[pwdisswordfish4]

> I took issue with saying that it was "common sense" to use a license that prohibited things you didn't like

Not a good characterization of the argument. It's a matter of negative rights vs. positive rights. The original commenter's argument was cogent.

In copyright, the default is that no one has rights to your creations but you. In licensing it as open source, you're broadening what others can do with it. It's an active choice. If granting someone X could result in them doing X where they otherwise wouldn't, and you'd be uncomfortable with that, then don't go out and invite people to do X.

The hackneyed "common sense ain't so common" aphorism is certainly something to avoid though.

[burntsushi]

I don't see how that's not a good characterization. That's almost literally what was said:

> Yes, folks, if you don't like the idea of a corporation taking your ("software-as-a-service") code and using it to create and sell proprietary products, then maybe don't license your code under the MIT License (or any of the others which explicitly allow exactly that)!

As for:

> In copyright, the default is that no one has rights to your creations but you. In licensing it as open source, you're broadening what others can do with it. It's an active choice. If granting someone X could result in them doing X where they otherwise wouldn't, and you'd be uncomfortable with that, then don't go out and invite people to do X.

Well, I don't think giving people a legal grant to do X is inviting them to do X, especially in the context of permissive licenses or public domain dedications. Otherwise, you could accuse me of inviting people to do X for any value of X, no matter how pernicious.

[pwdisswordfish4]

> I don't see how that's not a good characterization.

For the reason just stated:

"It's a matter of negative rights vs. positive rights."

You're say the license prohibits certain things, which isn't true. It's copyright law that prohibits, by default, almost everything. Choosing a public license to make something FOSS is an active choice that selectively enables more use for people who follow the cultural and legal patterns you do like. That a person while doing so doesn't also enable even the uses one doesn't like is not what you're characterizing it as: an active effort to prohibit those things. Wide open, MIT-like permissive reuse is not the default.

[burntsushi]

I don't see what the "default" has to do with what I'm saying. That's just an artifact of the US's backwards intellectual property legal system. It has nothing to do with positive vs negative rights.

Bottom line is that laws and ethics aren't the same. A legal grant to do something (even if it isn't the default) doesn't constitute an invitation to do something unethical.

And I stand by my characterization. The parent post was literally talking about prohibiting things one doesn't like.

[pwdisswordfish4]

> I don't see what the "default" has to do with what I'm saying.

Indeed. Based on your other comments in the thread, it looks like you're committed to not understanding.

> The parent post was literally talking about prohibiting things one doesn't like

The parent post was literally talking about not talking extra effort to whitelist things they don't like. There's a real difference between that and what you're saying, and whether you want to acknowledge it or not doesn't change whether that distinction exists.

[burntsushi]

> it looks like you're committed to not understanding

Ah okay, so you're troll. Please don't bother communicating with me in the future.