[License-discuss] Data portability as an obligation under an open source license

[Bruce Perens]

On Fri, Jul 5, 2019 at 1:51 PM Luis Villa <luis at lu.is> wrote:

> There is of course still an area of overlap between administrators and
> users, so you're of course correct to say "system administrators are not
> always SaaS providers". But the union of "user" and "administrator" is
> shrinking over time; the area outside the union is growing.
>

I think you mean intersection. The effect of the CAL would be to further
shrink that intersection. Currently, if you want to serve something for
people, the technical barrier is quite low, and you don't need to be at all
an expert. CAL assumes that the user who does this has the means to
understand significant legal obligations connected to simple use of the
program - potentially requiring use of legal counsel, and to extract
particular data from the system upon request. So, rather than someone who
can figure out how to run a web server, potentially a programmer and a
lawyer are required.

I'm pretty sure FSF hasn't ever represented that restrictions on the use of
the program were a good idea. That being Freedom 0.


> And I don't believe that encumbering user data is in any way a step *forward
>> *for the freedom of that user.
>>
>
> Suffice to say, from extensive discussions with Europeans (and others)
> about GDPR, many, many people in and around the software industry strongly
> disagree with you.
>

No, actually they don't disagree with *me* at all. GDPR is stand-alone law,
not an Open Source license provision. I do not in general object to user
protections like GDPR existing *as law,* just as I do not object to any
number of laws that I *would *object to if they were instead made terms of
an Open Source license.

Some aspects of GDPR may be unfortunate but I don't have to address them
here.

I think it's pretty easy to see what FSF's position would be here. They
support law protecting user rights, as an entirely separate issue from Free
Software licenses, and it's not their job to enact that law in the form of
a use restriction.

    Thanks

    Bruce
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