s reputation.
Stallman is a socially grating smelly geek of little personal charm who’s spent nearly thirty years consistently being pretty much completely right, and utterly uncompromising about it. This is, of course, unforgivable.
Why do people feel the need to add this sort of prelude when praising someone? (Can I also ask that David answer first before anyone else does?) David, suppose you deleted the preamble and looked at the resulting sentence—what does your brain object to?
Rot13′d to sortof comply with your request.
Vg’f abg whfg cenvfr, vg’f na rkcynangvba bs fubxjnir’f bofreingvbaf.
Fubxjnir fnlf “guvf vf fhecevfvatyl fnar, tvira EZF’f erchgngvba”. Qnivq rkcynvaf “EZF’f erchgngvba” naq gur “fhecevfvat fnavgl” ol cbvagvat bhg gung ur’f orra boabkvbhfyl gryyvat na vapbairavrag gehgu sbe n ybat gvzr, jurer “boabkvbhf” rffragvnyyl erqhprf gb “hasyvapuvatyl cevapvcyrq va na naablvat jnl, arpxorneqrq, trrxl”.
Gur snpg gung ur vf n arpxorneq vf eryrinag gb nal qvfphffvba bs uvf erchgngvba.
This is about right. (I wrote the above comment before decoding nyan_sandwich’s.)
Because I was stating the general source of this sort of view of Stallman’s “reputation”, per the comment I was replying to. The version with the preamble deleted doesn’t quite answer the comment I was replying to.
For what it’s worth, the preamble does a better job of explaining to me why Stallman has the reputation he does. Also, I am less sure about this, but I found the prelude to be a joke of sorts—it functioned to set up “completely right” as a negative trait. The edited version lacks some of the punch—it tells me that people hate Stallman for being right, but it doesn’t quite communicate the intensity.
I do see and largely agree with your point, and I did consider adding “and by the way, he built your goddamned world”, but felt that wasn’t really part of an answer to the post as such either.
What David said. If you hit one of his hot buttons, he will get worked up about it until you come around (using the term “intellectual property”, for example). But in general he’s forward-thinking and holds positions that he’s come to after a long time considering their implications and how they fit into his goals—I think very hard before disagreeing with him. (Even if he is lacking in social graces.)