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The FSF's Donald Robertson Talks About Secretive Trade Negotiations (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the when-they-hide-it-from-us-it's-never-good dept.

Donald Robertson, is the Free Software Foundation (FSF) copyright administrator (and wearer of several other hats as well), so he's the FSF person to turn to when you want to discuss trade agreements, how they are negotiated, and how info on these (typically) secret) goings-on get leaked so that we can see what our negotiators are up to. And don't think, even for a second, that the TPP is the only trade agreement our government is working on, or necessarily the worst. After that, we learn how Don Robertson hooked up with the FSF and got what may be the best job in the world for an attorney who likes (and uses) GNU/Linux. (And for more, check out yesterday's interview with Mr. Robertson.)

1 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. What about the restrictive nature of the GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In my opinion, it's quite hypocritical to disparage restrictive agreements while at the same time supporting the GPL.

    The GPL is one of the most restrictive open source licenses out there. It's an agreement that's all about taking away the ability of people to do what they want with source code.

    The supporters of the GPL will claim that it's about "keeping the source code open forever" or some nonsense like that, totally ignoring how much freedom this ends up eliminating!

    There are some open source licenses that are all about maximizing the freedom of all of the parties involved. Those licenses include the BSD and MIT licenses. They do not include the GPL!

    It's ok for a supporter of the BSD and MIT licenses to take a stance against restrictive agreements. After all, such a person has shown that she has already taken a consistent, principled stand on such matters. But a GPL supporter is not in that position, given his support for such a freedom-limiting license.