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by quadrangle 1889 days ago
The ideal end-state is simply software freedom for everyone, no more proprietary software — and also no more malicious actions in the world, world peace, and universal love and compassion.

I do sincerely share these ideals, but which paths get us how far with which real-world trade-offs, that's more complex.

For ideal policy, I like this direction: abolishing copyright and patent law and replacing them with (A) mandatory source-release for all published works that need source in order to practically study and modify and (B) prohibition on DRM or other measures that technically limit freedoms.

1 comments

I like your ideal policy, but I don't see a way we can move closer to it on our own, unlike the everything-is-AGPL end state.
Oh, I don't think either is realistic any time soon (long long run, who knows). I'll readily accept that there's a path that takes us slowly in the direction of everything-is-AGPL, namely making more software AGPL. No comparable path exists to slowly progress toward my ideal policy.