421–430 of 551 posts
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Not just Stallman, it's incompatible with the OSI definition of open source.
> incompatible with the OSI definition of open source So what? Why does it matter what they think?
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> Why? I mean, don't you believe you have a say on who you grant permission to use your intellectual property? If the author of some software has a general good-faith position that others should use their software, then the conditions they associate with that software fall on a continuum from "reasonable to "unreasonable". The MIT license is at the reasonable end. Saying "give me ten million dollars for this ROT13 al…
> If the author of some software has a general good-faith position (...) The "good-faith position" weasel words only serve to try to fabricate and cast doubt on the morality of a decision on how your work can and should be used, and only because you find it inconvenient. For some reason, your argument completely eliminates the author from the decision process. Do you find that to be fair or in good faith? Meanwhile,…
As someone reading through this: Yes. I find that argument both reasonable and fair.
The author is free to ask for compensation up front in exchange for the tool they've built. They can also just simply refuse to license it in the first place.
But a license that I can violate if the author simply changes their mind is quicksand: Nothing of value can be built on it, because it might sink at ANY POINT.
It's literally unusable as a tool.
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The site is not officially up though.
I mean, it's _theoretically_ possible that they modified it to remove the link to the source, accidentally put it live, always intending to revert the modification before deliberately going live... but that's not winning any prizes for plausibility. In any case 'officially up' is likely irrelevant here.
That's not true, especially considering they took down the site as soon as it was noticed it was publicly facing.
If a company misconfigures a VPN and you're able to access an internal tool that would not be otherwise available to the public, but uses GPL code, that would not entitle you to the sources. Especially if the company immediately fixed the issue of the public having access to said internal tool, any reasonable court would side with them.
If the site re-launches without fixing the issue, though, that is a very different story.
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Why? The creators created the software, they can put any conditions they please on how others might use it. They're under no moral or legal obligation to allow people to use the fruits of their labors, except as they permit.
Tolerance, right up to the limit where it actually starts hurting, is the best strategy for a peaceful and prosperous society. Trying to carve out little patches for your type of people and excluding that scary, evil other does not work. We're at Enlightenment+200 years here. I suppose shouldn't have to try make a defence of tolerating different opinions. If they want to license their software however then good luck…
What do you mean? Which definition of 'liberal' are you using?
That licence is one shard about opinion (debatable instancing of «marginalized») and fundamentally about use.
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If you have a political position that all weapons are bad and all surveillance is bad then I think that is a deeply flawed viewpoint. What we want to avoid is improper use of weapons and surveillance. Where those things go into the realm of abuse. Of course, "abuse" is a subjective word for these things too, but I think there's a general consensus that some things are bad.
> What we want to avoid is improper use of weapons and surveillance All use of weapons and surveillance is abusive, so what you are saying "we" (who?) want is not something that I find reasonable.
No matter what you think, the authors might disagree, so you have no way of using the software in anything related to it. Worse yet, this can quickly change - the system you built that uses this software in the background might be totally fine to watch a womans shelter, but the license could be pulled any minute because the authors dislike that you also sold your product to a normal prison.
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Why? In what world does using software to marginalize people or mislead the public create a better world?
presumably the same one where freedom of speech is valued because the people empowered to make decisions for others about what is right or wrong can be wrong.
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> Why? I mean, don't you believe you have a say on who you grant permission to use your intellectual property? If the author of some software has a general good-faith position that others should use their software, then the conditions they associate with that software fall on a continuum from "reasonable to "unreasonable". The MIT license is at the reasonable end. Saying "give me ten million dollars for this ROT13 al…
> If the author of some software has a general good-faith position (...) The "good-faith position" weasel words only serve to try to fabricate and cast doubt on the morality of a decision on how your work can and should be used, and only because you find it inconvenient. For some reason, your argument completely eliminates the author from the decision process. Do you find that to be fair or in good faith? Meanwhile,…
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I doubt there'll be much boycotting; the people who might boycott won't want to use it in the first place. Certainly no regulation will be enacted. I doubt a smear campaign, either; if it's anything like Twitter, a simple screenshot of the homepage will be enough. So the only things are: • licenses revoked – except with free software, this can only happen if you violate the license • deplatformed by infrastructure pr…
> I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had; for PR reasons... I expect that any and all voices that don't lavish heaps on praise upon The Former Guy to be removed without any further justification. If that's what you mean by "moderation".
The ulterior motive of this website is simple: the immediate interests of this guy. The ulterior motives of some other websites are harder to see.
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They can, which doesn't mean they should. Also, I think a person has a mortal obligation to allow that their political position is at least partially flawed.
Would you say that you should have to work with every potential client who ever approaches you, whether or not they intend to pay, and whether or not they set fire to your dog last fall?
It cuts many ways.
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Tolerance, right up to the limit where it actually starts hurting, is the best strategy for a peaceful and prosperous society. Trying to carve out little patches for your type of people and excluding that scary, evil other does not work. We're at Enlightenment+200 years here. I suppose shouldn't have to try make a defence of tolerating different opinions. If they want to license their software however then good luck…
> Tolerance, right up to the limit where it actually starts hurting, is the best strategy for a peaceful and prosperous society. It really is not. Unbounded tolerance is how free and open societies commit suicide and succumb to authoritarian regimes where intolerance is the norm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > If they want to license their software however then good luck to them, but nonetheless…
And to allow discriminating against "wrong" opinions is how intolerance becomes the norm.