Well put.

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with what OSI & FSF are putting forth nor would I discount all of the importance of the past & the trail they have blazed to get these ideas in the software zeitgeist—but I will say is there should be room in the discussion for supporting these alternative ideologies on what “free” and “the commons” should be. You can choose words like “ethical” and that might be applicable, but as a result, consider your perception of a software now being tagged “nonfree”—I know I get a bad feeling about that personally.

Copyfair & copyfarleft licenses offer an alternative interpretation that I think a lot of folks agree with on priciple—such as megacorp with its massive profits gained by using our software should be contributing back in maintenance, documentation, marketing, or cold cash for financial compensation (e.g. not agree without exception to FSF’s freedoms)—because a work wasn’t created with those entities in mind. Where this gets tho most messy however is taking such stances (obviously) makes one’s project incompatible with the large body of existing work, but also shaming of folks interested in choosing those software licenses or even going CC *-NC on creative works due to compatibility with strict OSI/FSF definitions.

Speaking of the “nonfree” thing, nixpkgs as things labeled only under those terms while these other banners such as “ethical” are missing. Perhaps I should take a look at what it would take to cover those licenses too as you’re almost meant to feel guilty for using “nonfree” software which requires environment variables/config flag & for, at a high level, trying to accomplish a similiar goal of allowing users to share their source with the commons.