I know Nadia by her works, never actually met her. Although I appreciate a lot the work she puts into examining open-source, I have a couple of issues with her that I think require that before we invite her here, we advance the project a bit more.
First point is that she’s not in Europe. Second point is that she’s working for Github, and shares their alignment regarding open-source and free software. For example, in her otherwise excellent Lemonade Stand Guide you can find (emphasis mine):
Sometimes, projects offer an identical codebase with two different licenses: one that is commercially-friendly, and one that is less so (ex. GPL). The latter is free for anyone to use, but companies pay for the commercial license in order to have legal peace of mind.
As with Github’s guide to licensing, this is a completely misleading statement about the GPL that pretends it’s an anti-commercial license with no legal value. It contributes to disinform people about what the GPL is really about, and what ‘commercial-friendly’ or ‘permissive’ licenses really mean : the right to capture other people’s work without giving back to the community.
I think that when we have the consortium ready, we can think about inviting extra-EU people, and I’m sure Nadia’s perspective and contribution can become useful. But before that stage, I think she would waste her time and we would lose focus.
What do you think about sharing this discussion with the rest of the group?
