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Guid_NewGuidyesterday at 4:26 PM2 repliesview on HN

I think people who prefer GPL and I hope for the same outcomes but we have a different (irreconcilable?) philosophical approach to getting there.

In my view code (and all knowledge) wants to be free and a commons of knowledge enriches the whole world. I am opposed to most forms of copyright, patents and intellectual 'property'. Aside: My compromise position to this maximalist view is that I'd accept a 5 year copyright term with an exponentially increasing renewal fee.

For me MIT/BSD/Apache is a way to provide code with minimal encumbrances under the current dominant legal system. GPL is an attempt to free knowledge that relies on the legal system and the threat of men with guns coming to force you to comply. However noble the intentions at the end of the day it is reliant on state force and reduces freedom, it is very good at providing fees for lawyers.

Corporations can't embrace-extend-extinguish open source. This is because the source is always available. Sure they can use that knowledge to build a new, more popular, thing, but the existing source never goes away. It represents an un-enclosable commons.


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umanwizardyesterday at 5:17 PM

> code (and all knowledge) wants to be free

What does this sentence actually mean? Every time I've heard of it it is just stated as an obvious fact with no explanation, or it seems to just mean "I want knowledge to be free".

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bji9jhffyesterday at 4:51 PM

> Corporations can't embrace-extend-extinguish open source. This is because the source is always available. Sure they can use that knowledge to build a new, more popular, thing, but the existing source never goes away. It represents an un-enclosable commons.

Some counter-examples:

* git is now mostly github

* khtml is now mostly chrome

* linux is now more android and chromeos than linux. Anyhow, the plain kernel is deeply corporate.

You can still fork those project. But it would be mostly meaningless to do so.

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