> he didn't actually explain, why he chose AGPLv3.
He did.
> "Because I think it is the right license for this project".
That's the introduction sentence of that section. He then goes into more detail. Did you skip the last 3 paragraphs?
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Mailpile is a project about freedom. It is not a popularity contest or a startup, it's not "industry infrastructure", nor does it aim to be. Mailpile is a political project which aims to improve the privacy and digital independence of individuals everywhere.
The Apache License is a wonderful thing, an open, generous, pragmatic, apolitical license. The AGPLv3 on the other hand, is a political and ethical line in the sand.
Yes, this is exactly right. If you want to write free software just use a nice license like MIT, BSD, Apache, Eclipse etc. Why would you want to force your views on people?
The whole point of Mailpile is to take your data off the cloud and control it yourself. It is explicitly and deliberately anti-cloud. If the license makes it nearly impossible for others to use Mailpile as part of a cloud-based platform, the developers probably consider it a feature, not a bug.
If there's any program for which AGPL is an appropriate license, Mailpile is it.
> - you proved to me that AGPL is not usable in any professional system that runs in the cloud
That interpretation is wrong. The AGPL just prevents you from pursuing a business model that is based on leeching off the mailpile project without contributing back.
It's the decade old misunderstanding. The GPL is about user freedom. You talk about developer freedom. Mailpile tries to optimize for user freedom. The whole project is about preventing business models like the one you proposed. Choosing the AGPL is completely coherent with the stated project goals.
I am not leaching on anything. You can twist words as much as you want but freedom is not defined by you or RMS or for that matter anybody else. It is pretty clearly defined in the dictionary and AGPL contradicts the foundation of freedom. If you dont want people use your software freely dont call it free software. Call it "limited use to a subset of non-profit oriented users who contribute everything back in return of using my software". That would greatly simplify the life for everybody and we could save the planet instead of haveing this thread about what is the definition of freedom and who does it apply to.
> You can twist words as much as you want but freedom is not defined by you or RMS or for that matter anybody else. It is pretty clearly defined in the dictionary and AGPL contradicts the foundation of freedom.
It's never as simple as this. That dictionary entry you refer to is meant for people who don't know the word and want to learn its meaning. Have a look at the theoretical spectrum here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_freedom#Views
(Mostly) independent of political leaning, it's more or less consensual that freedom is a social category. The concept only makes sense if we talk about human societies in one form or the other. That, by definition, involves other people, and other people's freedom. You always have a boundary where your desire to exercise your freedom conflicts with the desire of another person. We can't escape that. Theories of freedom all try to find an optimal way to lay out these boundaries while maximising freedom. But there is no objectivly archievable optimum, as every theory has to use certain axioms for defining the _details_ of that nebulous term.
You can lump together most schools into two categories: the institutionalist one and the consequentialist one. The US-American interpretation of freedom is strictly institutionalist. The Western European is mostly consquentialist. That's why both sides think the other part is less free :)
An example for instutionalist thinking: Both men and women are by law allowed to pursue every job they want. Therefore, both are equally free.
An example for consquentialist thinking: Observably, women choose jobs that earn them less money. In a capitalist society, that makes them less free. Therefore, we as a society have to intervene so they can get equally free.
The difference between AGPL and Apache etc. is exactly the same. Apache style licenses see freedom as theoritcal freedom of choice. That's the institutionalist way. AGPL goes the consquentialist way. It limits certain freedoms with the goal of maximising certain other freedoms. It defines the boundary between individual interests in a different way to enable higher observable freedom for those parties it deems more in need of protection: users, not entrepreneurs.
No. The foundation of freedom as defined in Western and European law comes mostly from the roman empire and is what later defined the political science of liberty.
The foundation of freedom rest in the individual ability to create agency. Freedom is not the "liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws", but "consists of being under no other lawmaking power except that established by consent".
It was a licensed chosen by a vote. As freedom goes, it more or less defines the ideal situation.
He did.
> "Because I think it is the right license for this project".
That's the introduction sentence of that section. He then goes into more detail. Did you skip the last 3 paragraphs?
---------------
Mailpile is a project about freedom. It is not a popularity contest or a startup, it's not "industry infrastructure", nor does it aim to be. Mailpile is a political project which aims to improve the privacy and digital independence of individuals everywhere.
The Apache License is a wonderful thing, an open, generous, pragmatic, apolitical license. The AGPLv3 on the other hand, is a political and ethical line in the sand.
And so is Mailpile.
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