Re: [ox-en] GPL Restrictive And Primacy of Contract
- From: Adam Moran <adam diamat.org.uk>
- Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 07:18:30 +0000
Hi Martin, Hi List
Martin Hardie wrote:
what I am trying to get a handle on is the rhetoric of the different sides of
this thing.
I like Seth's line best, viz:
The GPL is not a contract. It requires no consent; this is in fact the key
principle of the GPL, that it is entirely an expression of recognized
exclusive rights accorded to authors under copyright. That's really the
"secret weapon" aspect of it. The other, non-copyleft licenses often ask
for more, and therefore require consent, thus becoming contracts.
I think this 'mime has legs'.
Could this be turned in to a Freedom of Speech issue in the U.S.A. ?
(My thoughts on this issue in general are tangential and concern the
'Primacy of Contract' thread.)
There's an old piece of Law in the u.k. called Deed Pole (Deed of
covenant) which allows a person to make a contract with themselves. (I
think it's only use now is when someone wants to change their name.) If
the GPL is a contract then it is this kind of contract at first
instance. It seems therefore that the GPL is a product of a
Selbstentfaltung.
(The Selbstentfaltung : Community Unfolding process interests me. It
seems to me like a slow crystalisation process, or pearls taken shape
around sand. I hold however that this process was enabled by of our new
Mode of Production.)
I think the GPL is a thing of virtue, a thing of Eudaimonia - Human
Florishing as Aristotle would have it [1] in his description of the / a
Telos of humanity.
--
Adam
[1] http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html
Now such a thing happiness [Eudaimonia - Human Florishing], above all
else, is held to be; for this we choose always for self and never for
the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every
virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from
them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for
the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy.
Happiness [Eudaimonia - Human Florishing], on the other hand, no one
chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than
itself.
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