Scapegoating free software’s failures
writing.kemitchell.com
Scapegoating free software’s failures
1–10 of 123 posts
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#2While this article's tone is somewhat angry and personal, it makes some quite interesting points and takes a perspective that I've never heard before.
Before reading the article I was tentatively in favor of more expansive copyleft licenses such as Mongo's SSPL, for various reasons. But I hadn't considered something implied by that position, which this article says directly: The FSF and what one might call "mainstream copyleft" are aggressively defending corporate interests by attacking such licenses. Perhaps they (the FSF et al) don't do it intentionally, but that's nevertheless their effect...
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#3While this article's tone is somewhat angry and personal, it makes some quite interesting points and takes a perspective that I've never heard before. Before reading the article I was tentatively in favor of more expansive copyleft licenses such as Mongo's SSPL, for various reasons. But I hadn't considered something implied by that position, which this article says directly: The FSF and what one might call "mainstrea…
I've thought this for years: the aggressive defense of super liberal OSS licenses with no sort of "SaaS clause" or other limits turns FOSS into free labor for SaaS companies.
SaaS is more closed than closed: you control nothing, not even your data, and can trivially be spied on and monetized in other questionable ways. The fact that some of the pieces of a SaaS site are open source is meaningless and changes nothing.
If all code must be free "as in beer" for all uses then this kind of SaaS (paid or "free" and paid for via surveillance capitalism) is literally the only possible business model. Well that and traditional 100% closed. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are fine with that.
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#4While this article's tone is somewhat angry and personal, it makes some quite interesting points and takes a perspective that I've never heard before. Before reading the article I was tentatively in favor of more expansive copyleft licenses such as Mongo's SSPL, for various reasons. But I hadn't considered something implied by that position, which this article says directly: The FSF and what one might call "mainstrea…
Two point he made that I've often wondered about.
1) why wasn't AGPL used for GPLv3?
2) why should companies be able to keep proprietary version from being distributed?
The second one I can see being possible by having employees agree not to exercise their GPL redistribution rights as a condition of employment. Still it seems like a large group of companies could all agree to that kind of thing to effectively take a GPLed work private.
But yeah why have AGPL as a separate thing?
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#5So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3?
EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#6So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3? EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
It sounds like you want a noncommercial license, which is a perfectly fine license to want, but not one traditionally honored as open. Consider https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0/
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#7So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3? EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
It sounds like you want a noncommercial license, which is a perfectly fine license to want, but not one traditionally honored as open. Consider https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0/
What's the difference between that license and the License Zero Prosperity license?
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#8So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3? EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
You can't. It wouldn't be OSS if I couln't take your library and resell it. You could look at CC-BY-NC-SA, but it's not Open Source and not appropriate for software.
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#9So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3? EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
It would not be free software.
Free software passes on the freedom to the USER of the software, preserving access to the source code, the ability to change it, etc.
Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures
#10So if I want to write an OSS library that can't be used for monetary gain, what license do I release it under? AGPLv3? EDIT: Actually, I misspoke, since monetary gain isn't the problem. I should have said "used against user freedom", but that's much less well-defined. I want a license that is as "open" as possible, for whatever definition of "open".
I'd say as strongly copy left as possible, although that will inevitably bring with it some restrictions for users. Parity ( https://paritylicense.com/ ) is my favourite at the moment (created by the blog posts author).
It's interesting in that it doesn't try to prescribe the license downstream projects use as long as it's free (in contrast to for example GPL) but is, at the same time, very strict in regards to when it applies (basically every time Parity-licensed code 'touches' non-free software), which means there is no Saas loophole for example.