Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: gauging poison pills

Author:David McCusker
Posted:8/30/2000; 12:31:04 PM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/28/2000
Msg #:20553 (In response to 20532)
Prev/Next:20552 / 20555

Arlen: And I don't like the term "poison pill" used to describe it. It's too perjorative.

Yes, the term "poison pill" is slightly pejorative, but not too very much since it describes an inherently passive defense system (you don't get hurt unless you do XYZ).

All the argument and/or hand wringing revolves around whether any hurt is involved. It's possible for hurt to exist even when no language involved explicitly targets hurt as a goal.

(In fact both good and bad things happen all the time without anyone understanding how they work. And other good and bad things happen without any extant speech describing their dynamics, even if someone does understand.)

In this case, the hurt is subtle and emergent, and related to Kant's categorical imperative. Please let me grossly oversimplify Kant and the golden rule here, because it works for me. It's not really necessary to invoke an authority to get this idea.

What if everyone did this? Call this reciprocity closure (in analogy to transitive closure). Note this question can be very misleading, because it presupposes everyone can do "this" whatever it is, and this is frequently not true at all. (Any individual considering this question can say "I'm not everyone" and blow off the question. I do this myself all the time, and sometimes laugh in the face of the person asking me the question.)

However, obviously every software developer can put licenses on their code, so the question does apply to everyone. Then one has to consider what happens when we build large systems that combine many modules with slightly different licenses, where a significant number have random restrictions causing the licenses to lapse when combined with others.

I'm going to say this right out -- homogeneity is evil. A belief in any one true way necessitates the demonizing of any strays from the way. That's about the only way a one-true-way meme can carry much force. Folks pretend no force is involved by supposing the true way is a natural and unavoidable goal that folks would converge upon if they would only stop struggling to cause chaos. That's not true. The natural state is chaos, and it requires force or self reinforcing pattens to create order.

Therefore, anyone who plans to cope with our many license problem with a uniform license theory is advocating an evil course which diminishes the freedom of others to choose their own licenses according to their own lights. This is free will again, of course. You can't make folks be nice or moral, they have to choose to be that way under free will.

I'm losing my thread so I'll go back. The GPL has provisions that make the license lapse, and this is the force behind the intended viral meme. This rider occurs in the context of a license that intends to be for the good of other folks because it is freely and openly available. But the key issue is the that license contains the seeds of its own destruction under specified circumstances.

Can you tell me this doesn't fit the definition of poison pill?

(If you don't play my rules exactly, I'm going to take my toys home and cry to my mommy. Boo, hoo, hoo. Okay, that was intended to be incendiary. Why does this taunt invoke any emotion at all? What kind of childhood artifacts do we project into license politics anyway?)

What if everyone did this? Maybe if everyone used exactly the same poison pill license like the GPL, then less havoc would ensue. But what makes the GPL so special? Why does the GPL have the moral right to be the difficult one with a poison pill? If every license did that with minor variations, then it would be hard to combine things into large systems.

Yes, I know what makes the GPL historically special. I don't dispute that. But I think the term poison pill is applicable here. And I want to know why it has the moral right to be special. I don't grant this status to the GPL. But my live-and-let-live view says I have no reason to trash the GPL in particular either.

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