They're silly, folks. Intellectual property is a spook.

Under communism all software will be free to share, use, and modify without restriction.

This post inspired by the current Ruby mimemagic gem license drama.

In case you're not following:

  • mimemagic is a Ruby library (gem) used for detecting the MIME types of files, either by their extension or by their content
  • it's widely used and included in Rails
  • it was MIT licensed
  • it was using an xml file from freedesktop dot org, which is a GPL project
  • the GPL license means that every project that uses that software must also be GPL licensed - open-source, freely usable/modifiable/etc
  • someone from freedesktop pointed this out to the mimemagic maintainer
  • the maintainer republished the gem as GPL and yanked all the MIT licensed gems, breaking builds everywhere, and making rails currently uninstallable

I have a big headache because of ideology.

  • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
    ·
    4 years ago

    they are restrictions so people cannot use any GPL software without it infecting everything it’s used with the GPL license. Just by using one piece of GPL software, your software becomes GPL too.

    That's the idea, you're preventing software that depends on you from enforcing bullshit restrictions.

    those freedoms aren’t freedoms at all,

    Freedom to restrict people's use of software is a net decrease in freedom. Restrictions in how you can restrict people's use of software is a net increase in freedom.