DConf 2013 Closing Keynote: Quo Vadis by Andrei Alexandrescu

[Joakim]

On Tuesday, 2 July 2013 at 09:59:19 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> 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.
Of course there will be a wide variety of opinions within any 
community but the point is those who push such 
permissively-licensed software but privately dislike closing of 
source, then lash out at those who try to do it, are being silly.

> 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.
You're really splitting hairs at this point.  If you _allow_ 
almost anything, as most permissive licenses like the BSD or MIT 
license do, nobody is going to then ask permission of the 
community for every possible thing they might do, to see who 
"wants" it, particularly since the community hasn't stated 
anything publicly.  Since the community likely has a variety of 
opinions, as you yourself just admitted, such a poll of "wants" 
would likely be meaningless anyway.

Unless the particular community puts out a public statement of 
"wants" that most of them can get behind, which very few of them 
do, it is silly to talk about what they might "want" which isn't 
in the license.  The license is essentially all that matters.