request for approval of APPOSL - going by the numbers.

[dave sag]

At 5:52 PM -0500 6/3/02, Matthew C. Weigel wrote:
>On Wednesday, March 6, 2002, at 04:59 p, dave sag wrote:
>
>>2. APOSSL is closest to the Apache licence.  The Apache licence is 
>>insufficient for our needs as our mission is to promote pronoia, 
>>and pronoic attitudes in the minds of developers who embrace and 
>>extend our software.  the specific differences are:
>
>Why?
>
>Much as with your attempt to backtrack from bad faith, you are
>attempting to answer this without substance.
>
>What makes you think that free software is not a conspiracy to improve
>life, and given that, what makes you think that free software developers
>are not actively intending to take part in this conspiracy?

I believe that most free software developers ARE actively taking part 
in this conspiracy for good.  What is clearly missing from our 
language is a word to describe that and related concepts - that is 
why we have proposed pronoia, pronoic, pronoiac and others.

>How does your license succeed at promoting this sense?

Clause 4 clearly contains an encouragement to use the specific term 
pronoic, as defined in the header as a the term to describe the 
belief that forces are conspiring to make life better for you.  Our 
licence seeks to associate the idea with the term, thus further 
popularising it as an antidote the rampant paranoia of our age. 
Clause 5 reinforces this with the notion that software developed 
under this licence will always be pronoic.

Clearly you also believe that free software development is pronoic 
behaviour. I urge you to see this licence as a positive development 
and as a part of a greater whole. APOSSL is a licence that encourages 
free exchange of source code without restriction and also asks you to 
think about the effects of your code on the world. Like an art form 
it does this in a slightly tangential way such that if the insight 
hits you, it hits you internally.  The best art, the best headlines 
and the best jokes are like this.

cheers

dave

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