Do we need to rethink what free software is? • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by rubbingalcohol » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #66

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. A license requiring a user to adhere to the software developers' moral code is the opposite of a free software license. In your example regarding "weapons manufacturers;" in the United States the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution and interpreted by the courts as an inalien…

> Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. Yes, of course. The question is whether we want to change that. Of course our current understanding of Free Software makes such a license outside its bounds. Of course the Four Freedoms and the OSD both prevent restrictions on use. But do the Four Freedoms and the OSD accurately capture what we re…

If "free software" is the wrong term for the license then the discussions might not be relevant at all to the Free Software Foundation or the free software community.

I highlighted right above how one of the desired use cases of this proposed "ethical" licensing model is to restrict a fundamental human right of the users of the software.

In the best case, what we are talking about is not free software. In the worst case, there may be actors involved in these discussions hoping to use outrage mobs to destabilize the free software movement, in particular application code still licensed under GPLv2.

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

#72

Post by GlitchMr » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #63

GlitchMr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unfortunately, in a world without GPL, you might not have easy access to that binary. It could be installed on a piece of multi-million dollar enterprise hardware that you'd have to purchase to get one. That's probably exactly what companies like IBM would would do, if they weren't required to push their changes by GPL.

GPL doesn't prevent that unfortunately.

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

#73

Post by jcims » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

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…

Just a side note, IMHO 'intellectual property' and the associated concept that ideas can be owned is gross enough that you don't need to take it any further.

Again my opinion, but calling it 'slavery' moves into the realm of histrionics and to me undermines your overall position. The fact that you can thread a few needles to make the leap doesn't really justify where you land, especially while there are people suffering actual physical slavery in the world today.

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

#74

Post by kube-system » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #67

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.

GPL and copyleft are a clever hack to weaponize Intellectual Slavery laws against themselves, but a much simpler and better solution is just to work through Congress to repeal Intellectual Slavery laws of copyright and patents.

If copyright didn't exist, nobody could be required to share their changes to another person's work under schemes like GPL. Corporations would no longer be legally compelled to contribute to free software projects. Projects like Linux would likely be abandoned as large institutional users fork the projects and leave the original project to rot.

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

#75

Post by johnisgood » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

xisukar wrote: post #55

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 couldn't have written it better myself. On a related note, the person behind the Hippocratic License (HL) which they define as "a modified MIT license that specifically prohibits the use of open source software to harm others" was recently asked by OSI [1] to modify the language in the original document since it might've led people to wrongly believe that the aforementioned license was Open Source Software and that…

"harm others"... that is extremely subjective. Everyone can claim they have been harmed, say, psychologically or whatever. This is not going to end well. Oh well, I am not surprised.

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

#76

Post by kazinator » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #74

breck wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL and copyleft are a clever hack to weaponize Intellectual Slavery laws against themselves, but a much simpler and better solution is just to work through Congress to repeal Intellectual Slavery laws of copyright and patents.

If copyright didn't exist, nobody could be required to share their changes to another person's work under schemes like GPL. Corporations would no longer be legally compelled to contribute to free software projects. Projects like Linux would likely be abandoned as large institutional users fork the projects and leave the original project to rot.

If copyright didn't exist, they could only use physical tamper-resistance techniques to protect their work from reverse engineering and copying.

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

#77

Post by craigsmansion » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

Absent is any mention of the Affero GPL.

And that's the problem. Who is trustworthy?

> "The priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to ensure that it can legitimately claim to represent the community"

Who is this appeal to, and what is it for? Is it genuine or an attempt, in the current upheaval, to have the board restructured to make it less effective?

> "and play the leadership role it's been failing to in recent years"

Failed in what? In "Representing the community"? What community should be represented here? Is the timing accidental? What is being sold to whom, or who to what?

Meanwhile rms is looking for new accommodations[1]:

"There should not be ... a digital listening device such as Echo, Siri or "Hello Google", or a card lock that records who opens the door. I will ask about cameras."

If nothing else, rms is trustworthy when it comes to software freedom. I'm not so sure about any new pretenders.

[1]https://stallman.org/seeking-housing.html

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

#78

Post by kube-system » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

GlitchMr wrote: post #72

kube-system wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, in a world without GPL, you might not have easy access to that binary. It could be installed on a piece of multi-million dollar enterprise hardware that you'd have to purchase to get one. That's probably exactly what companies like IBM would would do, if they weren't required to push their changes by GPL.

GPL doesn't prevent that unfortunately.

Yes, it explicitly does. Even in version 1 this was addressed. See section 3a and 3b:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.html

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

#79

Post by breck » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #73

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…

Just a side note, IMHO 'intellectual property' and the associated concept that ideas can be owned is gross enough that you don't need to take it any further. Again my opinion, but calling it 'slavery' moves into the realm of histrionics and to me undermines your overall position. The fact that you can thread a few needles to make the leap doesn't really justify where you land, especially while there are people suffer…

I think the term "intellectual property" is like when someone pisses on you and calls it "rain".

It makes no sense. The idea if I was on an island and can't share freely share some ideas of yours that you hold the "copyright" has zero correlation with any notion of property, and is much better described as slavery -- a form of control over my behavior.

> especially while there are people suffering actual physical slavery in the world today.

People in America in the red states are getting royally f*cked by Intellectual Slavery laws, while IS royalties are pouring into the blue states. I think there's a very real harm in not calling a spade a spade. Look at China. If they had been playing by the Intellectual Slavery regime of the West for the past 2 decades, they would not have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Instead they'd be sending what little they had to Bill Gates' pocket.

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

#80

Post by notus » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

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.

What do you consider free software? Because I don't consider anything licensed under GPL as free, but I would consider software licensed under MIT or BSD as free.