251–260 of 509 posts
I vaguely remember seeing bearblog before. While I can't comment much on the actual article, I do want to applaud how simple it looks. It makes me want to migrate away from ghost to bear or hugo or something without javascript/etc.
So you can get a self-hosted site that looks and acts like a Bear Blog, but run it yourself with a free software SSG.
> You may not provide the Software as a hosted or managed service that offers users access to substantial features or functionality. IANAL, but does the above limitation prevent users from hosting bear for their own (or your company’s own) needs? If so, doesn’t that defeat the whole reason why it’s MIT licensed. https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/master/LICEN...
People and companies can host it for personal/internal use. People and companies cannot host it and offer it as a service to other people or companies. https://www.elastic.co/licensing/elastic-license/faq
Again, IANAL, but I can see why a company might be cautious about using Bear as a self-hosted blog engine, since companies technically have “users.”
For comparison, the Elastic License v2 - which this license is apparently modeled on - explicitly restricts use by "third parties":
> "You may not provide the software to third parties as a hosted or managed service"
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The Bear license doesn’t include similar language, which could create uncertainty.
It might help to explicitly clarify that self-hosting for one’s own use is allowed, or to add “third party” wording to the limitations.
I only raise this because (a) licensing is tricky, and (b) if this feedback helps the author clarify their intended license terms, that’s a win for everyone.
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> With the AGPL, Bear's competition can offer the software as as service if they publish the source code they are deploying. Technically true, but in practice almost every tech company forbids GPL code. I bet if you re-read your employment contract closely you'll find that you agreed not to introduce any GPL code into the company's codebases. (Edited for clarity).
Note that this is about source code, not binaries, or nobody would be working with docker (and more.) Of course a company must forbid copy/paste of GPL code, because that would GPL the codebase and that's hardly what they want. But one should ask the Legal office (and/or other offices) about adding any MIT, BSD or proprietary library: credit must be given (how?), licenses must be available and compatible with the way…
Of course everything should be vetted, but lawyers have canned advice about common licenses they see often — GPL, MIT, etc.
[1] https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl...
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Most people have no problem with non-open source software. The gnashing of teeth comes in when projects like Terraform become successful specifically because they're open source , and then the maintainer changes to a closed source license that would have prevented the project from being successful in the first place. Doubly so when they relicense outside contributors' work with a closed source license because those c…
Quite a few people commenting here are having problems with it in the case of Bearblog though, including some pretty wild accusations. And lets be real here: https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/graphs/contributo... Looking at the details of that, the only two (small) substantial code changes from other people are "User can delete their own account" from 2020, and "Use cloudflare online dns api to perform domai…
That's why I said "most people" (of which I think HN commenters are not a representative sample) rather than "nobody" :)
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There is no such compelling legal argument. That’s an extraordinary idea with zero precedent or support.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins > When is a program and its plug-ins considered a single combined program? > It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined progr…
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https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins > When is a program and its plug-ins considered a single combined program? > It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined progr…
"Intimate communication" here almost certainly refers to shared memory. No one is claiming passing JSON over the wire is the same as linking, or else a GPL webserver could insist that browsers be licensed under the GPL.
No, shared memory is addressed later within the same answer.
> Using shared memory to communicate with complex data structures is pretty much equivalent to dynamic linking.
The first part of the answer clearly includes programs sending each other "complex data structures", including nested JSON data, over pipes.
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I'm really not a lawyer, but I'm skeptical that such a thing is even possible; is it legally possible to say that you as the copyright owner will never relicense something? (What I'm given to understand does work is using a copyleft license and taking code from multiple parties without a CLA, because then relicensing requires all the copyright owners to agree, which for a large enough project is impractical.)
How about a standard entity "OSI perhaps?!", that commits a file to an early stage of the repository (could this be automated), who then cannot / will not give approval for a relicense?
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No, this is completely wrong. Free/libre software is distinguished from "gratis" software, such as demos or shareware. Any software that is freely available for users to legally modify and redistribute however they see fit, under the same license or some other, is free software. Examples of non-free software are shareware like WinRar, software only available for non-commercial use like OMNeT++ [0], and (slightly more…
It's not completely wrong ... how rude. Shareware isn't even open source, generally, and it certainly isn't gratis--you have to pay for it, or at least should, and there are often restrictions or time limits if you don't. Again, the "free" in "free software" refers to freedom, not free beer. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughl…
Yes. The comment you are replying to already said this: ‘Free/libre software is distinguished from "gratis" software’.
Your earlier comment wasn’t wrong for saying that ‘free software’ refers to freedom; that part was correct. But it was wrong for agreeing with a comment which claimed that ‘free software’ means ‘copyleft’. Copyleft is free software, but free software isn’t always copyleft.
Saying that ‘free software means copyleft’ is like saying that ‘bird means goose’. Goose is a kind of bird, but not every bird is a goose; just like copyleft licences are free, but not every free licence is copyleft. The responses (which you called incorrect) were trying to explain this important difference.