I have been observing the state of Nim ecosystem's license freedom for quite some time. I once thought that the relative lack of legal encumberedness could be a unique selling point for Nim. It's been very disappointing to watch Nimble copyfree package percentage fall from 89.2% in Aug 2016, 88.1% in Sep 2017, to 85.7% today. Nim's biggest competitor, Dlang, has been moving in the favorable direction instead...
Things I recommend:
Checking that the Nimble license metadata matches the license claims in the code.
Very true.
I think most people will disagree with me on where this line should be drawn..
Very true :o)
.., but it needs to be drawn somewhere...
Yes, individually by every user of a library. If I don't like the license, I don't use the thing.
Politely nagging module authors to encourage using the same legal terms as Nim itself: the good 'ol MIT license, or equivalent.
Don't nag, give people reasons: why pick MIT over Apache 2? MIT doesn't have patent protection and patent trolls are a real-world problem.
why pick MIT over Apache 2? MIT doesn't have patent protection and patent trolls are a real-world problem.
Apache also has additional restrictions, which is why it's rejected by the Copyfree Initiative and OpenBSD. There are other ways to grant patent protection: like Golang's patent grant, Rust giving you the choice of (MIT || Apache), or COIL.
(Although there's confusion in Rustland with some crates being "Apache && MIT", and instead of or, which is bad.)
Limiting the official Nimble module list to just the code with acceptable licenses.
Please. You haven't contributed a single library to Nim's ecosystem, I made 18 (including wrappers), all under Apache2. But for some reason, you keep talking as if this was a threat to the purity of Nim's ecosystem.
Yes, two people chose to use a weird license, which is of dubious legal standing and probably not enforceable. Big deal
Please. You haven't contributed a single library to Nim's ecosystem,
Yes, I'm a very easy target for ad hominem attacks. My interest in Nim hasn't moved beyond theoretical in 7 years. Guilty as charged. But does that invalidate all of my points?
Maybe tomorrow you'll change your license to "No Libmans Allowed". 😛
I made 18 (including wrappers), all under Apache2.
Good, kudos, thank you. But if it was under "Apache2 || MIT" it would have been better for some minority of people.
But for some reason, you keep talking as if this was a threat to the purity of Nim's ecosystem.
Again, Apache isn't a top concern. This discussion thread is primarily about the aforementioned "no capitalists" / "no Trump supporters" licenses. (And if they were opposite in their political orientation I would still be concerned.) It's a "threat" to Nim having a competitive advantage in the attributes of freedom I've been talking about.
Yes, two people chose to use a weird license, which is of dubious legal standing and probably not enforceable. Big deal
That means some people cannot use those libraries, because that "probably" is a liability. Do you take every pill you find on the ground because it's "probably" not harmful?
This emergence of ever-more-restrictive licenses (which I've predicted) is still worth discussing. That's what this thread is for.
Maybe tomorrow you'll change your license to "No Libmans Allowed". 😛
would that change anything in practice?
