AFAIK, the old Redis was BSD licensed. BSD is very permissive, but it doesn't grab the intellectual property to the project: they still belong to the original author (Apache is the only open source license that says your contribution now belong to the project and it is not yours anymore).
That means there is a lot of code belonging to someone not Redis Labs, which Redis Labs should've asked if they can changed the license of the contributor's intellectual property.
This means that the old, BSD-license Redis still exists and Redis Labs should still provide it with the old license. The new, bullshit-licensed Redis should be a fork and, as a fork, have another name.
@juliobiason #Copyright holders can relicense their work under any license they like anytime.
Yet: 1)Usually the original authors are the copyright holders
2) #relicensing should comply with other licensed works (I.e. libraries, frameworks and so on)
3) AFAICS #BSD and #Apache#licenses does not have termination clauses that actually works
If you see the AGPL licenses on my free and open source work and you think “damn you, I can’t use this to enrich myself or my corporation without sharing back what I’ve built on top of what you’ve freely shared and thus contribute to cultivating a healthy commons where others might enjoy the same benefits from my work that I want to obtain from yours” (a) you really have long-winded thoughts and (b) well, you already see the flaw in your reasoning.
(Remember this whenever anyone complains about ‘the viral nature of GPL’ or sings praises for (neo)’liberal’ licenses like MIT and BSD that enable corporations to partake of the free labour of others and enclose the commons.)
I don't understand Wikipedia's article Comparison of machine translation applications. Under "license" a lot of them just says SaaS. But Software as a service is not a license, it's a business modell or mode of distribution, right? It could be free with the AGPL license, for example, or proprietary. Both can be SaaS, that doesn't tell you anything about their license?
And yes, #DRM and #CopyProtection is the reason why huge broadcasters have their workstations' and servers' drives cloned and backed up as setup in a ready-to-go-state because they can't be bothered dealing with shitty DRM and product activation if a device decides to die.
And money isn't the problem: They literally have fully-decked out hp z-series workstations on cold standby in case one breaks.
And yes, I think that people should press charges for #theft amidst these cases of #DigitalTheft!
Seriously...
I wish for #lawyers to make the precedent that #perpetual#licenses mean they'll have to honor that perpetually.
In fact, #Steam does even have provisions and insurances in place to provide people their purchased #library of #games without their #DRM in case they were to fold / declare bankrupcy / dissolve their platform...
Openly sharing content to the Wikipedia projects is our bread and butter, but it's important to involve native language speakers where possible. With the help of the Islamic Civilization User Group, Martin Poulter discovered that this Arabic manuscript describing how to treat a tarantula bite with a pomegranate had been uploaded backwards, making it impossible to read. The image has now been reversed on Commons: https://bit.ly/417Wnw1
As a consequence, #Engoron canceled the #business#licenses that allow #Trump to operate his companies in #NY…
On Fri, an #appeals court judge, Peter #Moulton, paused that part of Justice Engoron’s order, but refused to stay the #trial itself, as Trump’s attys had requested. While Trump’s control of his companies is still at risk, he will not immediately need to #dissolve the #legal entities he uses to manage #properties. The issue will be argued in front of a panel of appeals court judges. #AD1
Developers make legal decisions everyday without consulting a lawyer, just by choosing open source software to use. But how well-equipped are they to make judgement calls on legal documents? This month, we look at research around that very question.
There are many large and #serious#problems in the world. Many people are victimized by the #system in a thousand different ways. This is not their story; it is not about their problems, but this should not be seen as minimizing them.
I'd like to talk about something a little closer to home: #employee#abuse in the #tech field. I've been in this field for <mumble> years and worked for tiny companies, medium consulting companies, large orgs, and as a one-man independent contractor.
I've done a lot of work that I released as CC-BY, but I can't do that anymore, because I don't consent to have my work scraped for AI. That violates the BY part!
I wrote it in May and held it for a while to think about what to do with it, for example, move it to my blog or submit it as an article somewhere. But for now I think I'll just release it in this form and consider next steps later.
I hope it's useful. I'd welcome methods, examples, links, or details I might have overlooked.
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'.