Stallman Responds to LinuxWorld GPL Article

A reader wrote to point out that RMS has responded to a recent LinuxWorld article by Stig Hackvan concerning the GPL. Interesting debate over what free means, amongst other topics.

Comments

Sophistry, Even by RMS, is Bad for the Movement

[werdna]

While comforting to the choir to hear our leaders challenge the heretics among us, we must take care before accepting pleasant-sounding words as truth. I respect that crap out of RMS, and support many (certainly not all) of the things for which he stands, but regrettably, this verse smacks more of marketing than truth-seeking.

Stig makes some powerful and interesting arguments, beginning with an undeniable truth: GPL is more limiting on individual choice as to what can be done with a work than, say, dedication of a work to the public domain.

While it is undoubtedly true that there may be good reasons for the GPL limitations (and there are), it is undeniable that there are limits, and in this sense, GPL software is less "free" than public domain or BSD licensing.

I think the issue has never been whether one form of licensure (or non-licensing dedication to the public domain) is more "free," but rather the very question posed by Stig:

does it strike the right balance

If we take freedom as an absolute good, and any infringement of freedom as a wrongful limitation, then we must turn away from all licensure, and simply dedicate our works to the public domain. To the extent we are redefining the meaning of these words to suit our case, we are engaging in tautology, marketing or sophistry.

I believe RMS has done so here. The gaffeometer pins immediately upon the occurence of phraseology such as "the official definition." Even worse, the suggestion that one should avoid legitimizing copyright by using the nominally salutory phrase "intellectual property," however legally accurate the phrase might be, proves too much, and suggests that RMS statements may have focused too much more on the form than substance.[1]

But moreover, look what happens when we start adopting the pabulum as truth. RMS' definition of freedom would surprise many of the nation's founders, notwithstanding the quotation of populist cliches:

I find the distinction between freedom and power useful . . . . Freedom is when you control activities that affect you most closely; to control activities that mainly affect other people is power . . . .

But just a few paragraphs later, we see the true nature of GPL:

If someone has used some of my GPL-covered code in a program, and releases the program, I cannot make that person release the program under the GPL. I can, however, deny permission to release my code on any other basis. that is what the GPL does.

In other words, at the end of the day, "what the GPL does" is to grant an author the right to "control activities that mainly affect other people." In other words, even accepting RMS statements on their face, what GPL does is about power, and not freedom.

Any exercise of a copyright pursuant to a license is the exercise of a power to exclude others from the exercise of certain enumerated rights, subject to the limitations of the Copyright Act.

Two anticipated objections to this analysis seem apparent:

1. the user doesn't have to license under GPL, he may choose not to release the code at all; and \
   
2. the use of my code by others affects me.
   

But to accept either of these responses is to abandon the strongest arguments against intellectual property generally, namely, that:

1. It is nonresponsive for another to tell me that I always have the option not to use their copyrighted (GPL'd) code, but that I can rewrite my code from scratch; the enforcement of these copyright rights to exclude is a restriction of my personal liberty; and
   
2. my making a copy of a program costs you nothing -- you are deprived of nothing, and the assertion of a taking is illusory. (In short, the "your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" cliche is inapplicable because copying does not damage the nose)
   

It is one thing to say that Copyleft is a necessary defense in a world of proprietary software. It is another thing to claim that the assertion of a copyleft is consistent with freedom while insisting that an assertion of a copyright is inconsistent with freedom. The very argument RMS makes in one case would defeat the argument advanced by him and others against IP rights in the first place.

In short, the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the stark "my way or no way" response of RMS and the straw man he imputed to Stig. The truth is rather more interesting. I don't know what the truth is, but I belive, at least, that Stig asked the right question:

Are the particular choices we are making "striking the right balance?"

The issue isn't freedom versus power. Neither absolute is contemplated in any of the strategies advocated here -- the question is whether we are making the right choices?

To pretend otherwise is sophistry. We should not permit ourselves, or each other, to engage in convenient redefinitions of common words to advance a cause. We begin to sound to the unconvinced like rambling, pabulum spouting, true believers. And they would be right to write us off for advancing such nonarguments.

Let us accept the weaknesses and inconsistencies of our assumptions, and argue why they are better in an imperfect world, or let us abandon the weaknesses entirely, notwithstanding such good derived therefrom.

Stig raised some very important questions. It would be a mistake to ignore them, simply because they challenge many of our core assumptions. I do not suggest by any of this that Stig is correct in his conclusions; I am inclined instead to listen and learn. There may be a great response to Stig's essay somewhere, but regrettably, that answer will not be found in RMS' statement.

[1] The suggestion that "intellectual property" (IP) is "too big a generalization" because it lumps together disparate bodies of law such as copyright and trademark is logically indefensible. Certainly the phrase is broad (despite the fact that lawyers who practice it are deemed to practice a narrow specialty), encompassing far more disparate issues, such as right to publicity, moral rights and the right to be free from unfair competition.

But the law adequately characterizes a body of intengible personal property and related rights to exclude others from the freedom to perform certain acts unrelated to any particular object. Just as the phrase "programming language" reasonably distinguishes LOGO, C and Smalltalk from, say, a European Swallow, so can the phrase intellectual property distinguishes copyright and trademark from the both of those things.

With all due respect, the "my way or the highway" view that any phrase phrase with a salutory connotation for a thing one deems "bad" is incorrect, and any pejorative phrase for a thing one deems "good" is perfect tends to prove my point that Sophistry is in the air.

Let us not try to win the "newspeak" word wars, its well past 1984. Let us instead return to the real world, and fight the real fights. There is much to be done, and this pettiness just gets in the way and discredits us all.