The FSF Condemns Unauthorized Derivatives of GNU Licenses (fsf.org) 53
The Free Sofware Foundation issued a clarifying blog post this week, saying the organization is "pleased when people use GNU licenses to distribute and license software."
But "we condemn the use of unauthorized, confusing derivatives of the licenses." Unfortunately, some authors engage in confusing practices by drafting licenses using existing terms and conditions of GNU free software licenses, without the intention of granting all four freedoms to users. For example, we have long seen attempts to add restrictions to the license text itself, placed in the LICENSE file, or included elsewhere in the program's release. An example is the so-called "Commons Clause," which, when applied to a free software license, affirms that the program is covered by the license. But, at the same time, is contradicting in its meaning by asserting that selling copies of the program or implementing a commercial service with the program is prohibited.
The immediate consequence of the practice of inserting a restriction into a GNU license in this way is the confusion it causes for the community. Users still see the name of the original license, with its preamble and terms and conditions intact, transmitting a strong message that the purpose of the license is to enable users — grant users — their essential software freedoms. This message is clear from the license's text, and is bolstered from the renown accrued by the FSF and GNU trademarks, and their decades of free software advocacy. At the same time, these same users see a contradictory statement of the "Commons Clause," which is clearly contrary to the sprit of the free software movement and the Free Software Definition...
[T]o make it even clearer that added restrictions are incompatible with our license, we gave users the right to delete such added restrictions [in 2007] and preserve the program's freedom. But we at the FSF have another legal tool against attempts to release programs under GNU General Public Licenses that have been wrongly altered to become nonfree licenses. The FSF holds copyrights and common law trademarks to the GNU family of General Public Licenses. Moreover, the FSF holds registered trademarks for "FSF," "Free Software Foundation," and "GNU." [...] We can't control the drafting by others of proprietary software licenses, but we can and do forbid doing this in a way that misleadingly associates those licenses with GNU or GNU licenses... [W]e are entitled to legally enforce our copyright and trademark for FSF licenses that have been altered by added restrictions to a verbatim GNU license...
Licenses that confuse users about the freedoms they grant are damaging to the free software movement because they threaten to dilute the value and power of these licenses. When GNU licenses are misused through such confusing practices, it harms the renown accrued by the GNU project and the FSF over decades of free software advocacy. It is our duty to all computer users to stop these practices, and, if necessary, we will use our legal rights to this end.
But "we condemn the use of unauthorized, confusing derivatives of the licenses." Unfortunately, some authors engage in confusing practices by drafting licenses using existing terms and conditions of GNU free software licenses, without the intention of granting all four freedoms to users. For example, we have long seen attempts to add restrictions to the license text itself, placed in the LICENSE file, or included elsewhere in the program's release. An example is the so-called "Commons Clause," which, when applied to a free software license, affirms that the program is covered by the license. But, at the same time, is contradicting in its meaning by asserting that selling copies of the program or implementing a commercial service with the program is prohibited.
The immediate consequence of the practice of inserting a restriction into a GNU license in this way is the confusion it causes for the community. Users still see the name of the original license, with its preamble and terms and conditions intact, transmitting a strong message that the purpose of the license is to enable users — grant users — their essential software freedoms. This message is clear from the license's text, and is bolstered from the renown accrued by the FSF and GNU trademarks, and their decades of free software advocacy. At the same time, these same users see a contradictory statement of the "Commons Clause," which is clearly contrary to the sprit of the free software movement and the Free Software Definition...
[T]o make it even clearer that added restrictions are incompatible with our license, we gave users the right to delete such added restrictions [in 2007] and preserve the program's freedom. But we at the FSF have another legal tool against attempts to release programs under GNU General Public Licenses that have been wrongly altered to become nonfree licenses. The FSF holds copyrights and common law trademarks to the GNU family of General Public Licenses. Moreover, the FSF holds registered trademarks for "FSF," "Free Software Foundation," and "GNU." [...] We can't control the drafting by others of proprietary software licenses, but we can and do forbid doing this in a way that misleadingly associates those licenses with GNU or GNU licenses... [W]e are entitled to legally enforce our copyright and trademark for FSF licenses that have been altered by added restrictions to a verbatim GNU license...
Licenses that confuse users about the freedoms they grant are damaging to the free software movement because they threaten to dilute the value and power of these licenses. When GNU licenses are misused through such confusing practices, it harms the renown accrued by the GNU project and the FSF over decades of free software advocacy. It is our duty to all computer users to stop these practices, and, if necessary, we will use our legal rights to this end.
Princely (Score:2)
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They should finalize the wording off it then represent the entire immutable text with a single unicode character
This one [vox-cdn.com].
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They should finalize the wording off it then represent the entire immutable text with a single Unicode character
And then store it on a blockchain -- 'cause, you know, blockchain. :-)
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Ooh, make it into one of those Disney Pinnacle pins!
Re: Princely (Score:2)
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The FSF, GNU, and the GPL have always been about software freedom, and they have always used copyright law ironically to protect that freedom. The catch has always been that you can use the software however you want, but you don't have the license to distribute the software unless you are willing and able to give that same right to the people that you distribute software to.
Along the way they have various legal tools and licenses. My favorite example of this is that Debian's digital RMS program, that wa
The information wants to be free! (Score:1)
Paraphrases of stupid shit I've seen on slashdot in only the last week:
- How dare they place restrictions on their own work and enable others to do the same? We all own that!
- This is horrifying! They don't own that code, it is freely available on the internet! We can do whatever we want with things we find on the net!
- How can they expect to put things on the net and retain ownership? Once something is on the net it's mine!
For those of you who hate IP law, you need to understand that without IP law and
Re:The information wants to be free! (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare they place restrictions on their own work
That's not the problem. People can license their own software any way they want.
What FSF is complaining about is people being deceptive. They are using the GPL wording and format and then slipping restrictions into the fine print.
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Problem is, you have to read to the bottom of the wall-o-text-with-legal-mumbo-jumbo to figure that out. The headline and thesis statement say "unauthorized derivatives" which sounds pretty hypocritical. Particularly if you read a little further and find out they're complaining about people adding restrictions.
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Since when does FSF get to "authorize". "derivatives" of its license? They have no say in what license others choose for their products, unless of course the GPL has infected their code.
The only problem that could possibly exist is that people are representing a license as GPL when it isn't. I won't take Stallman's word for it. It's just fine that people modify the GPL if it suits them, as long as it's their work they are licensing.
It's hilarious that GPL'ed software can be forked but Stallman insists th
Re:The information wants to be free! (Score:5, Informative)
The FSF owns the copyrights of the text of the license. Unauthorized copies, especially violating the license itself, are not only ironic but a straightforward copyright violation. The manipulation of the license seems to be pretty deliberately deceptive rather than freedom of expression or fair use. I don't think these companies have a legal leg to stand on.
Richard M. Stallman is also no longer very active in the FSF: he's fighting lymphoma and is very ill at last check.
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That is a great question. I think you'd have to make it distinctive enough to contain some significant element of creativity, rather than merely copying other, previous and even public domain work. The GPL was distinct enough that copyright law might, indeed, be relevant, especially if modified without permission. Duplicates of the Bible with edited content were one of the first reasons for the existence of copyright.
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Didn't read the thread, hey?
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With no IP law there is no GNU
no shit, sherlock, the whole point of gnu, qpl and fsf is protection from ip law abuse by playing their own wicked game.
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Whooosh!
Re:The information wants to be free! (Score:4, Interesting)
"We'd have BSD clones and anything else released with no restrictions ..."
Sounds great. We'd have open source software without restrictions. You just said so.
"...(such as corporations taking free code and re-selling it with or without modification which BSD allows) with no attribution, no nothing..."
Which doesn't deny you access to open source software one bit.
"And unlikely companies would be supporting as many, if any, free software developers and orgs as they do now."
Complete bullshit.
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Many BSD variants have existed with astonishing restrictions. Apple's IoS is one of them, with a great deal of digital rights management and top-down censorship of applications built into the operating system.
So long as it uses a different name... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the confusing/bad thing would be if they insert clauses without changing the name of the license.
If they use a new name and copy some verbiage, that should be fine.
Re:So long as it uses a different name... (Score:5, Informative)
This is also the position of the FSF:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/g... [gnu.org]
The background of the current discussion is this case:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog... [sfconservancy.org]
The company Neo4j uses a license that consists of the entire text of the AGPLv3, including its title, with a "Commons Clause" restriction added at the end.
Re:So long as it uses a different name... (Score:4, Insightful)
The douchebag you linked to refers to the Commons Clause as "a toxic proprietary license". LOL
See how toxic it is yourself: https://commonsclause.com/ [commonsclause.com]
It may be done, but toxic or proprietary it is not. It's sad what gaslighting scumbags exist in the free software community.
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That clause at least makes the software clearly not opensource, and it's important to avoid and discourage clauses like that.
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BSD and Apache licenses are also not open source either for the same reasons (that they violate the OSI's definition of open source software), should we avoid and discourage the use of any BSD/Apache licensed software too? Everybody should stop using FreeBSD, Android, Apache, Hadoop, LLVM, and Rust?
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Please, check your sources. They are indeed "open licenses" according to https://fossa.com/ [fossa.com], the Free and Open Source Software Alliance. The Open Source Initiative, the OSI, also disagrees with you. See https://opensource.org/license... [opensource.org] to confirm that the Apache License Version 2, and many BSD licenses, are indeed considered open source licenses.
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Point 2 of the OSI's definition of open source software (https://opensource.org/osd/) is "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form." and BSD licenses do not require any inclusion of source code. The OSI may approve them, but they does not meet their own definition of an open source license since they do not require that the source be open.
The BSD licenses literally let you treat a BSD-licensed project as purely closed source if you want, as lo
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You've a point. Many, though not all, BSD licensed tools do indeed publish their source code. I'm afraid I can't solve all the inconsistencies of OSI licensing, I wish I could.
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BSD and Apache licenses are also not open source either for the same reasons (that they violate the OSI's definition of open source software
Woah there. I do not know where you get that blatantly false information . A look at the OSI website [opensource.org] says that is wrong.
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Point 2 of the OSI's definition of open source software (https://opensource.org/osd/) is "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form." and BSD licenses do not require any inclusion of source code. The OSI may approve them, but they does not meet their own definition of an open source license since they do not require that the source be open.
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Point 2 of the OSI's definition of open source software (https://opensource.org/osd/) is "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form." and BSD licenses do not require any inclusion of source code.
WTF are you smoking? What do think BSD source code comes with? Are you confused that people publish the license (for other people to read) separately from source code like on a web site? That is no different than any license. For example you can read any EULA separate to the software. That does not mean the software does not include the license.
The OSI may approve them, but they does not meet their own definition of an open source license since they do not require that the source be open.
This is the most idiotic thing I have read. The OSI approves a license as open source that it does not think it is open source. Or is it that you simply do not under
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Please point out to me the clause in a BSD license that requires that source code be included with binaries. This requirement is, after all, the only thing that makes a license even somewhat open source, because if I can take whatever BSD code I want and build a product out of it and never release any source code, how is that open source? BSD software is only open source if people in good faith make the source code available, the license doesn't require it.
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Please point out to me the clause in a BSD license that requires that source code be included with binaries.
Again WTF are you smoking? Nothing about open source says source code must be included with binaries. Source code must be included. Binaries are allowed. Those are two separate requirements.
This requirement is, after all, the only thing that makes a license even somewhat open source,
This is your definition of open source; it is not OSI's definition.
because if I can take whatever BSD code I want and build a product out of it and never release any source code, how is that open source?
That again is definition of open source is not OSI's definition. Please learn the OSI definition [opensource.org]
BSD software is only open source if people in good faith make the source code available, the license doesn't require it.
Please cite in OSI's definition that mentions anything about good faith.
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Source code must be included. Binaries are allowed. Those are two separate requirements.
Source code must be included with what? BSD licenses (and I'm using the 3-clause as my exemplar here) do not place any requirements on source code whatsoever (beyond saying that if the source code is distributed, it must include the copyright and BSD license), and thus don't require source code to be included with anything.
This is your definition of open source; it is not OSI's definition.
It's literally the second point of OSI's definition.
That again is definition of open source is not OSI's definition. Please learn the OSI definition [opensource.org]
Let's just quote it then.
2. Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
Rationale: We require access to un-obfuscated source code because you can’t evolve programs without modifying them. Since our purpose is to make evolution easy, we require that modification be made easy.
Please point out the BSD clause that covers this requirement. Let's break it down:
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form.
BSD licenses do not mandate
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Source code must be included with what? BSD licenses (and I'm using the 3-clause as my exemplar here) do not place any requirements on source code whatsoever (beyond saying that if the source code is distributed, it must include the copyright and BSD license), and thus don't require source code to be included with anything.
Again, WTF are you smoking? BSD source code COMES with licenses. BSD licenses are written agreements that can be printed and read separately of the source code. I am not sure why you do not understand that legal agreements are separate. I can read my car warranty without a car.
It's literally the second point of OSI's definition.
You said: "BSD license that requires that source code be included WITH binaries." That is false. OSI says source code must be included. Binaries are allowed. There is no "with". You inserted a condition that is not true.
Let's just quote it then.
The exact sec
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I've read it. It's quite toxic.
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In the UK such a licence probably would not be enforceable.
We have something called the "Red Hand Rule". If some clause in a contract is of great significance or not at all what a reasonable person would expect, it needs to be highlighted. Back in the day, that meant printing a bright red hand pointing to it, but large bold text and the like it acceptable too.
Is it not similar where you are? Can companies really hide important details in fine print in a wall of text, in a licence disguised as another one, a
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> the name of the license.
Sounds like RedHat's new licensing scheme.
We need a no Redhat license (Score:3)
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Adding restrictions to the GPL is only allowed for RMS, like when GPLv2 wasn't restrictive enough so out came GPLv3. It's ok when Stallman does it, and when he tells you to upgrade your license of your own IP.
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Fedora is, and has been, a team player. The most recent Red Hat releases have gotten strange about packaging and licensing, but they seem to be learning their lesson and reverting to more sane practices such as publishing the packages they use to compile their software.
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Licenses should not get into politics this way. The reputational damage to Redhat from their bad choices is sufficient to shape behaviour (and failing that, usage) in the long term.
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The damage has not yet been sufficient to eliminate all the bad choices of recent years. The wholesale replacement of CentOS with AlmaLinux seems to be working.
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But I was using the license that ChatGPT/CoPilot/Meta/etc gave me when I asked for a GPL like license with a new clause added!
I mean, why not have LLM's remix the license agreement? It's fair use in the end and the FSF has as much input into it as anyone else to what I want in a license. The LLM even gave me a title that I like. I mean, "
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Avoiding confusion with names is a broadly accepted goal for a lot of things in society. LLMs don't actually understand things and are not going to produce content in ways that people may be morally and perhaps legally obliged to do.
the FSF holds registered trademarks for "FSF," (Score:2)
I am guessing that there are other organisations that also use that TLA
I used to read the Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, It predated the Free Software Foundation
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Scope of trademark law limits to similar goods or services.
Unless the fantasy and sci-fi magazine is producing software there is no issue.
https://www.uspto.gov/trademar... [uspto.gov]
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IIRC, that was known as F&SF.
Living by the sword (Score:1)
They subverted copyright. Now they're pissed off that people are subverting their subversion of copyright. It's back to plain old copyright now.
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That's copyleft you insensitive clod!
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They subverted copyright. Now they're pissed off that people are subverting their subversion of copyright. It's back to plain old copyright now.
Despite all the "copyleft" noise, they used copyright law as intended - to allow the copyright holders to decide how the work may be used. They decided to allow its use freely with the requirement that any derivative work allow the same. No subverting of copyright there, without copyright laws they could not accomplish what they intended to do with software.