3 ms·

I get the feeling everyone's purging the GPL, and I'm not sure this is a good long-term goal. I still think we need legal protection against backdoors, spying,

by jordigh 10y ago

I get the feeling everyone's purging the GPL, and I'm not sure this is a good long-term goal. I still think we need legal protection against backdoors, spying, and DRM; and our legislators have only given us copyright law to try to perform legal judo with. We'll see how things work out, but I'm not optimistic with the overall GPL purge. I fear that it's taking us to a world where Black Mirror is a familiar reality instead of a fictional horror.

grzm 10y ago
Can you expand on the relationship between the "overall GPL purge" and "a world where Black Mirror is a familiar reality"?
- jordigh 10y ago
  The GPL is a defense mechanism. OpenWrt is the source code for routers, which are quite literally the gatekeepers of the internet. It was obtained via GPL enforcement. It doesn't look like that would have happened without the GPL. When source code is available, evil actors are just less likely to act evil. Even if nobody is reading the source code, just the act of publishing it psychologically nudges people towards acting less sociopathically. When people feel watched, they are less likely to try to cheat others, delete their ebooks, spy on them, or experiment on their emotions like Facebook did. This happens even if nobody is actually watching; just the potential of being watched is enough. And people do need a nudge to publish source code. Sure, unimportant bits of code that you don't really care about, that aren't core to your business, that you'd rather have someone else maintain for you; that's when you really love "open source" and you push your changes upstream and you look like a wonderful community member. It's for the missing important bits, the secret firmware blobs controlling our phone chips, our BIOS, our cars; even our refrigerators and our light bulbs; that's when you need GPL enforcement. I know hackers hate lawyers, but GPL enforcement rarely goes as far as lawyers. The GPL is a deterrent, a firearm that anyone can use and almost always remains dormant. People seem to be pushing towards legal disarmament, MIT license everywhere. I don't think this is enough to deter bad actors.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to put in such a lengthy reply. That said, I respectfully don't see the relationship between the source code license and, perhaps, what the software is used for, in particular, the social ramifications of technology that Black Mirror often addresses. The anti-sociopathic psychological nudge due to publishing source code doesn't seem very compelling to me. I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
    - Ace17 10y ago
      > That said, I respectfully don't see the relationship between the source code license and, perhaps, what the software is used for, in particular, the social ramifications of technology that Black Mirror often addresses. Because you might be assuming that the user always controls the software. However, as long as the source code is kept secret, the developers/distributors also have some level of control on the users. It becomes possible (and easy) to insert malware-like stuff in the software (i.e things unwanted by users, like tracking/spying, license checks, forced upgrades, feature removal, remote file removal, malware installation, etc), allowing black-mirroresque situations (software or devices forcing you to watch advertisements before you can watch what you wanted, complete history of your browsing). If the program is licensed under a free software license, it implies that the source code is public and modifiable. It makes these things are a lot harder to hide, and a lot harder to keep enabled.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by jordigh 10y ago

grzm 10y ago

Can you expand on the relationship between the "overall GPL purge" and "a world where Black Mirror is a familiar reality"?

jordigh 10y ago
The GPL is a defense mechanism. OpenWrt is the source code for routers, which are quite literally the gatekeepers of the internet. It was obtained via GPL enforcement. It doesn't look like that would have happened without the GPL. When source code is available, evil actors are just less likely to act evil. Even if nobody is reading the source code, just the act of publishing it psychologically nudges people towards acting less sociopathically. When people feel watched, they are less likely to try to cheat others, delete their ebooks, spy on them, or experiment on their emotions like Facebook did. This happens even if nobody is actually watching; just the potential of being watched is enough. And people do need a nudge to publish source code. Sure, unimportant bits of code that you don't really care about, that aren't core to your business, that you'd rather have someone else maintain for you; that's when you really love "open source" and you push your changes upstream and you look like a wonderful community member. It's for the missing important bits, the secret firmware blobs controlling our phone chips, our BIOS, our cars; even our refrigerators and our light bulbs; that's when you need GPL enforcement. I know hackers hate lawyers, but GPL enforcement rarely goes as far as lawyers. The GPL is a deterrent, a firearm that anyone can use and almost always remains dormant. People seem to be pushing towards legal disarmament, MIT license everywhere. I don't think this is enough to deter bad actors.
- grzm 10y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to put in such a lengthy reply. That said, I respectfully don't see the relationship between the source code license and, perhaps, what the software is used for, in particular, the social ramifications of technology that Black Mirror often addresses. The anti-sociopathic psychological nudge due to publishing source code doesn't seem very compelling to me. I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
  - Ace17 10y ago
    > That said, I respectfully don't see the relationship between the source code license and, perhaps, what the software is used for, in particular, the social ramifications of technology that Black Mirror often addresses. Because you might be assuming that the user always controls the software. However, as long as the source code is kept secret, the developers/distributors also have some level of control on the users. It becomes possible (and easy) to insert malware-like stuff in the software (i.e things unwanted by users, like tracking/spying, license checks, forced upgrades, feature removal, remote file removal, malware installation, etc), allowing black-mirroresque situations (software or devices forcing you to watch advertisements before you can watch what you wanted, complete history of your browsing). If the program is licensed under a free software license, it implies that the source code is public and modifiable. It makes these things are a lot harder to hide, and a lot harder to keep enabled.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]