The issue title literally says the most notable thing about the project is the license. That reads to me like a clear dismissal of any technical merits; if the most important thing about your project is its license, it's not a very interesting project.
I see your point. I also think the license is the most important thing, and probably even more for someone working on a GNU project at the FSF, but the project is still very interesting in many ways.
The stance is probably not surprising, given the point of FSF. Whether you agree with them or not, the FSF has always been very clear that the most important thing about software is its license. From their point of view, a free program is always superior than a non-free one, regardless of the technical merits.
I'm just using FSF terminology when describing a FSF point of view. I myself don't agree with the FSF stance on that issue, but the point still stands - the FSF is an advocacy organization (not a tech organization) that is at its very core about promoting any free (per their definition) software as superior.
I release all my code under MIT license. Do I still have the right to enslave other people? If yes, could you please describe the details, I'd be rather interested to learn how I can force whoever uses my code to use MIT license as well? Thank you.
The point is that the people who use your software have that awkward right, which you have carefully granted them (as that is the only right removed by the GPL). This is frankly sufficiently obvious that I can only imagine you are arguing in bad faith :/. Like, I definitely have seen good-faith arguments against the GPL, but this is not one of them.
So I can't force other people myself, but I still am a (potential) accomplice in a completely different kind of "forcing other people" stuff because I didn't explicitly prohibited others from doing it. I... understand this argument, thank you.
P.S. "Carefully granted"? The words "to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to [rather long list of verbs]" is anything but "carefully granted", it's a blanket permission.
By taking away one freedom (the right to relicense software under other licenses or exploit the software, analogical to slavery), you grant more people more freedom (the freedom to modify and use *their* software as they please, analogical to abolishing slavery).
And yet including the additional restriction "this software may not be used to enslave people" makes the software no longer "free". It's odd how often slavery is mentioned in examples about how free copyleft software is, while the first of the so called four freedoms insists that using software to literally enslave people is a freedom that must be protected.
Maybe this should be read as "I consider the license a no-go, so any technical merits the project has are not relevant (for me)"? If you already dismiss the project because of its license, you probably wouldn't let technical merits redeem that.
since FSF is about software licence ethics they will probably find technical merrits irrelevant if the project uses a licence that is less appealing to their standards than the already existing solution. i dont see why that should raise your eyebrows
I raise my eyebrows at them deciding to voice these concerns on a project's issue tracker. Regardless of how strong their political stance is, it is ultimately none of their business what a given project they are not affiliated with chooses as its license.
