Licensing AGAIN [was: Sharing FontLab Plugin]

[Robert Mann]

Hi Kay! i'm "stunned" when I read this sentence :


> LiveCode the language, just like the AppleScript language, is 
> proprietary subject to license terms and conditions.

It would be helpful if you could precise your source, thanks
Is that an extract from the LC license????? 

It would also be helpful if you could precise a little the consequences of
that sentence : what does it mean?
Does it mean that all Script Language scripts are in fact "owned" by LC?? So
is that a total negation of the copyright law?

*I double what I wrote a little above : to my knowledge in law, a language
is not copyrightable BY ESSENCE, *and I really do hope that that is not the
path that LC would try and make, because I personally totally disagree, on
the ground (ethically) and technically as the law stands.

The main reason for that strong line in copyrights is the notion of
generative capacity :
“It is the infinitely generative capacity of a language, the ability to
communicate new thoughts and ideas, that makes a set of sounds and
grammatical rules into a language,”
see:: the Klingon language case
<http://consumerist.com/2016/04/14/is-the-klingon-language-protected-by-copyright-paramount-thinks-so>  
and copyright on a language would hijack all created work.

*A language is regarded, and rightly to my view, as a tool for the mind to
process information.* And it has long been accepted for the good balance of
our societies, that tools maker cannot extend their ownership to goods
created by one's tools. And we're talking humanism here and I can feel I'm
not the only one around to be rather sensitive to these issues at some
point.

We all agree to pay for tools : hence the licensing policy of the indie and
commercial versions. The script language needs money for tools to make it
easier to build useful things.

But LC is not only a tool, it's a framework, to promote the use of the
script language : hence the move to the community edition on a parallel
basis to* spread the use of the script language.* The Script Language (and i
don't write the livecode language!) needs ENERGY from a group of users, just
like a language needs people to talk it.

-- The traditional balance and boundary between these 2 is about visibility
: close source or "open" sources, as "readable" by all. That was dead simple
and I thought quite operational from my user viewpoint.

-- Enforcing some kind of "open source" license along the community version
seemed a good move.

*BUT Letting the GPL hijack that simple world and turn it into a LEGAL
NIGHTMARE* looks to me a very bad move, as it just kills the ENERGY source
in people's mind : 

People will poor energy into it if they feel the're free to think freely and
do "ENOUGH THINGS" things freely with it. *And that discussion will reappear
every time some LC community user will ask himself the question : ok i've
invested some time, I like that, what can I do with that?*

So far LC mantra is (hope I get it right though… it's not so clear!)
-- you're free at your home
-- if you communicate outside your home, then super hyper hard GPL to all
content including text and media of a stack file that goes out of your home
-- and could even extend to : "and by the way the language you think as
common good, is in fact ours!"

The mere understanding of the consequences of GPL onto stack content will
already burn a lot of NRJ, and finally the awareness of consequences on
media will considerably restrict that practicability, that "ENOUGH THINGS"-
that matters.

*In particular, to my humble view, use of the community in the education
environment will stumble on that media GPL issue :* FSF strategy is
defendable in the precise domain of reusable code to avoid recoding the
wheel housands of time, but may not be applicable to all educative material
and medias. We're into different worlds. And that would be a big pain since
it is to my view again the main target of the community version, and *the
Script language community needs to spread in education, or die out*.

/[here in France NO geography teachers will EVER buy a livecode license to
output stacks for the kids at their spare time, let that be clear - i've
been a publisher of teaching media in France -- they MIGHT take that time on
a free Community Version if it is dead simple, and if we put some efforts
into that to reach over to them -- by the way, the french LC community just
closed, most active members where now retired teachers who steeped in at the
time they could freely distribute stacks to their classes, long ago!]/

So in practice, I do praise for *a much softer GPL interpretation* and a
good sound clarification and communication on the subject.

*That could actually boost Livecode along, or kill it!*









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