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Do we need to rethink what free software is?

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Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#41

Post by GlitchMr »

kube-system wrote: post #16
breck wrote: post #4

The 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.

Yes, however if copyright did not exist, GPL would be unnecessary, all software would be free software. Sure, the source code sometimes wouldn't be available, but there would be nothing legally preventing decompilation.

Sure, GPL software couldn't enforce releasing the source code, but for that matter, this is how it already works in European Union (as in EU, linking for purposes of interoperability is explicitly allowed).

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#42

Post by atoav »

pessimizer wrote: post #6
Ace17 wrote: post #2

Feel free to create the "moral/ethical software" movement, but please don't touch the current definition of free software. People already have a hard time understanding what free software exactly is/requires/provides. Changing the definition at this point would only create confusion, especially if the new one is even more ethically grounded.

Agree. I think the strength of free software is that it's making a single ethical point (which is hard enough to get across.) I support anybody wanting to make "ethical" software, but it's 1) not the same thing as free software and 2) very difficult to make an ethical tool; people find it hard enough to explain their personal ethical distinctions, I definitely don't want to listen to a some hammer's idiosyncratic bel…

Say you develope a targeting algorithm to be used by a robotic arm with a water pistol — wouldn’t it then be totally legitimate to say: you are allowed to use this freely, as long as you don’t use it with a real gun?

The non commercial clause in the creative commons is also sth like this: free for non-commercial usage, all others have to ask.

I don’t see why authors shouldn’t be allowed to excert at least a little bit of control what their creations are used for, if they like to do so.

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#43

Post by half-kh-hacker »

booleandilemma wrote: post #22

The 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.

Crockford actually puts this requirement in most of the software that he writes. A few years ago he told a story where he had to relicense JSLint for IBM, stating "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#44

Post by faissaloo »

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #19

Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…

I don't quite agree, the GPL is after all a licence founded on a set of ethics.

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#45

Post by k__ »

deogeo wrote: post #39

Any sort of 'ethical' clause will open you to endless legal battles, and make such software effectively impossible to use for anyone but large corporations able to afford those battles, or to buy themselves custom licenses. I.e. it will even further concentrate power, and accomplish the exact opposite of what free software set out to do. Not to mention the ethical nature of the software could be interpreted by potent…

Never understood why buying special licenses is an issue.

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#46

Post by mantas »

atoav wrote: post #42
pessimizer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I think the strength of free software is that it's making a single ethical point (which is hard enough to get across.) I support anybody wanting to make "ethical" software, but it's 1) not the same thing as free software and 2) very difficult to make an ethical tool; people find it hard enough to explain their personal ethical distinctions, I definitely don't want to listen to a some hammer's idiosyncratic bel…

Say you develope a targeting algorithm to be used by a robotic arm with a water pistol — wouldn’t it then be totally legitimate to say: you are allowed to use this freely, as long as you don’t use it with a real gun? The non commercial clause in the creative commons is also sth like this: free for non-commercial usage, all others have to ask. I don’t see why authors shouldn’t be allowed to excert at least a little bi…

Let's say you write such targeting software and I make hardware using it. I add a sticker saying "don't put a real gun into it" on it. Are we good? Or is it like "known to cause cancer in California" stuff?

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#47

Post by ryukafalz »

GlitchMr wrote: post #41
kube-system wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful of what you ask for. IP laws are the foundation of what makes the GPL enforceable.

Yes, however if copyright did not exist, GPL would be unnecessary, all software would be free software. Sure, the source code sometimes wouldn't be available, but there would be nothing legally preventing decompilation. Sure, GPL software couldn't enforce releasing the source code, but for that matter, this is how it already works in European Union (as in EU, linking for purposes of interoperability is explicitly all…

>Sure, the source code sometimes wouldn't be available, but there would be nothing legally preventing decompilation.

This is true but generally unhelpful. The result of decompilation often isn't nearly as readable as the original source, and at the very least you've lost all documentation. A world without copyright would look much closer to one with entirely permissively licensed software than one with entirely copyleft software.

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#48

Post by rubbingalcohol »

faissaloo wrote: post #44
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #19

Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…

I don't quite agree, the GPL is after all a licence founded on a set of ethics.

The GPL is based around a well-defined set of ethics that centers around giving the user complete freedom to use and modify the software. This is necessary for software to be considered free.

It's certainly possible to restrict usage based around a moral code. Look at the JSON License: https://www.json.org/license.html

> The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

So, yes, it would be possible to restrict software licensing based on a loosely-defined moral code that would constantly need updates to keep pace with new social injustices, but this would not be free software.

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#49

Post by johnisgood »

atoav wrote: post #33
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #19

Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…

I am not sure about that. Of course enforcing your usage ideas will be next to impossible, but mentioning sth. can serve other purposes too (e.g. making a set of shared values visible to other developers). So if you for example say that everybody except military, secret services and weapons manufacturers are allowed to use your software, that might not stop them from using it, but it makes other devs consider similar…

> but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons).

You can already attempt to convince people to not do that though, on a massive scale, even. You do not need licenses for that. Licenses are a legal matter. Working for the military or secret services is completely legal, but many would say that it is unethical in some or all cases. Why would you need licenses to achieve the goals you mentioned, or how are licenses of any use to achieve these goals, or what is it about licenses that inherently make them more effective in doing that?

Re: Do we need to rethink what free software is?

#50

Post by lacker »

Free software means that anybody can use it. Even people you don’t like, whether that is Amazon or the US military. You can add whatever restrictions you want to your own software, but it doesn’t seem “free” if it restricts what I can do with it.
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