DConf 2013 Closing Keynote: Quo Vadis by Andrei Alexandrescu

[John Colvin]

On Tuesday, 2 July 2013 at 05:21:35 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 21:29:21 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>> On Monday, 1 July 2013 at 17:45:59 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>> I wouldn't call closing source that they legally allowed to 
>>> be closed antisocial.  I'd call their contradictory, angry 
>>> response to what their license permits antisocial. :)
>>
>> Just because you're doing something legal doesn't mean you're 
>> not being antisocial.
> Read my previous post.  Of course it's possible for a license 
> to technically allow something but for the authors to 
> disapprove of it, not that its antisocial to simply do 
> something they disapprove of.  But, as I said earlier, the BSD 
> crowd does not publicly broadcast that they disapprove of 
> closing source.  In fact, they will occasionally link to press 
> releases about contributions back from corporations who closed 
> the source.
>
> For people using the BSD license to then get mad when yet 
> another person comes along to close source is the only 
> "antisocial" behavior I'm seeing here.  It'd be one thing if 
> they publicly said that while the BSD license allows closing 
> source, they're against it.  Feel free to provide such a public 
> statement, you won't find it.  It's only after you talk to them 
> privately about closing source that you realize how many of 
> them are against it.
>
> As I've said repeatedly, I don't much care that their behavior 
> is so "antisocial," :) as long as its legal to close source.  
> But it is pretty funny to cast that tag on somebody else, who 
> is simply doing what their license allows and what their press 
> releases trumpet.
>
>> It's a pretty psychopathic attitude to conflate legality and 
>> morality, it's effectively saying "I have the moral right to 
>> do whatever I can get away with"
> On the contrary, it's a pretty psychopathic attitude to make 
> such claims about morality when
>
> 1. nobody was talking about morality
>
> 2. the BSD crowd doesn't publicly talk about their problems 
> with closing source either, whether they think it's immoral or 
> antisocial or whatever.

This is all a bit moot as I was making a general point, not 
specifically related to BSD. However, in their case, I think it 
is perfectly fine that some don't like closed source personally, 
but as a group they decide to endorse it. A group where everyone 
is forced to agree on everything isn't an organisation, it's a 
cult.

I think what I'm really trying to say is this:

A license is a description of what you will *allow*, not what you 
*want*.
I personally like to take in to account what people *want* me to 
do, not just what they will *allow* me to do.