> The definition of free software includes the assertion that it must be possible to use the software for any purpose.
Rather, the assertion that the license must not assert any restrictions on use.
Do we need to rethink what free software is?
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Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#22The JSON license includes a requirement that "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil"
Thanks, I never knew this and needed a chuckle this morning.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#23This article confuses me. It seems to be calling for FSF to think about addressing the needs of non-free software.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#24The solution here is simple: abandon intellectual slavery laws. They don’t do anyone any good except the 1%. Look at the richest amongst us, a sizable majority are rich because of IS laws. Forcing poor people the world over to pay artificially high prices for intellectual goods, by threat of force, is a form of slavery, poor and simple. Anyone who says they will stop making new ideas if they don’t get artificially in…
Be careful of what you ask for. IP laws are the foundation of what makes the GPL enforceable.
From the perspective of a developer using the BSD license, such as myself, this isn't such a big deal. A violation means "someone removed or replaced the copyright notice in my source code file". I don't want them to stop using or redistributing the program, including in its binary form that has no copyright notices; just restore the notices in any redistributed source.
I'm in favor of retaining only a limited form of IP law, which makes it unlawful to misrepresent the origin of a work. Basically, I would have academic misconduct and related types of misrepresentation continue to be offenses (even outside of an academic examination or publication setting), but not copying.
Other than that, scrap copyright with extreme prejudice.
Only problem is, what happens to the artists. Developers can still make money in a world in which the power of copyright is limited to fighting plagiarism. A lot of programs are in fact free to copy, but operate with limitations in the absence of a purchased license. But you can't record a song so that only limited features of the song are available for a limited time, unless the license is purchased. Such works can be taken outside of DRM easily via the analog hole.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#25Says Matthew Garrett, who works at Google and said that "Eben Moglen is no longer a friend of free software community".
What is ethical software anyway?
How we figure out ethical software from non ethical software?
If I create a software system to help disabled people with rare diseases to get their blood tested remotely and someone use it to trick people into going to the doctor and charge 500 USD every visit, is the software ethical or not?
Is the knife an ethical tool that enable people to cut their food in small more edible chunks, or is it unethical because I can kill people with it?
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#26> the Free Software Foundation should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed
What I suspect will happen is that the FSF will keep their happy-naive view of what "Free Software" is, ignoring the commercial and viability aspects of software financing and their definition will become stale.
And we will see more software that while not being officially OpenSource™ will, for most practical purposes, be open source.
> If free software is going to maintain relevance, it needs to continue to explain how it interacts with contemporary social issues. If any organisation is going to claim to lead the community, it needs to be doing that.
True. Though I don't think it will be open source that will suffer, rather, the organizations that miss the trends.
20 years ago most of the relevant free software was GNU, Apache, heavily Linux centric, etc
Today, not so much.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#27When it comes to ethical principles, perfect is the enemy of the good. No ethical system can be perfectly watertight or universal, but that shouldn't stop us from trying at all.
With software specifically, those authors concerned about the ethical implications of the use of their software can add additional clauses to their license of choice, spelling out ethical constraints, but I fail to see how it can be reasonably enforced. I don't imagine for one moment that powerful corporations or governments are going to stand by and watch their empire crumble if the alternative would be to violate the ethical terms of a crucial piece of software that will give them an edge in their amoral powerplays.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#28> "...but many projects of immense infrastructural importance are simultaneously fundamental to multiple business models and also chronically underfunded."
True. Which then means free isn't entirely free. Those using such software are taking on risk - whether they care to admit it or not.
What's mind boggling is that this includes business entities large enough to mitigate that risk (i.e., contribute people and/or money). I'm being a bit cheeky but perhaps a license names "Use at your own risk" would be the way to go? That would be something upper level decision makers (and legal) would understand. As it is, many of those don't know GPL from MIT, etc.
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#29> As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by allowing their software to be used for any purpose.
Too bad, even if you were to disallow that in your license, governments won't care, those things often are often already illegal - courts will dismiss your cases about violation of copyright by saying it is "national security secret".
Additionally, licenses are based on copyright and cannot put additional restrictions. Consider GPL, it doesn't add restrictions, rather it allows you to do what copyright normally wouldn't allow. Programs are usable for any purpose by default, GPL doesn't change that. You can use EULA to add restrictions, however this requires an user to actually agree to those restrictions (by, say, clicking "I agree").
Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?
#30When it comes to ethical principles, perfect is the enemy of the good. No ethical system can be perfectly watertight or universal, but that shouldn't stop us from trying at all. With software specifically, those authors concerned about the ethical implications of the use of their software can add additional clauses to their license of choice, spelling out ethical constraints, but I fail to see how it can be reasonabl…
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