Copyleft

[Aspie96]

The term "copyleft" has appeared in Tiny BASIC, but without any actual meaning. The term was then suggested by Don Hopkins to Richard Stallman. The first copyleft license ever written was the Emacs General Public License, but was never actually called "copyleft". The intention behind copyleft is explained in the GNU Manifesto as follows:

GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free.

So, there are two keywords: free and proprietary. As for free, Stallman has clarified he did NOT intend copies of GNU to have to be given free of charge and that by "free" he only meant as in freedom. He thus regrets referring to GNU as free in the original announcement without clarification. So, here, "free" means "free software". What does "proprietary" mean? According to GNU:

Proprietary software, also called nonfree software, means software that doesn't respect users' freedom and community. A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice.

I am not trying to discuss whether it's indeed injust, it's not my point at all, please don't assume my position on this (which either way is completely irrelevant), nor am I asking to agree with GNU. I quoted it simply to see what they mean by "proprietary": the first line explains it: "proprietary" simply means "not free", thus every program is either proprietary or free by definition.

Let us now finally go back to the definition of copyleft according to GNU:

Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or other work) free (in the sense of freedom, not “zero price”), and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.

So, copyleft is:

1. A method (not a specific license in particular).
2. To make any (copyrightable) work free (as in "free software").
3. To require modified copies to be free as well.

This is not the first occourence of the word "copyleft", however:

1. It absolutely is the first definition of it, Tiny BASIC never ever defined it.
2. It absolutely is the first popularized definition.
3. It absolutely is the current definition, how the word is currently interpreted.

Some sources defining copyleft:

• GNU: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html
• Opensource.com: https://opensource.com/resources/what-is-copyleft
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
• Copyleft.org: https://www.copyleft.org/
• P2P Foundation: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Copyleft
• Oxford Dictionary: https://www.lexico.com/definition/copyleft

There are other reliable sources for the definition of "copyleft" as well.

Given the above, it's clear that the definition of "copyleft" is not ambiguous. For a work to be "copyleft" it is a requirement that it is first "free".

Because works under the Hippocratic license are, by definition, proprietary (or at least not free in the same sense that it is meant when defining copyleft, see:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#hippocratic), they cannot be copyleft.

This is not one case in which there is a lot of ambiguity: there is none, in fact. The term "copyleft" has a clear and simple definition: it's not just about "trusting" GNU, which coined such definition, it's not just about trusting the GPL, which is by far the most common copyleft license. The mentioned definition of copyleft is extremely well accepted.

Of course, words are words, and they can be defined however one wishes. However, there is no need to. It's confusing, it's unnecessary and it's kind of lazy.

The project is using the word "copyleft" incorrectly in the same sense as any other word can be used incorrectly.

I hope this issue doesn't get closed, locked, deleted or simply ignored without any response. I hope responses to this issue will not be about how good a particular proprietary licensing is, since my argument does not aim to stand for free software, nor against it. Instead, I am simply pointing out an error in the use of the word "copyleft", which I believe to be a significant error.

The error can be corrected quite easily by creating a new word for it and basing your success upon your own merit: it is a bit harder, but it does have the added benefit of being honest.

Best regards.

[dannycolin]

Of course, words are words, and they can be defined however one wishes. However, there is no need to. It's confusing, it's unnecessary and it's kind of lazy.

Lots of words have evolved over time and it's not confusing nor lazy. It's how languages and the culture in which they are included work.

Further, the concept of Freedom used by Stallman has also evolved over time. Should Stallman had invented a word to avoid the confusion that he's talking about the 20th+ century concept of freedom and not any other form of it? Personally, I think THIS would be confusing. I mean currently the concept of being "free to use it for anything" doesn't mean you can use it for illegal activities since the law will prevent you from doing so. And as we all know the law isn't immutable. So, here's where the Hippocratic License comes to play. We consider that the concept of "free to use" is indeed limited and that those limitations include violating the human rights. Currently, our definition of human rights is based on the definition of the UN.

Finally, the Hippocratic License + Copyleft isn't proprietary just because it hasn't been certified by the OSI or the FSF. It's just not officially (and I stress the word officially) considered Free and Open Source yet. Will it change in the future, maybe. That's the current political debate in which we are right now. To use a metaphor, if something isn't red that doesn't mean it's blue but only that it isn't red.

[IreneKnapp]

Hi @Aspie96! I want to thank you for your feedback, and assure you that we do value this kind of input. The point of having this repository is to create a place for conversations like this to take place. We discussed your remarks in today's working group meeting, and our plan right now is to leave the issue open as long as productive discussion is happening on it.

That said, our answer to you is no. We aren't willing to back down from the word "copyleft", because it is explicitly our goal to shift the meaning of it in a way that accommodates ethical licensing. It's my personal belief that "Hippocratic Copyleft" is a name that will make intuitive sense to people: It's to be a license which includes ethical provisions, as well as provisions requiring all derivative works to be similarly licensed with regard to both ethics and source-availability.

I do agree with your point - which I've seen before - that ethical constraints are in contradiction to the OSI's "freedom 0", the freedom to use software for any purpose, and that such constraints are a form of power that upstream developers are exercising over end users. I think it would be foolish to deny that, as it's manifestly true. I think that there are a lot of important conversations to be had, about when this type of restriction is justified and what distinguishes it from proprietary licenses. I do think that there are answers to those questions, even if the movement isn't far enough along yet for it to be clear what they are.

I don't want to pick on the way you made your argument, because I did understand your point and I think it's a valid one, but I will say that I think the definitions you gave are not as clear as you claim. You sliced up context very narrowly to say, in essence, that "free" means "free", circularly; that "proprietary" means anything that isn't "free"; and that the idea of a Hippocratic Copyleft is therefore "proprietary". I think that the best explanation of the terminology here is one you did not reference, Stallman's slogan "free as in free speech, not free beer".

Since I am familiar with the history of discussions around this topic, I was able to follow your argument, but I wanted to offer this explanation for anyone who's newer to it. I felt it necessary to go into this because this is a very public thread and I want to make sure everyone has the same understanding of the discussion.

With that established, then, as a final thought I will say that I think a license that - for example - forbids the use of software to perpetrate human rights abuses, is a very different thing from proprietary software as most people would understand it. I think it's possible to have a productive discussion about whether what we're doing here is right, without indulging an argument that tries to define it away by reference to the history of words. The past is important, but our focus here is not on the past of the free software movement, but on its future.

I know this wasn't the answer you wanted, but I hope that at least I've given you food for thought.

[9aaa73f0]

I think you made a solid argument that copyleft software has to be free software, but i do not think there is a solid argument on the definition of free software as distinct from proprietary software.

Proprietary software, also called nonfree software, means software that doesn't respect users' freedom and community. A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice.

I do not believe the Hippocratic license fits this historic definition of propriety software that you quote;

• It doesnt seek to unjustly limit user freedom, it could be argued that the Hippocratic license is more committed to community than the GPL, and therefore less proprietary than the GPL in that aspect.
• It doesnt seek power over its users.

The Hippocratic License clearly does take a different viewpoint on the balance between collective freedom and individual freedom, but its not clear how that different viewpoint sits with existing definitions of free software.

The term free software is often capitalized (i.e. Free Software) when referring to the FSF definition to distinguish it from more common use, but it is not a trademarked term, so it is not clear there is or can (or should) only be one definition of free software.

[IreneKnapp]

To the person who went through and downvoted everything: Thank you for expressing your disagreement. We will keep it in mind that there are people who disagree. It's not what I hoped for, but it's valuable feedback. If you choose at any point to express your thoughts in more detail, I encourage you to do that.

[ShalokShalom]

I know this is an old issue, and I nonetheless like to add an obvious talking point, that has not yet been raised, surprisingly.

The entire argument of the OP is, that the term copyleft is well established by the free software foundation and that is correct.

The free software foundation, GPL and the whole community around that, very much impose restrictions, and it is a well known argument of the BSD, Solaris and so on people, who, among others, prefer a more permissive license, that the GNU license offers less freedom, because it forces the licensee to share the modified product.

So its well established, that the GNU foundation, and everybody involved in the communities that had been quoted within this issue as validation for the argument that the Hippocratic license is non-conform with the term copyleft, imposes restrictions on the license holder, and does so deliberately.

So the definition is freedom is of such, that certain measurements have to be taken, to protect the idea. You can also not call a license GPL 4.0 without their agreement, since they hold the rights to that. Ironically enough 😄

So the question is not, if a free license can be called free license, if it restricts the freedom - in an attempt to secure it - we do this since decades.

The question is, if only the original set of restrictions can be set in place and considering GPL 3 and AGPL introduced new restrictions, we have established that part also. 🙂

As a hint to the people behind Hippocrates: I think it has to be put forward, that the decision to restrict the freedom to certain parties, is absolutely to protect our all freedom:

Just that this freedom goes above and beyond the freedom of software, but the freedom of sentient beings on a greater scale.

I know you have done this in your comments here, and I miss this from the homepage and other places of representation.

Thanks a lot