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Scapegoating free software’s failures

writing.kemitchell.com

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Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#41

Post by kemitchell »

naniwaduni wrote: post #35
AlexMax wrote: post #26

They mention it in one of the lines of this blog, but apparently this individual (perhaps with the help of others, it wasn't clear) has come up with two of their own software licenses, with a website and everything. https://guide.licensezero.com/ > The Prosperity Public License (Prosperity) works a bit like a Creative Commons NonCommercial license, but for software. Prosperity gives everyone broad permission to use y…

> However, I always found it a bit strange that there were dozens of variants of the MIT and BSD license out there, but aside from the GPL and MPL no other popular license really took up the mantle of copyleft, aside from perhaps the old Sleepycat license. Fundamentally, copyleft can only be instantiated once. No two distinct copyleft licenses as we know them can be compatible with each other without jumping through…

> Fundamentally, copyleft can only be instantiated once.

That's true of GPL-style copyleft, because it was designed quite intentionally to be a network-effect-leaden singleton. We say "GPL-compatible", but it's more accurate to say "GPL-submissive". The difference was felt very directly by the Eclipse folks in the run up to EPLv2.

But there's nothing about share-alike terms that require that stricture. The Parity license that I mention in the blog post takes a different tack. Have a look at its rule about how to contribute back: https://paritylicense.com/versions/7.0.0.html#contribute

A developer building on Parity code could choose to license their work on weaker copyleft terms.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#42

Post by zbentley »

> GPLv2 and v3 gave hobbyists, students, and anti-corporate hackers a means to feel as though their work resists the evil empire of the software industry, while in fact serving it up with unpaid work product. From the VC point of view, the GPLs break the dam on that pool of labor, flooding venture prospects with freebie technology.

That seems concerning and deeply cynical. Mostly because I worry that it may be accurate.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#43

Post by skybrian »

api wrote: post #3
catern wrote: post #2

While 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.…

Just as a side note, "free labor" is common and not necessarily a bad thing. Whenever you give someone a gift, whatever work you did on it is effectively free labor. You could also think of donations to charity that way when you fund them out of your salary, not to mention volunteering.

It's true that often people don't want to do that, though, and this is certainly understandable.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#44

Post by purpleidea »

Despite all the points the author tries to make, he forgets to mention the most important one: license proliferation is not a positive thing for people who care about software freedom. He's responsible for proliferating, and I hope it stops. Lack of innovation in licensing isn't the problem. Corporate greed is.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#45

Post by newnewpdro »

pratyushc wrote: post #23
pygy_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically: the employer gave you a copy of the modified software (by having you modify it). He's bound by the license and so are you?

Interesting. If you were given the copy on a computer owned by your employer, is it your copy or theirs?

I believe it's theirs.

If I loan you my laptop brimming with free software, and you use it for a day, have I redistributed the software to you? No. You had use of a computer you didn't own executing the software, no copy was made. It's no different from the well-known SaaS loophole the AGPL attempts to close.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#47

Post by simonh »

catern wrote: post #2

While 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…

The FSF is not 'attacking' such licenses, they're just arguing that they aren't free libre software licenses. It's the SSPL people and others, by trying to co-opt the free and Libre software movement by claim their licenses are something they are not, which are mounting the assault. And let's be clear it is a pernicious, aggressive and deliberate attack threatening, and in some cases knowingly intended to fundamentally undermine free software principles. This is an existential threat to the FSF.

If they just went away and propagated and argued for their licenses on their own terms, the FSF wouldn't have anything in particular to say about it.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#48

Post by zozbot234 »

simonh wrote: post #47
catern wrote: post #2

While 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…

The FSF is not 'attacking' such licenses, they're just arguing that they aren't free libre software licenses. It's the SSPL people and others, by trying to co-opt the free and Libre software movement by claim their licenses are something they are not, which are mounting the assault. And let's be clear it is a pernicious, aggressive and deliberate attack threatening, and in some cases knowingly intended to fundamental…

And the FSF has even come up with their own license for network services, namely the AGPL - that is a full free-software license, since compared to the GPL it only clarifies requirements around public performance of the covered work (which unlike mere "use" of the software, is something that copyright law expressly grants as an exclusive right of the copyright holder!)

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#49

Post by naniwaduni »

kemitchell wrote: post #41
naniwaduni wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I always found it a bit strange that there were dozens of variants of the MIT and BSD license out there, but aside from the GPL and MPL no other popular license really took up the mantle of copyleft, aside from perhaps the old Sleepycat license. Fundamentally, copyleft can only be instantiated once. No two distinct copyleft licenses as we know them can be compatible with each other without jumping through…

> Fundamentally, copyleft can only be instantiated once. That's true of GPL-style copyleft, because it was designed quite intentionally to be a network-effect-leaden singleton. We say "GPL-compatible", but it's more accurate to say "GPL-submissive". The difference was felt very directly by the Eclipse folks in the run up to EPLv2. But there's nothing about share-alike terms that require that stricture. The Parity lic…

> But there's nothing about share-alike terms that require that stricture. The Parity license that I mention in the blog post takes a different tack.

But they do. "or another license that allows everything this license does" sounds less restrictive at a glance, in that on the surface it permits additions to be separately licensed, but its effect is the same: no license with more stipulations is acceptable, and by symmetry any less restrictive share-alike license with similar wording cannot accept combination with this one.

Additions to code under your license may be published under weaker terms. But they cannot be weaker copyleft terms. I can think of a few edge cases involving use of independent portions of the new work under only the weaker license, but it doesn't achieve a likely goal of someone choosing a copyleft license: to eliminate confusion about whether it's permissible to merge downstream improvements.

Re: Scapegoating free software’s failures

#50

Post by baot »

zbentley wrote: post #42

> GPLv2 and v3 gave hobbyists, students, and anti-corporate hackers a means to feel as though their work resists the evil empire of the software industry, while in fact serving it up with unpaid work product. From the VC point of view, the GPLs break the dam on that pool of labor, flooding venture prospects with freebie technology. That seems concerning and deeply cynical. Mostly because I worry that it may be accura…

I think it's silly: the idea that free software is primarily done unpaid is just a myth, as can be seen from the attendees of any major free software conference, or the commit history of the major codebases. The killer feature of copyleft is as a way for standards to propagate within industries so that duplicate work can be avoided. Any benefits that end users get are a happy coincidence.
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