Ohh so developer cant control who can use protocol?
Like a GPL for a protocol? You can’t really license a protocol. I think that would be patents.
And software patents are a bad idea.
So, in my opinion, no.
itsaj26744@programming.dev 1 year ago
Like a GPL for a protocol? You can’t really license a protocol. I think that would be patents.
And software patents are a bad idea.
So, in my opinion, no.
Ohh so developer cant control who can use protocol?
jeremyparker@programming.dev 1 year ago
This is digging into pretty legal territory and copyright law is (arguably unnecessarily) complex – but licenses are things that you use to let people use your patents. I think that’s what they were initially and mainly; but then software and the copyleft movements kind of detached the concepts of licenses and patents.
The fediverse protocols could definitely be patented and licensed, but, like you said (or implied, really), that’s… sketchy af. Like, anyone we could trust to patent it would probably refuse to do it – Linux Torvalds would probably curse me out for even suggesting it, and the lecture rms gave me would probably never end.