No GPL For Me, ThanksNo GPL For Me, Thanks

A programmer friend of mine has done something that looks paradoxical at first: he's a free-software user, creator and advocate, but he doesn't use the GPL anymore. Is he out on a limb, or just wising up?

The whole thing came out during the course of a conversation about -- what else? -- freedom. Just because people want the freedom to act -- to use their computers as they see fit, in this case -- doesn't mean they want all freedoms to act. As my friend put it, "I really don't care about my freedom to jump out a window. I'm just fine if there are shatterproof windows preventing me from doing that." Sure, I said, unless a) the building is on fire, b) the fire exits are blocked and c) there's no other way out of the room, then it's an issue. But until that incredibly unlikely congeries of events happens, it's not.

My friend went on: What Stallman calls software freedom is really freedom to hack. That's great; I'm all for the freedom to hack -- but to assume everyone else wants that freedom, especially when it often comes at the cost of freedom of productivity, that's a mistake. The problem is that Stallman seems to want the freedom to hack to trump all other freedoms, including the freedom of productivity. The fact that most people do not care about the freedom to hack does not mean they don't deserve it; it just means it's not something they should need to care about unless the moment arises. For most of us, that moment never does, and that's a blessing.

That led into his reason why he doesn't use the GPL any more. In his eyes, the GPL comes with implicit philosophical baggage -- in this case, putting freedom to hack above other software freedoms. He opted for the BSD license or a variant thereof, which is unambiguous and carries little baggage.

None of this, I suspect, will stop all those corporations currently using the GPL as their license of choice. The GPL has the advantage of being widely studied and its implications well-known amongst those who are open source mavens. But is it the only way to create open source that matters?

information has published an in-depth report on private cloud computing. Download the report here (registration required).

Follow me and the rest of information on Twitter.