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datagrok datagrok@web - 9 years ago 2015-05-09 01:17:37

Introduction and planned contributions
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**datagrok** is Michael F. Lamb. I'm a fan of copyleft and the Free Software Foundation. My personal homepage is [datagrok.org][datagrok.org].
 

	
 
Items I would like to see in this wiki or The Guide (and intend to help contribute, if deemed useful):
 

	
 
- **AGPL Is Business-Friendly.** An unfortunately popular misconception in many "open source"-tolerant businesses that "permissive is better and viral is dangerous." I intend to demonstrate using specific examples that contrary to popular belief, in *many* situations, copyleft licenses like AGPL and GPL are *better* for business than permissive or proprietary licenses, even when one ignores its ethical advantages.
 
- **Free Software Licenses, By Example.** A collection of specific hypothetical situations, and which license is best to achieve one's goals in those situations.
 
- **The differences between the AGPLv3 and the GPLv3.** The AGPLv3 and the GPLv3 are both fairly dense legal documents. But the AGPLv3 is almost entirely a verbatim copy of the GPLv3, so it is easy to understand the AGPLv3 as the GPLv3, plus a small patch. Provide a visual `diff` that highlights the areas where they differ, and explain why.
 
- **Permissive is the New Proprietary.** The philosophy section on gnu.org is quite charitable toward permissive licenses, including many permissive licenses under the definition of Free Software. However, with the advent of software as a service, or services as a software substitute, and the rise of the Open Source movement, permissive licenses allow startups to build on Free Software without contributing back. It's no surprise that a large amount of vitriolic attacks against copyleft may be encountered on startup-focused discussion boards. Expand the situation and respond to the most frequently encountered FUD.
 
- **Copyleft is better than Permissive for Social Justice.** Ashe Dryden describes in [The Ethics of Unpaid Labor and the OSS Community][dryden-ethics] (2013) how employers measuring prospective employees by their participation in open source can be an unfair to many, especially marginalized people in tech. While it does not completely solve the problems, a copyleft license would prevent at least some of the abuses she mentions, that a permissive license (and the culture of businesses not sharing-alike) allows.
 

	
 
[datagrok.org]: http://datagrok.org
 
[dryden-ethics]: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community
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