Re:GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract
by Thorrez on Friday November 01, 2019 @01:59AM
(#21416570)
Yeah I do see there are a lot of similarities.
But I think the main difference lies in that copyleft limits itself purely to the realm of controlling how modified software is distributed. The only thing it limits is how modified software is distributed. The only thing it requires is how modified software is distributed. When a developer writes software to be used by others, it's necessary for the developer to decide how to distributed it, and copyleft provides an answer. Copyleft doesn't venture past the developer's necessary role.
On the other hand, limiting providing stuff to ICE ventures out of the developer's necessary question of how to distribute software and now starts thinking about human suffering, jails, politics, etc. You've gone past the question of how to distribute software, and are now thinking about broader topics.
But I think the main difference lies in that copyleft limits itself purely to the realm of controlling how modified software is distributed. The only thing it limits is how modified software is distributed. The only thing it requires is how modified software is distributed. When a developer writes software to be used by others, it's necessary for the developer to decide how to distributed it, and copyleft provides an answer. Copyleft doesn't venture past the developer's necessary role.
On the other hand, limiting providing stuff to ICE ventures out of the developer's necessary question of how to distribute software and now starts thinking about human suffering, jails, politics, etc. You've gone past the question of how to distribute software, and are now thinking about broader topics.