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Open Source Software Programming

Do We Need To Rethink What Free Software Is? (dreamwidth.org) 136

Matthew Garrett is a security developer at Google and a Linux contributor who in 2014 won the Free Software Foundation's annual "Advancement of Free Software" award. But now he's asking if we need to re-think what free software is: If users can pay Amazon to provide a hosted version of a piece of software, there's little incentive for them to pay the authors of that software. This has led to various projects adopting license terms such as the Commons Clause that effectively make it nonviable to provide such a service, forcing providers to pay for a commercial use license instead. In general the entities pushing for these licenses are VC backed companies who are themselves benefiting from free software written by volunteers that they give nothing back to, so I have very little sympathy. But it does raise a larger issue -- how do we ensure that production of free software isn't just a mechanism for the transformation of unpaid labour into corporate profit...?

At the same time, people are spending more time considering some of the other ethical outcomes of free software. Copyleft ensures that you can share your code with your neighbour without your neighbour being able to deny the same freedom to others, but it does nothing to prevent your neighbour using your code to deny other fundamental, non-software, freedoms. As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by allowing their software to be used for any purpose. The JSON license includes a requirement that "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil", but the lack of any meaningful clarity around what "Good" and "Evil" actually mean makes it hard to determine whether it achieved its aims.

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. If free software is going to maintain relevance, it needs to continue to explain how it interacts with contemporary social issues. If any organisation is going to claim to lead the community, it needs to be doing that.

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Do We Need To Rethink What Free Software Is?

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  • by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @05:40AM (#59249014) Homepage

    It's a way to get geeks who are looking for a meaning in life to write free code for corps to use.

    • by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @07:21AM (#59249184)

      There are a bunch of us here who both write free software and get paid reasonably obscenely well for working with it, at least compared to the world average, perhaps not the keptocrat 1%. Some of the software I work on even overlaps with the stuff I wrote.

      I don't care if someone uses it for free - that was clear in the licences when I gave it away. I do care if, like MySQL in Amazon RDS, they lock it away, make it impossible to study and make it impossible for me to improve on when I hit a problem with it. Especially when that was clearly against the spirit of the give away (as it is in MySQL). It's not going to stop me giving stuff away, but knowing that my work is going to be used to lock other people into things that they might want to escape from has definitely reduced the level I contribute certain projects.

      There have been several cases where I wanted to use new PosgreSQL features but couldn't because they weren't available on the RedShift database someone else had chosen. It's a complete pain, very limiting and annoying and happens with lots of AWS services.

      The thing is, I have a bit of sympathy with Amazon. If I was them, I'd look at Google, where they've part lost control of Android and part been forced to us proprietary parts like Google Play Services so they lost most of the benefit of open source without even gaining the benefits of proprietary, and I'd think "I'll never allow my licensing people to mess up like Google did". Amazon is the Market leader and, if they released the software improvements they make on Apache / GPLv2 terms then Google and Microsoft would have a chance to catch up and overtake them. Microsoft has already shown it's very willing to do this attacking Google.

      What we need is a license where Amazon feels both the need to contribute in order to benefit from the cooperation whilst at the same time feeling safe to contribute, at least in some areas, since they know that any rivals that choose to benefit from their software will also benefit them. It may never reach the stage where Amazon uses it for all their services, but even if they just use it for the ones where they are playing catch up with competitors it will be a beneift. If we get an alternative cloud platform which is entirely on such a license there are plenty of people who will switch work load to that.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Google has benefited greatly from open sourcing Android.

        Most Chinese phones run Android. Google is banned in China but they are able to replace Google's services with their own. The export models get Google services. So now Android is the market leader in China and there are loads of affordable and good Chinese phones available in the west and if/when Google is un-banned they are in a prime position.

        Speaking of Amazon, look at their Fire product line. It's Android, it runs Android apps. Amazon's own OS coul

        • So do you lament this use by Google or not? If so, why not vastly more lament its use by China to provide modern phones AKA state spying tricorder devices?

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I was just pointing out that Google does quite well from Android being open source, that's all. Overall it's probably a good thing, at least Windows Phone and iOS are not the dominant ones.

      • There are a bunch of us here who both write free software and get paid reasonably obscenely well for working with it

        A few, but I doubt you'll find a bunch.

        The vast majority of potential candidates will turn out to be working on Open Source, these days often under the Apache 2 License.

      • But, occasionally a few get confused about sex with children.
    • There's a fallacy that you can make what boil down to opinion choices on behalf of other people and have it come out okay. The math says otherwise.

      Let's say you make a choice for your users. 90% want thing A, so you won't support thing B that only 10% want instead. After just 7 such choices, the collection of those choices has become wrong for the majority of your users.

      How did that happen? The problem is, if you don't let your users choose you have to be right every time, not just most of the time. If you'

      • Bad math. Not all choices are equivalent. Each choice needs a weighting to truly determine the overall fit with the user. "Wrong" choice plus low weighting means little to no practical impact to user.
        • by suutar ( 1860506 )

          low weighting may be why it's only a dealbreaker for 10% instead of 40%, but given that it is a dealbreaker for 10% we're back to the fact that doing that 7 times really cuts down on your market.

    • by drnb ( 2434720 )

      It's a way to get geeks who are looking for a meaning in life to write free code for corps to use.

      Or looking to get something half way decent on the resume as they apply for a job at a corp.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Good opening, and it could direct the discussion in a productive direction, but I still think Slashdot should have a better mechanism to deliberately select the FPs.

      Having said that, my initial answer to the question is "Yes, and that's what I've been saying for many years." The underlying problem is confusion between various senses of free (per my sig). The most important sense of "freedom" is about choice, not money or public service or getting manipulated or...

      Elevator version: Use a CSB (Charity Share B

  • by tietokone-olmi ( 26595 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:12AM (#59249050)

    This is one of the people who've been after various scalps in the free software world for a dozen years, always eager to join the next lynch mob. Notice how he's trying to sneak cancer in through the front door? Politicking, referencing even genocide. "Censorship envy", this one is called.

    In practice, oppressive governments won't give two fucks about your license, only whether they can get their hands on the source. So whatever stuff this "redefinition" of free software would entail, it'll never impact the big bad evil; rather, whatever CoC-style shenanigans get snuck in will impact those who aren't the oppressor. In effect making free software a tool of oppression.

    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      In practice, oppressive governments won't give two fucks about your license, only whether they can get their hands on the source.

      Software projects are almost always made of components, of which many nowadays often are open-source, often under non-copyleft licenses that do allow inclusion in proprietary products.

      If you could prevent a developer of ethically objectionable software from including your software as a component -- before they sell it to an oppressive government -- then I'd think that would be a

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      In practice, oppressive governments won't give two fucks about your license

      Fortunately the judicial systems in Western countries still have some power so licencing does matter even to the government. Proving your case may not be that difficult either - most government software is written by contractors and it only takes one to blow the whistle.

      It's not always the government either. Lots of services are contracted out, and of course corporations and individuals can violate whatever terms you come up too.

      Free software licences make lots of demands - publish your changes in usable fo

      • Fortunately the judicial systems in Western countries still have some power so licencing does matter even to the government. Proving your case may not be that difficult either - most government software is written by contractors and it only takes one to blow the whistle.

        All it takes is one statement that they can't discuss the code for reasons of national security and you might as well eat that whistle. That's what separates it from the usual corporate case. Well, that and extraordinary rendition.

  • by jbernardo ( 1014507 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:14AM (#59249054)

    Strange coincidence that Matthew is coming with this discussion just after a lynchmob, in which he participated, got Stallman to resign. Was he just waiting for it, in order to be able to advance his point of view with less opposition?

    In case anyone forgets, he was one of the virtue signallers repeating Selam's hit piece: https://twitter.com/mjg59/stat... [twitter.com]

    • by Junta ( 36770 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @07:47AM (#59249240)

      To be fair, while Stallman's message was horribly misrepresented, it was still problematic.

      They did falsely claim he characterized her as willing. He did not claim the woman was a willful participant, only that Epstein may have forced her to pretend that she was so that Minsky would not have been aware. Of course he phrased it horribly, by leading with the phrase "she presented herself as entirely willing" and *then* elaborating to emphasize the 'presented' part and to clarify that Epstein was forcing her not Minsky. This puts the reader in a very bad mood and as a man whose entire career is speaking and writing to espouse ideology he really shouldn't make a mistake like that. Especially in such a high profile situation as Epstein, he should know better than to carelessly engage on such a topic. Again, his career is based on speaking and writing about this sort of thing, a rant on such a thing is more core to his career than others.

      As an aside, this theory is one that exchanges Minsky's presumed malice with extreme idiocy. He was in his 70s at the time and would have to be an utter idiot to think nothing was fishy about sexual activity a 17 year old (even if he weren't aware that she was specifically 17, being in the ballpark of late-teens early 20s should be very suspicious). He would have done better to join the chorus of people and the witness claiming that Minsky didn't engage in that particular activity.

      Further, when someone emphasized the age problem, he said ""I think it is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17,". That may be a fine argument if the accused were say 18 or 19 years old (and generally consent laws have such exceptions already), but Minsky was *73* at the time. There would have been a moral problem either way. This is an example of arguing letter of the law in the midst of a very serious emotional real world moral issue. Again, not a wise choice for a career ideologue.

      Of course Matthew's view is equally a bit silly and this should not be construed as an endorsement of his message, but just saying that Stallman's result isn't totally inappropriate.

      • You do know that all accounts point to the fact that Minsky rejected the offered sex?
        • by Junta ( 36770 )

          Which is why my post had "He would have done better to join the chorus of people and the witness claiming that Minsky didn't engage in that particular activity."

          The point was that Stallman elected to argue from the hypothetical of Minsky engaging in the activity, and Stallman's writing is evaluated in the context of his views on that hypothetical.

        • Even she cannot remember the date or place of the claimed event, which came up in her testimony about famous men she allegedly slept with.

      • And let's be clear - joining a lynchmob, like Matthew did, isn't "a bit silly". It's being a sanctimonious asshole. And with this attempt of his to manipulate open source and free software licenses, it stinks to high heaven.
      • There would have been a moral problem either way.

        Why? Be specific.

      • Minsky, touter of communism, AKA meme cover story for dictators, may have been swept up in a prostitution leverage ring by powerful people he enjoys the company of.

        Just desserts, perhaps.

        After Watergate, some of the jailbirds talked about plans, never realized, to set up a houseboat in Florida to film Democrats with prostitutes, for leverage. I wonder if this aspect of Epstein has been looked intfgggurk!

  • No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:21AM (#59249062) Journal

    Richard Stallman's version means what it means. No reason to add ethical concerns. That's room 534b by the way...

  • by lkcl ( 517947 ) <lkcl@lkcl.net> on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:31AM (#59249070) Homepage

    i've been through this process, over the past 20 years. beginning with reverse-engineering of Window NT Domains, i made a living as a Security Researcher and as the default expert on how to set up Samba-TNG as a Primary Domain Controller. that ended when the samba-team leaders took credit for my work, and i had to go work on building sites as a common labourer, in order to make money.

    i kept to the same ethical principles that drove me to begin the reverse-engineering in the first place, staying away from working for Corporations such as Facebook, whom i could quite easily have empowered, with my expertise, to do a hundred "Cambridge Analyticas".

    i reverse-engineered HTC Smartphones in 2003, looking for ways to put Linux on them. this at seemed to be irrelevant when Android first came out... except that, just as mjg59 describes, not only did we get a 98% GPL violations rate, but nobody in the free software community got paid and rewarded commensurally for their efforts: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/8... [dreamwidth.org]

    by 2012 we had heartbleed, shellshock, and other major security vulnerabilities in which large Corporations finally realised that they'd been spongeing off of free software developers to the point where they couldn't in the slightest remotest "offchance" pay for the necessary full security reviews and audits on the code that was running over 50% of the world's internet servers and 95% of the world's smartphones.

    however, this hasn't really solved the problem: it still persists, and there have been no less than four separate articles about out free software developers are not being adequately funded and rewarded, here on slashdot, in the past few months alone.

    it comes down to this: a contract of sale requires payment of funds equal to the value of the goods, at the time of transfer *of* those goods. software libre, in an effort to ensure that Corporations do not entrap end-users, requires that the software be given *without* financial obligation (held hostage to financial ability to pay), which is of course then exploited.

    so the solution is really rather simple: software libre developers need to get together and come up with actual business ideas that serve actual end-user needs!

    now, admittedly, that is extremely hard to do, not least because the kinds of people who tend to work on software actually need to focus - for extremely concentration-heavy periods of time - WITHOUT distractions, for hours, days, and weeks at a time. for example: right now, i've been so distracted by admin tasks and by seeking funding for the Libre RISC-V SoC that i haven't been able to do any development for about seven weeks now. due to the way that things are set up with NLNet, that means that i get *zero funds* for myself and my family, until i can return to the milestones set, last year.

    one simple way to actually receive money for work related to software libre: sell hardware with software libre pre-installed. this is what Think Penguin do. it's their entire business model, based around the experience that its founder, Chris, had when he worked for Linspire as a Peripherals QA Tester (side-note: virtually none of the hardware he tested, which included WinModems and hardware-buggy PCI and USB Cards, printers with proprietary-only drivers, and Network Cards which would only work with NDISWRAPPER - none of it worked).

    Chris sells hardware that's been pre-tested and pre-vetted to work with not just Software Libre, having the full source code for the entire firmware including USB WIFI dongles, but ironically works better *with Windows upgrades* than anything else not in his company's product portfolio! The time and hassle this saves people in IT "Support" costs (or replacement of entire machines after a failed Windows upgrade) is well worth the extra price of the hardware.

    Now we have crowdfunding, in *theory* any Software Libre Developer *could* and often do set up projects that help them self-fund. There is also NLNet

    • "software libre, in an effort to ensure that Corporations do not entrap end-users, requires that the software be given *without* financial obligation (held hostage to financial ability to pay), which is of course then exploited."

      No. No it doesn't.

      You can charge for free software. But you can only meaningfully charge for it once, since you have to give the source with it. So you have to get paid in full the first time you sell the code. That makes retail sales impractical, but it still permits getting paid f

      • by lkcl ( 517947 )

        "software libre, in an effort to ensure that Corporations do not entrap end-users, requires that the software be given *without* financial obligation (held hostage to financial ability to pay), which is of course then exploited."

        No. No it doesn't.

        You can charge for free software. But you can only meaningfully charge for it once, since you have to give the source with it. So you have to get paid in full the first time you sell the code. That makes retail sales impractical, but it still permits getting paid for development. Contract work and crowdfunding are two common ways to get paid for writing OSS. You can also make a product based on software, and sell that. The design is still protected. Of course, China can copy it, but they can copy your software too, whether it's OSS or not.

        indeed. so, whilst saying that you disagreed with what i said (because it was misunderstood, because i wasn't clear enough), you actually made the point that i wanted (intended) to make, and, neatly, summarised what i wrote: making a hardware product based on software [libre], crowdfunding, and so on, as methods by which people in the libre software community can make money.

        and yes, unfortunately, the fact that the software is libre means that the very first time you charge for it, there's no stoppiing you

    • "nobody in the free software community got paid and rewarded commensurally for their efforts"

      --

      You seem to have a misunderstanding of the word "free"? This is like complaining that you helped at a barn raising and were not paid.

  • I reflected on my last 20 years of OpenSource and the lack of means to finance a living let alone a family with that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] and an update to that just yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] LTDR: people and companies simply do not want to pay for OpenSource. If I would not have commercial, binary-only products in the meantime, I would be bankrupt, ... https://exactcode.com/ [exactcode.com]
  • So go search for that post, days/weeks ago. I won't do your job. ;)

    I may only add, that I only have one license. It only says that you do no get to do anythig at all with the software. And in the non-normative section, it says that I expect people to break the license and use it anyway since it is physically impossible to prevent. (Due to causality. It's a long story. Just trust me on this for now.)
    And that I will refrain from suing anyone who also does not and will never use "intellectual property"/copyrig

  • by yet another SanTiago ( 257263 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:45AM (#59249096)

    (reposting my post from Hacker News)

    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.)

    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      TL;DR: Ethical licenses lead to disagreements. Disagreement = Bad.

      I don't agree with that. Believe it or not, but there are still people in the world who are able to have disagreements and argue about things .. even on the Internet ... without it getting out of control.

      Some would say that being controversial is part of the reason why "ethical licenses" were made in the first place: because it highlights the issues behind them.

    • by ras ( 84108 )

      Ahh, thank you. Now it clicks. The confusing way he framed his manifesto had me baffled. I guess that was deliberate.

      I see now that as others have said, Garret is trying to re-frame the ideals behind free software. Stallman's vision was along the lines of "if you use my software and add to it, you have to give those additions back to me under the same conditions I gave the software to you". It's a pretty simple proposition and I find it compelling.

      Garret is far more ambitious. Now that free software

  • We need to re-think what it means to re-think. Is this something we should really do? Should we keep re-inventing the wheel because of our own insecurity, or should we stumble into the next unknown blazing a jagged path toward the brass ring of success?
  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:56AM (#59249122) Homepage Journal

    No.

    Also, HELL NO.

    Free software already has what it needs to be useful, an anti-Tivoization clause. So use the GPL v3.

    A license doesn't stop a repressive government from using your code to repress you. If it did i would be all in on this, but it doesn't, so I'm not. It's worthless at the stated goal and will cause other problems.

    The open source community has been on the attack against Free Software for quite some years now. As many of you know, there has been a long and loud battle over the OSI attempting to equivocate the two. I see this as just another salvo in the battle to deprecate Free Software so that Open Source (a superior model if you want to use others' code without returning any benefit to them) can win out over it.

    This is an attack on the GPL, and as such, it is an attack on the people the GPL was designed to protect — the users.

    If you want a license with different goals, make one. Don't ride GPL into a cave because it doesn't do what you want it to do.

    • No.

      Also, HELL NO.

      Free software already has what it needs to be useful, an anti-Tivoization clause. So use the GPL v3.

      This doesn't seem to be fully effective in certain cloud service cases. Effectively you can Tivioize even over the top of the GPLv3.

      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday September 29, 2019 @08:04AM (#59249278) Homepage Journal

        That suggests that if anything what we need is an anti-cloud-hiding clause, not a "i don't like your project" clause.

        Restricting code on an ideological basis will simply result in more abuse, and less scrupulous users will use the code for fear that the restrictions will be applied against them later, when they have become dependent upon it.

        The GPL is successful specifically because it does not promote any ideology but software freedom. It has one job.

        • That suggests that if anything what we need is an anti-cloud-hiding clause

          And that exists, it's the AGPL, if you want it.

    • by godrik ( 1287354 )

      Agreed; GPL is the license that we need.

      Putting ideological restriction in the license is not useful, it assumes people who fundamentally disagree with you will abide by your wishes. Typically they won't.

      I have read reports of FOSS developers working for free and being consistently pushed online to produce more work for free. That a problem for them. We, as a community, should not pressure them, and they, as individual persons who need to put food on the table, should not accept to work (because they percei

  • "In general the entities pushing for these licenses are VC backed companies who are themselves benefiting from free software written by volunteers that they give nothing back to, so I have very little sympathy. But it does raise a larger issue -- how do we ensure that production of free software isn't just a mechanism for the transformation of unpaid labour into corporate profit...?"

    The incredibly vast majority of FOSS contributions ARE paid labour. PIck your favorite large FOSS project, and count the corpo

    • by lkcl ( 517947 )

      All of these people are paid to contribute.

      no, brunes69, they're really not. look up the GPG developer who went USD 10,000 into debt before anyone thought it might be a good idea to like take care of his financial needs. the Gentoo Lead developer who went USD ***45,000*** into debt on credit cards and was only rescued by going to work for Microsoft. these are just the high-profile ones that have come to light because of their prominent position and the shockingly-high amount of debt.

      Even small and minor projects that don't have specific full-time corporate backers, the people who write the code are employed somewhere and often contributing to the code during their working hours.

      certain classes of computing projects and tasks, particularly re

      • All of these people are paid to contribute.

        no, brunes69, they're really not. look up the GPG developer who went USD 10,000 into debt before anyone thought it might be a good idea to like take care of his financial needs.

        He was not one of the "corporate backers" [slashdot.org]. I think you just misread the post (or perhaps it was poorly worded), what he is saying is that the vast majority of contributions come from corporations and all of those contributors (the developers) are being paid by those corporations.

        Yes there are some people who are bad with finances and will pour everything into their hobby, running up huge debts simply because they enjoy that hobby and don't have the financial sense to balance that with doing the things they

  • Those giant companies that use it have to contribute back to it -and the do. Of course, they contribute back the portions that they are working on anyway, but that's kinda the whole point, isn't it?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @07:33AM (#59249204)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Yeah, but JSON license has granted exceptions explicitly allowing use for evil:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]

    So people can use JSON license for evil, as long as they ask nicely first.

  • "If users can pay Amazon to provide a hosted version of a piece of software, there's little incentive for them to pay the authors of that software."

    I do the same thing for ebooks (kindle unlimited) movies and TV-series (Amazon prime).
    What's the problem?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @08:00AM (#59249264)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @09:24AM (#59249442)

    Richard M. Stallman stepped down as head of the Free Software Foundation less than 2 weeks ago. People attracted by the "we could proprietize it to make money" business approach are already re-opening some very old debates. It's also being re-opened by people who like free speech, except for speech they don't like. I do hope that without RMS at its helm, the Free Software Foundation can preserve its goal of "free as in speech" software, without complex and byzantine regulations that will discourage such a clear approach.

  • by Jonathan P. Bennett ( 2872425 ) on Sunday September 29, 2019 @09:56AM (#59249492)

    The AGPL already does a great job keep Amazon and Google away from a project.

    Trying to add exceptions for "evil" to a license is a good way to get it invalidated by the courts. Also, how do you deal with everybody's non-compatible definitions of evil?

    • by novakyu ( 636495 )

      The problem is if you are trying to use GPLv2 licensed components in your project, you can't use AGPL (not that this problem will be solved by yet another license).

      P.S. Apparently according to Wikipedia (too busy doing other stuff to read actual license terms), AGPLv3 is compatible with GPLv3.

  • This from the man who gave over control of the bootloader to Microsoft:

    Matthew Garrett Oct 2015: [dreamwidth.org] ‘Linus has made it pretty clear that he's fine with the way he behaves, and nobody's going to depose him. That's unfortunate, because earlier today I was sitting in a presentation at Linuxcon and remembering how much I love the technical side of kernel development. "Remembering" is a deliberate choice of word - it's been increasingly difficult to remember that, because instead I remember having to deal
  • Stop trying to push your ideology in a software license. You claim it is "free as in freedom" then start putting limits on that freedom to push your ideology. Guess what, you assholes are proving you want "free as in beer" and not "free as in freedom". You fuckers don't care about freedom or you wouldn't be busy trying to make people live according to your ideology through your falsely named "free as in freedom" licenses.
  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday September 30, 2019 @10:46AM (#59252718)
    Software that restricts who can use a software is non-free by nature. Of the four essential freedoms, freedom 0 is "the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose." If your license prevents anyone from using your software for any reason, it is non-free, full stop.

    Now that we have that out of the way, the question being asked here is "should we rethink the definition of free software" and more specifically freedom 0? I don't think so. I believe there's a significant public interest in having as much software as possible usable without restriction. It allows users an alternative when proprietary software developers start making unreasonable or unfair demands in their licensing.

    For politically or ideologically motivated usage-based restrictions, if those start becoming popular, do you really think it's only going to be the politics you agree with that are used as the basis for these restrictions? Do you really want to see half of your software stack require you to believe one thing and the other half requiring you to believe something incompatible?

    I understand why people don't want their creations used by people doing things they find politically or ideologically abhorrent. I don't think popularizing usage-based restrictions is a proper remedy to this; I think you'll find that the exact same power will be used against you, even if you're in the right. And in the process, there ends up being less free software available for everyone.

"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse

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