Integration with the GPL

[Lashette]

I'm a fan of using the GPL for software projects due to its strong copy left nature. When I saw this I thought it was a rather good idea, but I also wish to have the strong copy left nature of the GPL. I'd like to see if we can have a constructive discussion on integrating the hippocratic license with the GPL!

[dannycolin]

Someone in #6 pointed out that the Hippocratic License "is not GPL-compatible, because it restricts FSF's freedom 0, the freedom to use the software for any purpose".

I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if it really goes against freedom 0 or not. But, I think it'll be the first thing to find out. Maybe, someone at the Software Freedom Conservancy could help us.

[yawpitch]

Though Freedom 0 isn't actually part of the text of the GPL, the GPL's free software provisions certainly were intended to extend the spirit of the FSF's meaning of "Free Software" to anything licensed under the GPL, thus software licensed under the GPL really should convey with it the copyright assignment necessary to use the software for any inethical, illegal, and/or immoral purpose.

So no, they're not really compatible, or able to be integrated.

But, that said, the copyleft provisions and language of the GPL are somewhat distinct from the free software provisions it also incorporates. It would be nice to see a copyleft version of the Hippocratic License that took a swing at incorporating those without the "free as in free from moral consequence" parts of the original.

[Aspie96]

Though Freedom 0 isn't actually part of the text of the GPL

Quoting GPL 3:

This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.

According to the GPL, all rights provided trough the license are irrevokable. This very much includes the mentioned one.

I obviously agree with the incompatibility.

Note: I think you might have meant that the verbatim text of Freedom 0 is not part of the GPL, rather than the fact that Freedom 0 is not implied by the GPL. In which case, I misunderstood.

[yawpitch]

I meant solely that Freedom 0 was neither mentioned in the GPL, nor was its text incorporated verbatim into it ... it is not a concept that can be identified by that name within the text of the license itself. One can therefore certainly refer to Freedom 0 when discussing the intellectual basis of the GPL, but one cannot really state that "X is not GPL compatible because it restricts [any given other utterance of the creators of the GPL]" ... the explicit reason for incompatibility must be found in the text itself.

I agree that within the text itself there is such an incompatibility, but "unlimited permission to run the unmodified program" is not identical in either meaning or wording to "[t]he freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose".

[yawpitch]

@Lashette, given the above, you might consider closing this issue and starting one asking for a strong copyleft version of the Hippocratic License. If the ethical considerations of the HL make it incompatible with the OSD then it's definitely incompatible with the GPL, since the FSF is if anything more libertarian than the OSI.

[Aspie96]

Thank you for clarifying!

is not identical in either meaning or wording Of course the wording is very different. Still, I would argue works under GPL do indeed provide freedom 0. That is because running the program is in no way restricted by the license (it even allows you to run modified versions of the program, as well, even combining it with incompatible software).

X is not GPL compatible because it restricts [any given other utterance of the creators of the GPL] Oh, I agree with that. It's just hard to imagine, for me at least, how a non-free license could possibly be compatible with the GPL (not just this license), since derivative works must be under GPL (or AGPL, as well), which doesn't allow any additional restriction than those explicitly stated in the license.

Il giorno dom 22 dic 2019 alle ore 14:03 Michael Morehouse < notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

I meant solely that Freedom 0 was neither mentioned in the GPL, nor was its text incorporated verbatim into it ... it is not a concept that can be identified by that name within the text of the license itself. One can therefore certainly refer to Freedom 0 when discussing the intellectual basis of the GPL, but one cannot really state that "X is not GPL compatible because it restricts [any given other utterance of the creators of the GPL]" ... the explicit reason for incompatibility must be found in the text itself.

I agree that within the text itself there is such an incompatibility, but "unlimited permission to run the unmodified program" is not identical in either meaning or wording to "[t]he freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose".

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[Aspie96]

I agree with Michael.

Il giorno dom 22 dic 2019 alle ore 14:12 Michael Morehouse < notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

@Lashette https://github.com/Lashette, given the above, you might consider closing this issue and starting one asking for a strong copyleft version of the Hippocratic License. If the ethical considerations of the HL make it incompatible with the OSD then it's definitely incompatible with the GPL, since the FSF is if anything more libertarian than the OSI.

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[yawpitch]

Of course the wording is very different. Still, I would argue works under GPL do indeed provide freedom 0. That is because running the program is in no way restricted by the license (it even allows you to run modified versions of the program, as well, even combining it with incompatible software).

See I try to be very careful with my distinctions here. Freedom 0 is a statement of principles, but those principles extend well outside what a copyright assignment can do. The GPL, as a license, can only do what a copyright assignment can do.

So the GPL extends permission to run the program, and it says that permission is unrestricted. That's fine, to the extent that the author can extend that permission.

Freedom 0, though, says you have "the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose" ... but that is not within the purview of copyright assignment, and goes beyond what the GPL can extend. The author of a work cannot extend to the assignee the freedom to use that work for illegal purposes, for instance ... the copyright assignee didn't enjoy that right before the assignment, they sure as heck don't enjoy it after, merely as a consequence of downloading a piece of software licensed under the GPL.

Conversely, though, it is entirely within the rights (and I'd argue responsibility) of the author to not extend permission to uses they consider immoral. The holder of copyright has an absolute moral right to be more restrictive than the letter of the law, and can be, right up until those restrictions themselves become illegally discriminatory, such as when motivated by racial animus. They can be judged by the market, and maybe history, for those restrictions, but the purpose of copyright assignment is to protect their interest in how the work of their own mind gets disseminated ... it's not to protect the interest of others in being free to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

[Aspie96]

but those principles extend well outside what a copyright assignment can do. Ah, ok. Agree with you here 100%.

For instance, there is a lot of software with free licenses (such as Apache license) which isn't actually free software. I'd argue mere legal restrictions don't make software non-free, as the restriction doesn't have anything to do with the software itself (for instance, if I buy a knife, I obviously cannot use it to kill anybody, but nor could I kill anybody without using a knife: the restrcition doesn't come from buying the knife in any way and no knife can allow for that).

Thanks for clarifying.

Il giorno dom 22 dic 2019 alle ore 15:27 Michael Morehouse < notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

Of course the wording is very different. Still, I would argue works under GPL do indeed provide freedom 0. That is because running the program is in no way restricted by the license (it even allows you to run modified versions of the program, as well, even combining it with incompatible software).

See I try to be very careful with my distinctions here. Freedom 0 is a statement of principles, but those principles extend well outside what a copyright assignment can do. The GPL, as a license, can only do what a copyright assignment can do.

So the GPL extends permission to run the program, and it says that permission is unrestricted. That's fine, to the extent that the author can extend that permission.

Freedom 0, though, says you have "the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose" ... but that is not within the purview of copyright assignment, and goes beyond what the GPL can extend. The author of a work cannot extend to the assignee the freedom to use that work for illegal purposes, for instance ... the copyright assignee didn't enjoy that right before the assignment, they sure as heck don't enjoy it after, merely as a consequence of downloading a piece of software licensed under the GPL.

Conversely, though, it is entirely within the rights (and I'd argue responsibility) of the author to not extend permission to uses they consider immoral. The holder of copyright has an absolute moral right to be more restrictive than the letter of the law, and can be, right up until those restrictions themselves become illegally discriminatory, such as when motivated by racial animus. They can be judged by the market, and maybe history, for those restrictions, but the purpose of copyright assignment is to protect their interest in how the work of their own mind gets disseminated ... it's not to protect the interest of others in being free to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

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[yawpitch]

Ok, good ... but then by extension you can't really see the HL as non-free.

The UDHR is a foundational document of international law; any act that is found to have manifestly violated the UDHR is, de facto, a violation of at least the spirit of international law, even if it is not, de jure, illegal under your local law ... thus the HL is really just an explicit statement that the author does not assign to the user freedoms to act in ways they're not already truly free to act in.

Where local law falls short of the UDHR I would say that there's a far more significant concern for fundamental freedoms than can be addressed by a software license, but I would argue, strongly, that restricting users to the closest thing we've got to a universally agreed baseline for moral action doesn't inherently make the user any less free than they already were, in precisely the same manner as that knife ... they never truly enjoyed the freedom to stab someone with it, absent repercussion, and if the manufacturer decided to put a label on there saying, expressly, that nothing in its sale of its product to you grants you the freedom to stick it in someone else I doubt there would be any significant controversy from the Open Cutlery community.

[Aspie96]

Local laws absolutely do fall short of the UDHR, thus this is an additional restriction. Assuming the license is useful, it is non-free (since its main restrictions are on use). If it is free, then it is not useful.

in precisely the same manner as that knife But it would in a country in which killing with a knife was legal.

nothing in its sale of its product to you grants you the freedom to stick it in someone else It would still be a restriction, as laws are contingent.

See it this way: free licenses, by defintion, allow usage for any purpose. That doesn't mean you can use something for any purpose, because being allowed by the software author isn't enough. Regardless, if you do use it for illegal purposes (and violating human rights isn't always illegal, although always immoral), you will never be violating copyright law by doing so.

Let's pretend that violating human rights is indeed illegal. Even in that case, we know have two places the restriction comes from: state law and the licenses. The penalty in violating one or the other is clearly different, but they will be equally responsable for the limitation.

In my knife example, I was pointing out how the seller of the knife wouldn't be responsable for the limitation; if the limitation is expressely stated, that's a very different case.

Licenses cannot replace the laws. I don't think freedom 0 has ever been interpreted as literally creating a new legal system in which there are no restrictions on running the program.

Il giorno dom 22 dic 2019 alle ore 16:44 Michael Morehouse < notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

Ok, good ... but then by extension you can't really see the HL as non-free.

The UDHR is a foundational document of international law; any act that is found to have manifestly violated the UDHR is, de facto, a violation of at least the spirit of international law, even if it is not, de jure, illegal under your local law ... thus the HL is really just an explicit statement that the author does not assign to the user freedoms to act in ways they're not already truly free to act in.

Where local law falls short of the UDHR I would say that there's a far more significant concern for fundamental freedoms than can be addressed by a software license, but I would argue, strongly, that restricting users to the closest thing we've got to a universally agreed baseline for moral action doesn't inherently make the user any less free than they already were, in precisely the same manner as that knife ... they never truly enjoyed the freedom to stab someone with it, absent repercussion, and if the manufacturer decided to put a label on there saying, expressly, that nothing in its sale of its product to you grants you the freedom to stick it in someone else I doubt there would be any significant controversy from the Open Cutlery community.

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[yawpitch]

Violating human rights is illegal ... if your local government thinks otherwise then your local government is illegitimate. The only questions are when and to what degree will they reap what they've sewn. The "when" is, always, "eventually".

And thinking about licenses replacing laws, or that copyright licensure is the wrong forum, are both common, but ill-conceived, red herrings; no, licenses don't establish the absolute boundaries of your freedom, that's the job of the law. The job of the license is solely to say under what circumstances you're allowed to replicate the copyrighted work of another, in other words the relative or soft boundaries of our freedom. And that's precisely why licenses are necessary, because they're where authorial responsibility comes in to play. The law has established that the copyright is solely the author's right to assign; they can only do so by an act of volition, in the form of a license. Within the boundaries established by the law the license, then, is precisely the point at which the author can condone your actions by granting, or denounce your actions by withholding, that assignment.

Since copyright is an internationally-recognized human right that has strong legal protections in most states -- indeed often much stronger legal protections than most other human rights -- it's the perfect forum in which to establish a moral and ethical floor. If you are willing to violate the UHDR then you're probably willing to violate my copyright -- at which point you'll have necessarily broken both human rights and copyright laws -- but if you're not willing to violate my copyright and I fail to state that you can't use it to violate the other human rights upon which I depend then I, personally, bear moral responsibility for your acts.

Thus a "free" license that does not state such a floor is an abdication of personal responsibility by the author, and a "non-free" license that does state such a floor is still free, because you remain free to do anything you should be doing.

[yawpitch]

Regardless, at this point we need to end this line of discussion; it's gone way off the manifest purpose of this issue. We agree that integration with the GPL is effectively impossible, but that (likely optional) copyleft provisions for the HL aren't.

[Aspie96]

Yes, we absolutely agree with the conclusion, even if we disagree with the arguments being made.

Il giorno dom 22 dic 2019 alle ore 17:45 Michael Morehouse < notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

Regardless, at this point we need to end this line of discussion; it's gone way off the manifest purpose of this issue. We agree that integration with the GPL is effectively impossible, but that (likely optional) copyleft provisions for the HL aren't.

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[decentral1se]

due to its strong copy left nature.

I think you might find interest in https://github.com/EthicalSource/hippocratic-license/issues/21, https://github.com/EthicalSource/hippocratic-license/issues/6 and https://github.com/EthicalSource/hippocratic-license/issues/42 :+1:

(Sorry to resurrect an old issue...)