On 07/31/2012 08:12 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
Richard Fontana wrote at 21:35 (EDT) on Monday:
> I don't see how it is achievable, because we know that there are
> multiple, clashing ideals of copyleft -- at least if we mean strong
> copyleft.
I would agree with you, but then the question becomes: won't
copyleft-next be "just another" copyleft, somewhere on the weak/strong
spectrum, and ...
It is intended to be strong copyleft. This is a fixed goal.
> At most, in allowing for outbound compatibility with
GPLv2+/AGPLv3+,
... if you have pure outbound compatibility to the FSF license suite,
I have to wonder what the point is of copyleft-next. Who are the potential license
users who *wouldn't* just use some existing copyleft license?
Well, I'm not absolutely convinced there should be outbound
GPLv2+/AGPLv3+ compatibility. A few people, such as Mike Linksvayer
and James Vasile, have made convincing arguments for why this is a
good idea. It's partly a political thing. Remember, one of the things
that makes copyleft-next different from past non-FSF GPL-alternative
licenses is that I started with the GPLv3 text (granted, there is now
almost no textual similarity between GPLv3 and copyleft-next). The FSF
has discouraged making derivative works of the GNU GPL, and one of the
FSF's arguments has been that this will tend to produce licenses that
are GPL-incompatible. So I want to limit the degree to which the FSF
is unhappy about copyleft-next. But Mike and James made additional
arguments for having GNU strong copyleft compatibility. For example, I
think it was James who said that this would make people more inclined
to experiment with using the license. I believe it may have been Mike
who emphasized the policy importance of minimizing commons
fragmentation. The compatibility provision also goes (or should go)
some way towards satisfying those who are concerned about license
proliferation.
The existence of the outbound compatibility provision has, in any
case, had an influence on how I've been drafting copyleft-next. I have
partially justified some of the most dramatic changes from GPLv3 by
saying that if people care so much about the loss of certain
provisions they can always use copyleft-next code in a GPLv3-licensed
work.
There's value in doing this exercise, but we should be realistic
about
what we're doing. Copyleft-next, in my estimation, is looking for the
Theory of Everything for copyleft licensing.
That is not my goal at all. If I had to sum it up, I'd say this: I
want to create a simpler, legally robust, more understandable, more
aesthetically pleasing, noncorruptible strong copyleft license.
- Richard