Maybe it’s just time to say “fuck it” and #GPL all the things?
The #OpenSource movement was a response to corporate skittishness around using #FOSS, and it focused on very permissive licenses to make corporations feel more comfortable using it. Maybe that turned out to be the wrong approach. Maybe the #OSI helped create the problem.
If the OSI helped create it, #GitHub encouraged and exacerbated it.
@jay@ramsey For a library, LGPLv3 is fine. If someone has an issue with that, I don't want them using my code.
Fpr a full application that you install, AGPLv3 or bust. If someone wants to use my labor for free, they can damned well respect their users. If they don't want to, they don't get to use my work.
@ramsey I'm happy to see you settled on a GNU license
Everything I work on, hardware and software, is GPLv3 (despite the criticisms)
Stallman gets a lot of flak, and some of it is warranted
But as far as important things to come out of the hippies from the 60's I would have to put the open source concept and eventual licenses as one of the greatest achievements of computer science
It wouldn't exist, its that simple
Beyond a shame not in other sciences, closed source firmware on sequencers?
@ramsey It was a massively bad sign that the biggest opponent of open source software was allowed to buy the biggest repository of open source software.
Everyone who worked, or specifically owned github, and sold it to Microsoft are some of the biggest class traitors to ever exist.
They could have sold it to anyone else, but it shows how either they truly didn't understand their role, or their greed was more important than basics of computer science.
You can find Bruce Perens on mastodon. After cofounding the OSI which created many of the problems we face today, his current big idea is called postopen.
It's like a funhouse mirror of the GPL. Powerful centralized organization with taxation powers, naive worship of small business, payment mechanisms that can be gamed and lead to endless disputes, and worse.
Unrealistically utopian in the very worst sense of the word. I would be frightened to live in a world where it could exist.
@ramsey yes please. gpl and agpl all the things. companies running away scared scared of it and not wanting to touch it is good and on purpose! if they can't play good, they shouldn't play at all.
I wonder if the community has grounds to sue any of these companies who are ditching the AGPL in favor of proprietary, source-available licenses, especially under “third-party beneficiary contract” legal theories, like @conservancy did in their suit against Vizio.
If the source code originally used AGPL, isn’t it still contractually obligated to ensure those rights to its users, including any new source code added to it?
@lewiscowles1986@conservancy In truth, I know how this all works. I’m exploring the hypothetical “what if the licensor is bound by the license themselves?”
Obviously, everyone and their brother wants to point out that I misunderstand this and it’s not the case because the licensor can do whatever they want, since they own it. Yep, I know that.
But, when you release something to the Commons, is it really yours anymore? (That’s the gist of what I’m exploring.)
@ramsey@conservancy @isaacs argued for similar when I complained about npmjs restoring a package that was maliciously updated.
NPM walked back the new version (effectively just refusing to distribute it) if I understand correctly and restored the prior version against the author consent.
@ramsey@conservancy
Ah. Mine was less for you and more for others reading your posts; but I guess in a raw sense, even if closed source, there is no physical or natural way to compel anyone not to use any "public code" or "code they can read"
Like if I took away the CLI daemon shell to redis and embedded it into a closed executable, most folks wouldn't know. I could further rename a bunch of symbols and I could likely get away with it... but I'd definitely be sith / dark-side at that point.
@ramsey@conservancy
In volation of a copyright doesn't mean much though was my point. I Get it, it could ruin your life and reputation if you do it. My point is more about the practical, actual limitations, natural or physical, or which there are none. It's like the invisible wall the mime fights against.
@ramsey@conservancy I think there's a severability for new source, treating it as a customization, which is why everything forks from the last (A)GPL release.
@derickr@conservancy Because it’s viral. Any modifications you make to the source code that is licensed under GPL/AGPL must also provide the same rights to users.
@ramsey@conservancy The license for what is released under the license is indeed not revokable. That doesn't prevent relicensing under a non copyleft license (as long as you have permission under one form or another).
@ramsey@derickr@conservancy copyright holder of a piece of software always can change the license of NEW code release. But that can only be done if and only if they are the sole copyright holder over the software. That happens because people sign CLAs waving their own rights to code they contribute.
An already released piece of code out there under gpl cannot be changed retroactively to something else.
Wasn’t the whole point of the GPL that there could never be a rug-pull?
It doesn’t matter that you own the copyright on the software, you can’t revoke the rights on the code that was licensed under its terms. Therefore, even the copyright holder is bound by these terms. They can fork their own project, but if they want to relicense it, since the existing source includes these license terms, any new source must also give users the same rights. Right?
@ramsey No. Not if you can relicense the whole code base because you have all the rights to it (or get every contributor's permission). For example through CLAs where contributors give you a non exclusive right to do whatever you want with their contribution. Unlikely to happen with GPL, but quite common for companies using the AGPL (like MongoDB did).
@derickr Those contributors would have to completely assign their copyrights, and even then, I’m not convinced that the original owner could technically change the license. I don’t think this argument has ever been made in court.
@ramsey Yes, they have to agree with it in one way or another.
Which is exactly what many companies with AGPL software require: a CLA that reassign copyright, or ones that allow the CLA owner to do whatever they want with a contribution.
@ramsey@derickr Unfortunately contributors completely assigning their copyrights via CLAs is extremely common. But I've been told that even without explicit copyright assignments it is possible for majority maintainers to change a license under some circumstances (I remember this came up in the context of the @htop license, do any of the current maintainers have any more pointers?)
@hisham_hm@derickr@htop Yes. It’s possible to change the license without input from the contributors, as long as you’re not changing any of the end-user rights they implied with their contributions. For example, it might be possible to change from a BSD-like license to an actual BSD license, because the rights granted by each contributor are not changing.
@ramsey I worked for a company that used GPLv2 with a CLA precisely so they could relicense. It's the "rules for thee, not for me" licensing tactic, used for when startups are concerned about their ability to sell out if all their code is GPL-bound. You basically use your accrued CLA rights to publish a "new" copy that isn't encumbered. I forked a GPLv2 project from that company but I don't have the CLAs so my fork is GPLv2 forever.
@ramsey Basically, you need significant contributions outside the company under the GPL without a CLA for it to "stick" — at least, that's my understanding of prevailing legal theory. I don't think most license strategies have been tested in court because they turn into protracted Google v Oracle messes because suddenly the entire industry cares.
@grmpyprogrammer My original subtitle was something like “A Tragedy (of the Commons) in Five Acts,” but we all know tragedies never end well. Usually, everyone dies. It was getting pretty depressing and dark, so I changed tactics.
Add comment