Must publish vs. must supply

[Chris F Clark]

David Johnson writes:
> The FSF makes a (wise) distinction between privacy and secrecy. The 
> boundaries between the two are the boundaries between the private and 
> public spheres.

A reasonable distinction.  This brings up the question of where the
private and public spheres end.  

Personally, the boundaries of a corporation (or any group) do not
create a privacy boundary.  By acting as a group, the individuals have
made their actions public.  Individuals may have the right to
assemble, but they do not have blanket rights as a group (and in
particular, when acting in concert their rights are specifically
restricted).

Looking at this another way, the laws do not allow corporations to
take certain actions that they do allow individuals to take.  That's
because a corporation necessarily operates in the public shpere and
the actions of a corporation affect many individuals.  The rights of
one individual however are generally private, because the actions and
rights of one individula must be carefully balanced against the rights
of another.

Note that we don't even allow certain forms of association, where the
purpose of those associations is in violations of the rights of other
individuals.  Thus, the rights of groups is truly severly limited,
because by actiong in groups invidiauls make their actions public,
even if they would otherwise be private.

So, we do not allow corporations to discriminate based on race,
gender, ethnic background, etc. while an individual within limits can.
I just wish to apply the same limits to corporate use of software.  It
is not privacy as the corporation is operating in the public sphere.
It is secrecy.

> What is the difference between imprisoning software by "end" users, and 
> imprisoning software by the dictates of authors? Why is controlling the 
> software in someone's private possession wrong if done by the user but 
> right if done by the author?

First, there is no absolute distinction between who imprisons the
software.  There are only the distinctions we apply by deciding what
is right and wrong.  Someone has the right to say the software will or
will not be redistributed.  That person has specific rights to
imprison that software.  The only question is on what basis do we
assign that right to which individuals.

In this case, there is legal precedent for the author's right to
imprison the software.  The right to make derived works is a right
that is reserved to the author.  Thus, some people have decided that
that is where the right of imprisonment for software lies (in terms of
making derived works).  Other rights of imprisonment do not belong to
the software author, but instead belong to the person who owns the
copy of the software.  Again, these rights have been established
through precedent (and laws) over the years.  You and I may not agree
with each other nor with the legal precedents, but the precedents do
stand as a body of decisions over who has which rights to imprison
software in which ways.  You may wish to argue that we set aside that
precedent for this case.  I feel that we should uphold it.

My only point in entering this debate was to point out that the
license restrictions suggested by Abe Kornalis do reflect that legal
precedent and also reflect the desires of other software authors.
Restricting the rights of others to make secret (and perhaps even
private) derived works is a right that copyright law has established
is within the authors domain.  Unless one can find specific reason why
it violates the open source (or free software) definition, I think
such a license should be considered open source (and/or free
software).  Now, perhaps the privacy concern is sufficient to make the
license not free software.  However, I don't think it violates the
open source definition--just my opinion again.

Sincerely,
-Chris Clark

Again, a personal request: Please do not send me personal copies of
mail that are also sent to the list.  Extra copies serve no purpose as
I can read the response sent to the list server just fine.
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