[Foundation-l] Blogs vs. Wikis, Copyleft vs. Copycenter

[Samuel Klein]

On Sat, 14 Apr 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 4/14/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Most definitions of 'free' still include life-plus-seventy copyleft,
>> likewise a compromise of freedom.
>
> Copyleft a compromise of freedom as is the prohibition against killing
> anyone you think looks ugly.

I'm not sure these are parallel.

I hope we can agree that "life plus seventy" is broken; anything that
works through a broken system supports it tacitly.


> Do you honestly that it's wrong for a person to ask for realistically
> compromised because he won't endorse the absolutist sort of freedom in
> pure anarchy?  Or are you just pooing on copyleft in order to look

I don't mean to disparage copyleft, though I do hope the related movements 
stop inheriting mistakes from copyright.  Copyleft, like copyright, is a 
valid and useful expression of authorial intent.  Since it imposes a 
subset of the restrictions of default copyright, it is surely 'freer' in 
meaningful ways.

But it isn't what I think of when I think of freedom, since by definition 
copyleft exists to impose restrictions on others, for as long as legally 
possible.

I have myself published material under both copyright and copyleft 
licenses.  I would not in the future use any license that doesn't 
explicitly revert to a public domain or attribution or "tell-me" license 
in a reasonable period of time.  Reasonableness varies with context and 
author; for me, not more than a few years for code and highly reusable 
work, and a few more for complete works.

And when it comes to globally shared knowledge-bases such as Wikipedia, 
intended for the broadest possible uptake, I feel much better about 
publishing my contributions into the public domain (and encourage others 
to do the same).

SJ