[License-review] For approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 2)

[Bruce Perens]

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 1:41 PM Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org> wrote:

> On 8/22/19 1:13 PM, Bruce Perens via License-review wrote:
>
> This is a "slippery slope" argument, and as such a fallacy.
>

This is a simplistic argument which assumes that all statements of a class
branded as fallacious are *always *fallacious.

In the case of slippery-slope arguments, there is a good deal of argument
by logicians for non-fallacious use. I was very tempted to reproduce an
entire screen-full of such argument from Wikipedia, but will leave that for
the reader to look up.

One of the key purposes of open source software -- particularly copyleft
> -- is to preserve user and downstream developer freedom.  In many kinds
> of software, being able to effectively use that software independent of
> the original vendor requires not just access to the source code bits,
> but access to the data stored by the software as well.  As such, this
> kind of requirement to distribute the data on the same terms as the
> software is a natural, and probably inevitable, extension of copyleft
> principles.
>

Perhaps it is. But there is a step between it being perceived  a natural
extension and being an actual extension: that groups like FSF and OSI
decide that Free Software and Open Source now include Data Freedom as well,
and change things like the Four Freedoms and the OSD to reflect that. They
have not done so. They might consider that this is properly the territory
of some successor movement. While they consider this, they might also
consider very, very many things that might preserve downstream developer
freedom that are not part of the Free Software and Open Source brands
today, and are not in the Four Freedoms and the OSD. But more likely they
would decide to limit them to things that we can agree upon and keep
compact.


>
> As an example, imagine that I have a geodata processing program, which I
> support by running a hosted version, and all user data is PK-encrypted
> using a key only I control.  If the software is under the GPL (because
> it depends on, say, PostGIS), the user still doesn't have the freedom to
> run the software themselves unless they are willing to recreate all of
> their data.  The CAL would protect user freedom in this case.
>

Maybe I will understand this if you state it better. It sounds like you own
the data, it's under your key, and you are arguing that if you used another
license you would be forced to provide the data to others, and that this
would be a good thing. One would think that the user would have the freedom
to create their own geospatial data as you did. The way you state it, it
sounds like the user should have a right to work that you did, arbitrarily.
Perhaps you can explain this more clearly?


>
> Calling this an OSD6 violation is a huge stretch.  By that argument, all
> copyleft licenses -- in fact, every license except BSD and MIT -- would
> violate OSD#6 because it restricts proprietary software companies.
>

The OSD requirements do not prohibit the main purposes of the Open Source
and the OSD, which certainly include sharing source. We have discussed that
one here many times over the past two decades.


> While it is not the OSI's job to challenge Amazon's business model, it
> is not our job to protect it either.
>

We're indifferent to it. Which is *why* we are also indifferent to data
rights. It's out of scope for the organization. It is not our job to
protect your data rights, or to protect their abusers.


> So if the CAL only applied to *modified* versions of the original
> software, you would have no objections under these terms?


You seem to be saying that removing one objection is the same as removing *all
*objections.

    Thanks

    Bruce
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