The GNU Project turned 40 on Tuesday. Congratulations GNU!
In honour of the achievements of the multitude of talented people who have contributed to GNU over the last 40 years, I'm going to pull finger and teach mysefl how to install an updated mobile GNU OS on my PinePhone (props to the @PINE64 crew).
Props to the Chief GNUisance Dr Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, and creator of the philosophical scaffolding of software freedoms and copyleft.
Without his work, we wouldn't even have this decentralised space - powered 100% by Free Code (so far) - to argue about whether he deserves props. Arguably the net as we know it could not exist.
> Le système d’exploitation #GNU fête en ce moment ses 40 ans. Le projet, initié par Richard #Stallman, a donné naissance à un courant de pensée, qui s’est plus tard matérialisé dans la Free Software Foundation. On lui doit également la notion de #copyleft.
I think, given that MS Azure costs at least 10 x more than many of its smaller (but far more worthy) competitors, the NZ public service (i.e. we taxpayers) are being ripped off. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201838240/should-nz-health-data-be-in-the-cloud I need to have a word with Ben Creet about praising "cloud providers'" security... some are far worse than others, and Microsoft's no where near the head of the pack.
@ramblingsteve even then I don't think it'd be acceptable. I think all gov't procured by government needs to be open standards compliant (see https://openstandards.nz) and any development funded by public $ needs to be fully #Libre - #Copyleft as is currently 'recommended' in NZ with the NZGOAL-SE, but routinely ignored by procurement agents because vendors - surprise surprise - make a lot more money by selling gov't proprietary software that adheres to few if any open standards.
@yogthos "unintentionally" as in: the #copyleft of the #GPL does not have teeth when it’s just used on a server, and too few people chose the #AGPL to preserve copyleft.
I'm spending significant amount of my working time avoiding #copyleft licenses only to realize that I might be volunteering within an organization that promotes copyleft. 🤦♀️
@maaretp
What do you mean by avoiding #copypeft licensees? Not using #copyleft licensed stuff?
Or only contribute/use permissive licensed stuff?
I'm puzzled what's your reason for this 🤔
Would you care to tell me more?
(Hope this doesn't sound "demanding" 🥴)
@mttaggart thanks for the explanation - fwiw, I'm a data point demonstrating a developer can make a good living as a purely #LibreSoftware dev (#Copyleft is my preference)... my whole career thus far (~30 years)... I don't think proprietary software is really inevitable... nor (in any way) desirable.
In other words: it does not follow that 'paid software developers' depends on proprietary software.
And, aside from the odd bit of firmware/BIOS, my entire computing toolset is Libre.
Yet another corporate-led #FOSS project getting screwed by the company that is supposed to be taking care of it.
If you or your business uses it, and if you care about such things (and I hope you do) ... time to quit using #Terraform and switch over to #OpenTF ( https://openTF.org/ ).
The parent corp changed the project license from a FOSS license to a more profit-friendly business license. Of course, it was promptly forked by FOSS folk to maintain a free and open version.
@ErictheCerise
> "HashiCorp that has forked its own projects under a different license"
This is another reminder never to assign your copyright to a private company. License them to use it under a copyleft license, but keep the copyright. If they want to avoid publishing code for their modifications, make them pay you for a copyleft exemption (if you're willing to grant one, you don't have to).
The old "we don't want competitors to undercut us" thing is such a bad justification for switching to non Open Source licenses (e.g. Elastic, Hashicorp…). You can absolutely keep some features in proprietary extensions and make them available to enterprise clients while keeping the main software OSS.
Cluster mode, SSO, SCIM, audit logs, account impersonation, integrations with proprietary software, the list goes on and on. And these features are usually hard to replicate, good for you.
@galdor And let's not forget switching to #AGPL v3 will not only ensure a #copyleft license for the community but will also forces the competitors/distributors (read #Amazon) do the same.
#AI#GenerativeAI#Llama2#Meta#OpenSource: "The term “open source” should not be expanded to include releases that do not comply with such a standard (or the existing, general standard embodied in the Open Source Definition). Meta should, therefore, not be using the term “open source” for a model whose license fundamentally breaks open-source development – as is the case with Llama 2’s anti-competitive clauses.
Yet the case also confirms the need to revisit the open source standard, either by modifying the definition itself, or by establishing additional protocols, specific to AI development. Crucially, these should establish norms for training data transparency. Regulators might introduce these – although the recent agreement between the White House and American AI companies indicates that some are reluctant. For this reason, the open-source community should also define a norm – even if questions about data provenance and transparency fall beyond the scope of the traditional open-source approach. The latest discussion paper from the Digital Public Goods Alliance offers guidance. It proposes that the digital public goods standards, when applied to AI systems, require open licensing of training data. The paper also argues for further work on defining a data governance standard for AI systems.
While the Llama 2 release has significant limitations and faults – when reviewed against the emerging principles for open-source AI development – it also includes novel mechanisms, like the attempts to build community-based governance. Hopefully, Meta will commit – in the spirit of such governance – to supporting a collaborative process aimed at defining the standard for open-source AI releases; and to making future release strategies compliant with this standard."
I would very much prefer that people who are interested in the social aspects of computer programs just support #freesoftware instead of #opensource. Free Software is political. It activily promotes awareness about these social issues.
The entire city of #Yellowknife is being evacuated. This is unprecedented and terrifying.
And thousands of citizens aren’t aware because Meta continues to block news in the country.
This is what happens when citizens are convinced to use an American multinational corporation as their community’s primary communications channel — a corporation that couldn’t give two shits about anything except its “fiduciary duty” to shareholders.
It's way more complex but it allows for some consistent yet realistic approaches.
I.e. one can acknowledge that #grsecurity and #RedHat showed the need for stronger #Copyleft whilst also noting that neither #GPLv3 nor #AGPLv3 nor #SSPL doesn't adress that problem and instead demand illegal actions to comply [i.e. surrendering all patents] which ignore the reality of #tech.
I love when a company who built their whole business on top of open source developed by others (Linux, Ruby, Go, etc) decry "vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and the community work on OSS projects, for their own commercial goals" switch to a proprietary license rather than a copyleft that actually codifies the culture of reciprocal sharing.
@kkarhan@ian Also organizations developing #FOSS licenses (especially #copyleft ones) such as FSF or OSI underestimate they how much large corps can exploit the licenses, such as all the patents, DRM, CLA, tivotization, now with EULA and contracts,...
Also most FOSS advocate organizations realized that large corps do have enough resources to replace a unwanted licensed components to another, and license the whole work under an older license and they cannot do anything against it.
I'm delighted that software I wrote runs far and wide, but each time someone tells me their employer forbids any contribution back, even on personal time, I see more appeal in Copyleft.
@juliaferraioli +1 and would like to add that #EthicalSource licensing matters too. And that ideological tensions between the permissiveness of some #FreeSoftware licensing and the more opinionated #CopyLeft licensing areas exist.
Myself I am concerned about protective licensing that may be taken as a prefigurative measure against unintended harmful consequences of the use of software. https://firstdonoharm.dev/ was recommended to me, seems quite comprehensive and rigorous, but still researching..
I'm not just talking about "published source" like #Tarsnap's client, but also #AGPLv3 and #SSPL which are basically designed to prevent competiton - #GAFAM or not - from making any commercial product.
Let's pretend we're proponents of free and open source software, enlist an army of week intentioned FOSS developers to contribute to our project, and once successfully deployed in many enterprises across the industry...
Pull the rug out and convert it into a proprietary product with a bunch of undisclosed, hidden code that we won't ever show you - Muahahaha...
Yeah. I see this happening right now in several prominent and celebrated open source projects that you're probably completely oblivious to those sinister objectives.
This is why the most ubiquitous desktop operating system in the world is Minix.
What's that you say?
Yup, Minix. But that's no secret, the cat was out of the bag on that one a few years back (after being secretly so for many years).
Before you contribute any more code, translations, or documentation to a software project, consider this:
Now, there's another point to be made here, without specifically naming any projects currently abusing user contributions. Let's call this hypothetical project "hammer&anvil", itself a fork of a popular software project - but claims it's all about being free and transparent, wanting to distinguish itself from the project it's forked from by adopting GPL3 instead of a permissive license.
Sure, the project's BDFL (let's call her "Strawberry Daiquiri"), says one day, "were forming a fork of project X because they've formed a company and I'm afraid what they are going to do with X because it's under a permissive license. This girl will be brutally transparent and completely run by the community under the philosophy of anarchy, but we're going to call it a sociocracy so you don't know that it's really just me making a proprietary product for my own ambitions".
Well, Miss Daquiri decides to capture by capitalizing upon the sentiment that folks have for Copyleft - it's supposed to protect free software, right?
Well, this fork (hammer& anvil) is a hosted solution - meaning SaaS, meaning, it runs elsewhere (other than in your computer) in the cloud as a publicly accessible service. Hmmmm.
That means that the most appropriate Copyleft license is likely the AGPL, and not the GPL as one would expect fur a desktop or other local program that you actually download and install in your laptop or server.
The GPL requires that when you distribute (give away or sell) your program, either by letting someone download or handing it to them on a USB stick, Etc., You must also make available ALL of the source code, including any changes you've made to the program.
But if you run a modified GPL program as a service in the cloud you don't have to provide ANY off the changes you've made to the code.
Hmmm.
With AGPL you do have to supply your users with ANY code modifications you've made to the running service to which they have accounts...
So let's just say that you fork Mastodon, and call it Glitch-Soc, modify it, and run it in the cloud for people to create accounts on and use (for free or for monthly subscription fees - it doesn't matter). ANY and ALL changes to the code base that you make MUST be made available anytime a user asks for the source code, because it's an #AGPL licensed product.
And in reality, such is actually the case with this exceedingly popular and capable #fork. It's a fine product in it's own right.
But had you changed the license to all contributions moving forward to #GPL, you wouldn't have to provide any modifications you made (unless you give or sell the software product itself on say, a USB stick or via download).
Why? Because you're just allowing them to access and use your service, your not actually giving them the program to use for themselves elsewhere - so any modifications you made since forking under a different license (GPL instead of AGPL) isn't something you have to show them.
You've essentially created a #proprietary product (if you're so nefarious as to hide your code changes by butt disclosing them), the only code of which you must supply being that which existed under the AGPL before you forked it.
Both #Copyleft and permissive open source #licenses like #BSD and #MIT can be a good thing, or they can be abused beyond the intentions of the #FOSS inclined project contributors. Just make sure that you understand what can and cannot be changed where your intended purpose for the #distribution and #availability of source code is concerned....
There are BIG differences between the ramifications of each #license and how they can affect transparency and distribution of your free gifts to the world.
In our hypothetical scenario with hammer&anvil, the #BDFL, #Strawberry Daiquiri, has decided that she's going to launch a hosted service, and she's going to include things that you don't see and can't be aware of behind the scenes which, if disclosed, you would have nothing to do with - but you'll never know what kinds of scary things she's done with the product that only resembles the original on the surface, because Miss Daquiri will never have to show you the code she has added behind the scenes.
"Beautiful Victor, Beautiful."
-The Monster, speaking to his creator in the film, 'Frankenstein, The True Story'.