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

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

#101

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

9000 wrote: post #81

rmilejczz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 I take issue with this. First of all, this “well-defined” qualifier is ironically poorly defined. What does that mean? It either is or is not derived from some principle or set of principles; it is ultimately an example of ethics being imposed as a restriction. Secondly, you don’t…

For your first question, this is mostly about legal interpretability. The GPL has a long text that describes explicitly what it allows and doesn't. Yes, that is based on an ethical framework, but that ethical framework is all baked into the text of the license. There is no ambiguity. The GP contrasts this with the JSON license which only uses the term 'good' to describe what it allows. This is incredibly ambiguous fr…

A user in an ICE concentration camp also lacks the freedom to tinker with the software. Seems like a pretty big hole in the ability of the license to protect the freedom of its end users.

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

#102

Post by daenz » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

DangitBobby wrote: post #89

daenz wrote: post #57

I'm the author of some popular open source software, but I don't have any illusions about the relative ease of building my software. This author sounds like they are trying throw their weight around, but I'm not sure they realize how much software is easily reproducible, given the right incentives, with nothing more than a spec. Open source is a convenience, and that's why people use it. Pretending that you can have…

If you are making a new missile system and all of the free (as in beer) software you want says you can't use it to kill people, then you suddenly have to pay a lot more money to make your missile system. That seems like a good thing to me. I don't see how you could claim that it wouldn't be influencial if this became standard practice.

>then you suddenly have to pay a lot more money to make your missile

I assume you're talking about a government or government contractor, because anybody else wouldn't care about "licensing" if they're building a system to kill people. In the former case, "pay a lot more money" means spending more of everyone else's tax dollars, which they definitely won't have a problem with.

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

#103

Post by zajio1am » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

This discussion about enforcing specific ethical standards in software licences is nothing new, freeware licences that forbade specific usage (like in military) existed quarter century ago.

That is why freedom 0 (the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose) in free software definition is important, and rejection of enforcement of specific ethical standard was intention and not omission.

This reflects modern liberal society, which accepts diversity of ethical systems and positions, accents civil cooperation and enforces just common necessary rules through law.

It is true that copyleft licences like GPL enforce free software idea itself, and are ideological in that sense. But such ideology is restricted in scope, so people with diverse ideological positions (say RMS and ESR) can accept it as a common ground. And even with this there is fracturing on copyleft vs non-copyleft free licences.

If 'free' software licences commited to some wider range of ideological and ethical positions, then it would lead to fracturing of communities along those lines and to endless infighting.

I would expect that such change would be advantageous to people with mainstream ethical positions, but oppressive to people with heterodox ethical positions. It would be ironic if free software would be more oppresive that commercial one (who is at least limited by consumer protection laws).

In conclusion, seems to me that such change is not benefical to free software and its users as a whole, but may be benefical to people who want to use free software as a power lever to force their ethical positions on others.

(There are also technical problems, like such software would be incompatible with GPL, and if forced as a new version of GPL that could delegitimize 'any newer' ammendment in GPL-3+ licences.)

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

#104

Post by c-smile » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #99

c-smile wrote: post #98

> Do we need to rethink what free software is? Yes we do need to do that. Initial idea of FOSS was more about personal use of OS applications, so at times when "you can share your code with your neighbour without your neighbour being able to deny the same freedom to others". But that model simply does not work (or at least is not fair) in cases when OS is used in paid services. And 90% of OS code now is in the form t…

That is not true. Google "free software four freedoms".

What exactly is "not true"?

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

#105

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

9000 wrote: post #81

rmilejczz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 I take issue with this. First of all, this “well-defined” qualifier is ironically poorly defined. What does that mean? It either is or is not derived from some principle or set of principles; it is ultimately an example of ethics being imposed as a restriction. Secondly, you don’t…

For your first question, this is mostly about legal interpretability. The GPL has a long text that describes explicitly what it allows and doesn't. Yes, that is based on an ethical framework, but that ethical framework is all baked into the text of the license. There is no ambiguity. The GP contrasts this with the JSON license which only uses the term 'good' to describe what it allows. This is incredibly ambiguous fr…

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by kick » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

c-smile wrote: post #104

kick wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true. Google "free software four freedoms".

What exactly is "not true"?

Initial idea of FOSS was more about personal use of OS applications,

This.

Free software was initially aimed at protecting both personal and commercial freedoms, not just personal ones.

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

#107

Post by ci5er » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:35 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…

What are you talking about? This sounds like a Lyndon LaRouche screed.

Can you say this in, like, normal English without ideologically biased adjectives?

And maybe even throw in an example to clarify?

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

#108

Post by bitwize » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:48 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…

To which she replied effectively, "I know. That's the point. I'm trying to get the definition changed."

https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/11769406055257...

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

#109

Post by temac » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

The agenda is made very clear toward the end of the article:

> As stewards of the free software definition, the Free Software Foundation should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed. The priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to ensure that it can legitimately claim to represent the community and play the leadership role it's been failing to in recent years, otherwise the opportunity will be lost and much of the activist energy that underpins free software will be spent elsewhere.

Translation: now that Stallman is mostly gone, we may finally change the definition of free software, thanks to a better "representativeness"

But this is extremely ridiculously naive to think that just because it would be coming from that Frankenstein FSF, it would not fragment the community. Debian would not follow. And tons of others.

Whatever you think of the current def, I think there is exactly zero chance of not fragmenting significantly by attempting to change it. I even think this is a huge misunderstanding of the very nature of free software to consider that free corporate usage and exploitation shall be prevented.

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

#110

Post by notus » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #96

notus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GPL -> "Free" MIT or BSD -> "Open"

You mean GPL -> "Free, but..."