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Lerna relicences to protest ICE

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Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#61

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

leibwiht wrote: post #58
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #30

Slightly off-topic, but: anyone know where I can find a solid debate / discussion on the political issues raised by illegal immigration in the U.S.? My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.

There's not really a whole lot to debate. You can bring up statistics and data, but the heart of the issue is not ignorance, but identity. People who are anti-illegal immigration generally only use it as a more polite and socially acceptable proxy for what they really want, which is to reduce or end immigration altogether (except perhaps from places that they share a common identity with). These people don't want imm…

> People who are anti-illegal immigration generally only use it as a more polite and socially acceptable proxy for what they really want, which is to reduce or end immigration altogether (except perhaps from places that they share a common identity with).

Could you explain a little about how you made that inference? Nothing in my daily experience leads me to reach the same conclusion.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#62

Post by dragontamer »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #30

Slightly off-topic, but: anyone know where I can find a solid debate / discussion on the political issues raised by illegal immigration in the U.S.? My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.

> My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.

Congress and CSpan are good starting points.

Yeah, everyone hates Congress. But its literally their job to raise up points in national debate. They kind of talk past each other, but listening in on the debate tends to be a good "introduction" to any particular topic of politics.

The House has less time per member, leading to rapid-fire but low-information kinds of debates. Senators keep talking on-and-on-and-on... so you can spend 10+ minutes with just one speaker giving their point of view. A back-and-forth on a particular topic can last literally hours in the Senate.

So listen in on House debate issues if you want a quicker summary of points. Listen in on Senators if you want deeper discussions and a bit more back-and-forth between members.

Bonus points: the Senate and the House are where the laws are written. So learning about the political viewpoints of those in power tends to be more useful than the opinions of random pundits on news channels. Its not like anyone on Fox News or "Colbert" will actually change a law, ya know?

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#63

Post by exogen »

voidr wrote: post #54

It would be really funny if at least one of the following would happen: - the companies on the list would band together and fork lerna - one of the projects that lerna depends on would tell them that they are no longer welcome to use their code because they hold the opposite belief - the lerna community to implode because maybe not all the 169 contributors hold the same political position Mixing software with politic…

Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support?

> Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent society where software users can help each other, and to have control over their computers.

Choosing an open source license itself has political implications and moral reasoning behind it, at least historically. People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed. It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#64

Post by voidr »

exogen wrote: post #63
voidr wrote: post #54

It would be really funny if at least one of the following would happen: - the companies on the list would band together and fork lerna - one of the projects that lerna depends on would tell them that they are no longer welcome to use their code because they hold the opposite belief - the lerna community to implode because maybe not all the 169 contributors hold the same political position Mixing software with politic…

Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support? > Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent…

The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse.

There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system.

> It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance.

How is me making my code public to anyone regardless of beliefs a political act? What is political in your mind?

> People complaining about getting politics and morality "into software" honestly just look uninformed.

You would need to prove your claim that "politics was already in software" before you get to call everyone who disagrees with you "uninformed". It's also not nice to attack the people making the arguments instead of attacking their arguments.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#65

Post by yellowapple »

So, if I'm understanding this correctly:

- Lerna is no longer free software (per the FSF's definitions) or open source software (per the OSI's definitions), so calling it "open source" is inaccurate

- Lerna is effectively illegal to host on GitHub, since its license terms prevent GitHub's parent company (Microsoft) from being able to legally distribute it in source form

- Lerna probably can't relicense anyway without explicit consent from all contributors, since there was no CLA establishing copyright assignment

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#66

Post by exogen »

voidr wrote: post #64
exogen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support? > Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent…

The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse. There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system. > It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance. How is me making my code public to anyone…

My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are already well established in the software ecosystem. This is not new. Whenever someone posts a link about Emacs do you see people saying "it would be hilarious if someone forked this and banned Stallman from using their software"?

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#67

Post by voidr »

exogen wrote: post #66
voidr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse. There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system. > It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance. How is me making my code public to anyone…

My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are already well established in the software ecosystem. This is not new. Whenever someone posts a link about Emacs do you see people saying "it would be hilarious if someone forked this and banned Stallman from using their software"?

I used the word politics, I was not talking about ideology or morality, I was referring to politics specifically.

> My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are already well established in the software ecosystem.

I don't recall saying that we never had ideologically or morally motivated licenses, best example is JSLint license, which prohibits you from using the software for "evil".

> This is not new.

You are refuting something I have never claimed.

This was my main point: "Mixing software with politics never ends well in a democracy."

If you want to debate it, I would appreciate if you could stick to what I actually wrote without changing its original meaning.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#68

Post by chomp »

eindiran wrote: post #2

I'd be very happy if someone could present a counter argument to this: this is something expressly against the spirit of the MIT license and Lerna should not continue claiming that the software is MIT licensed. https://opensource.org/osd In particular, this seems like a pretty explicit violation of the "no discrimination against field of endeavor" clause. Here is the text of the MIT license: " Permission is hereby gr…

MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit.

EDIT: Thought about this on the way into work. The MIT license is only applied to code contributions once the code is "at rest" after merge. Permission is then granted for anyone "obtaining a copy" of the software. The repo maintainers claim that they are obtaining a copy of the software, but it looks like this isn't a copy, it's the original. I wonder if the contributors really do have legal recourse.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#69

Post by exogen »

voidr wrote: post #67
exogen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are already well established in the software ecosystem. This is not new. Whenever someone posts a link about Emacs do you see people saying "it would be hilarious if someone forked this and banned Stallman from using their software"?

I used the word politics, I was not talking about ideology or morality, I was referring to politics specifically. > My point was that ideologically and morally motivated software licenses are already well established in the software ecosystem. I don't recall saying that we never had ideologically or morally motivated licenses, best example is JSLint license, which prohibits you from using the software for "evil". > T…

Because if you read the post, the author is clearly making this change on moral grounds, that are only incidentally political to folks who choose to reduce it to that (like you did). Specific immoral actions are named, not political ideologies. The change is not to protest “ICE under conservative leadership.”

It’s apparent by now that to many folks, it’s unbelievable that “ICE should not rip toddlers from their families and put them in camps” is something that could be dismissed as just a political opinion valid as any other (and could you please not bring it up by the way because it’s rude to talk about politics).

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#70

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

jordigh wrote: post #53
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a MIT issue, it's a copyright issue. They're distributing the original contributions under the new license without honouring the terms of the original license. The software isn't now MIT+additional terms, it's MIT and MIT+additional terms. Meaning they need to continue to honour the MIT license for all exisiting contributions, just the same way as we need to when we use MIT licensed software. Namely, printin…

They're honouring the terms of the original license. The terms of the original license says they're allowed to redistribute however they wish ("including without limitation the rights to [...] sublicense"). They are redistributing with additional restrictions and sublicensing. It's just as valid as grabbing MIT-licensed software making some changes, and licensing those changes under the GPL. Now you can distribute a…

I'm not sure I can be any more explicit than my previous comment, but I'll try.

You can't just grab a permissive license, like MIT, ignore it, and go, "Hey, this is GPL now."

That's entirely incorrect. You cannot ever ignore the terms of a license, just because you want to use another license. You must under all circumstances, honour the terms of the license for which you were granted the right to reproduce someone-else's work.

MIT is compatible with GPL. In the sense that it's possible to honour both the terms of the MIT and the GPL simultaneously. You must however, still honour the MIT license in its entirety i.e. Display the MIT license notice in its entirety; it's right there in the license text.

Any new project isn't GPL licensed, it's GPL and MIT licensed. People need to understand this. If I grab someone's code off Github that's supposedly GPL, but it includes MIT code; I can't just chose to honour the GPL and ignore the MIT. That's copyright infringement, plain and simple.

> But anyway, they did get consent from all contributors: there's only three of them: "I have spoken to Sebastian and Daniel about this and we all want Lerna to do the same."

Github lists 169 contributors, not three. We're talking about contributors, not maintainers i.e. We're interested in the authors of the copyrighted works, not some open source nomenclature that has no legal bearing.

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