[delotrag]

In a world where everyone by default had unlimited rights to use, modify, and redistribute software, sure, copyleft would be unnecessary. But we don't live in such a world. You believe users ought to have unlimited rights to do what they want with their software- copyleft hijacks the copyright system to ensure these rights can't be removed downstream. "What's good for the goose" is exactly the rationale behind copyleft- if large corporations can use it to restrict user rights, the community can use it to protect them.

By not supporting copyleft, what you seem to think you're doing is consistently opposing copyright encumberances. But practically speaking, you're just giving up the fight- large corporations can enforce copyright and restrict users, and you don't support fighting back because you believe it would be philisophically inconsistent.

My contention here is that you're wrong, in the sense that we share a goal (software freedom) and your strategy will less effectively accomplish that goal than the one you oppose. Opposing copyleft will not end copyright, but it _will_ give all the benefits of copyright to those looking to restrict user freedom.

[notepad0x90]

We just have different approaches. In my view, I will use the law when I don't have a choice, but in this case there is a choice. I think the copyleft approach is in fact giving up, because as you put it, it is using copyright laws, justifying means by ends.

The fact is, there are public domain licenses, and they work well, they only exist because of legalistic reasons. My view is that the world is what we make of it. Oppressing others because you're oppressed isn't right. I make no distinction between "users" and "redistributors" like you're making. this isn't class warfare from my perspective.

Think of it differently, with public domain, everyone gets the same access. In my view, if the software is modified and redistributed, I don't care, because as a publisher I never claimed any rights over the software I published to begin with. The license is "do whatever you want with it". to be more prescient, property rights, and the ability to freely share what I own is more important to me than the free accessibility of software. I also believe that good free software shouldn't rely on the contributions of commercial entities. From redhat to Google, I've seen good contribution from them, but they also wield an unfair influence over open source projects. From the kernel to systemd, there are endless complaints about them.

copyleft is attempting to entice corporate beneficiaries of open source, whereas I think I'd like to see the opposite of that. Maybe that made sense at the founding of the FSF, but these days the power dynamics are wildly different. I prefer for governments and individuals alike to fund good open source software, and for that software to be truly free. I don't want some corporation supporting the project so that they can wield undue influence over it, and corrupt it to serve their own self interests.

There is no shame in asking for funds or monetary support. Or with asking users to pay for the software directly. the open source community is very large, it isn't a small band of devs writing code on their free time anymore.