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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... GIMP is free software and ethi

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... GIMP is free software and ethical. Paint.net is the same rental model that Photoshop is now using and is completely against the public interest for us to put our resources into that sort of business.

daxelrod 10y ago
> Paint.net is the same rental model that Photoshop is now using We're talking about http://www.getpaint.net http://www.getpaint.net, right? This is proprietary desktop software, but as far as I can tell, it is gratis. (They do solicit donations, but paying has no bearing on the license.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- quadrangle 10y ago
  Sorry, I'd seen web service in this direction and assumed that's what this is, since "paint.net" isn't a desktop software name really.
  - MikusR 10y ago
    It really is.
bratsche 10y ago
Paint.Net used to be MIT licensed. I don't really know why he went back to closed source but I saw a comment he wrote where he said that releasing the source brought him only misery. Does anyone know any details about that? For anyone interested, the MIT-licensed source is still out there: https://github.com/rivy/OpenPDN https://github.com/rivy/OpenPDN
- ue_ 10y ago
  That's very unfortunate for me, as a user and amateur programmer myself. It's even more a shame to see something become proprietary. I really wish people wouldn't do this.
  - attractivechaos 10y ago
    > It's even more a shame to see something become proprietary I wouldn't call this a "shame". A project as complex and significant as GIMP/paint.net may take a lot of time to maintain and to improve. If you can't find a persistent way to fund yourself, turning it proprietary becomes a tentative option. I understand and respect the decision of the developer of paint.net. As open source developers (I am one of them), we are responsible not only for our users but also for ourselves and our families. Everyone has a life after all.
    - phunehehe0 10y ago
      I believe "shame" in the grandparent post just means "pity". https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/oh-what-a-shame https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/oh-wh... > used for expressing sympathy or disappointment
- Nexxxeh 10y ago
  https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paintnet-v35/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paint...
  - eriknstr 10y ago
    From the wording in the blog post I think that in some of the cases where people redistributed Paint.NET they broke the terms of the license. In such cases the original author is right to feel that his work has been plagiarized. None of my projects have been big enough that this has ever happened to me so I can't really offer any useful advice for what to do. I think it's sad that he chose to close the source though and as a consequence of it I can now no longer (since 2009 actually but this is the first time I've been made aware of the change of license because the last time I was using Windows on any of my own computers was around that time and the last time I installed Paint.NET on one of my computers it was still open source) advice friends and family to install Paint.NET when they are looking for a photo editing program. I release most of my own code under a license similar to MIT (the ISC license) and as long as the people who are using my code honor the conditions of the license they are free to rebrand it and sell it if they want to or to do whatever else that doesn't violate the license. Often I feel that if someone is going to redistribute an MIT licensed project with modifications, they should rebrand it. For example say that I wanted to sell copies of FreeBSD as a whole with some of my own patches and modifications. I would not be able to call that FreeBSD without first working out an agreement with the FreeBSD Foundation [1]. The reason for this being that FreeBSD is a trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation and so they get to retain control of it. This is how it should be. This is what I like about the MIT family of licenses, the code is free but the license does not grant rights to use a trademark. When I say rebrand, note that proper attribution is still required. However, if binaries are redistributed unmodified then I think it should be ok to refer to it by the original name because then that name is an accurate representation of exactly what is being distributed. Furthermore I think that when just maintaining source changes in a public repo it should not be necessary to rebrand. Meanwhile, if someone completely stripped my name from something I wrote and they didn't give me the proper attribution, they'd be in violation of the license and therefore the license would be void. If someone is going to use my code, they are going to attribute me in the manner that is set out in the license. IANAL, TINLA. [1]: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage-terms-and-conditions/ https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage-term...
RandomOpinion 10y ago
> GIMP is free software and ethical Implying that non-free software is unethical? That's a rather rude thing to say.
- rvern 10y ago
  From https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html: > A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical. For people who think that users deserve the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software they use, nonfree software is indeed unethical. Even more so when the software is used by the developers as an instrument of injust power.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Stallman founded the whole free software movement on the theory that asking a user to execute code without the ability to investigate/modify/share it is unethical. Read any of his essays (and you definitely should if you haven't) and it's clear that his motive is moral/ethical. This sentiment is frequently shared among open-source developers.
- quadrangle 10y ago
  It's a continuum. Respecting software freedom is the most ethical action, so using proprietary terms is less ethical. The software may, depending on your view, not be net unethical at that point. It's further unethical if they have problematic terms in the EULA besides being proprietary in the first place. Competing with free software and thus taking attention and therefore resources away from the free software is negative ethically, in the same sense that advertising bottled water is unethical even if it didn't have the environmental problems that it has. It's especially unethical if software spies on you and advertises at you or even worse things. Implying that non-free software is unethical isn't rude. Especially since I didn't insist that this particular software is deeply unethical. I just suggested that support for ethical software like GIMP is the right thing to do and so supporting less ethical software is something I'm suggesting avoiding. Now, having learned from other comments about this particular case, I'll agree that as proprietary software goes, Paint.net sounds unusually good in the ethics realm, just not quite on par with GIMP, but I'd say net ethical after all.

daxelrod 10y ago

> Paint.net is the same rental model that Photoshop is now using We're talking about http://www.getpaint.net http://www.getpaint.net, right? This is proprietary desktop software, but as far as I can tell, it is gratis. (They do solicit donations, but paying has no bearing on the license.)

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
quadrangle 10y ago
Sorry, I'd seen web service in this direction and assumed that's what this is, since "paint.net" isn't a desktop software name really.
- MikusR 10y ago
  It really is.

bratsche 10y ago

Paint.Net used to be MIT licensed. I don't really know why he went back to closed source but I saw a comment he wrote where he said that releasing the source brought him only misery. Does anyone know any details about that? For anyone interested, the MIT-licensed source is still out there: https://github.com/rivy/OpenPDN https://github.com/rivy/OpenPDN

ue_ 10y ago
That's very unfortunate for me, as a user and amateur programmer myself. It's even more a shame to see something become proprietary. I really wish people wouldn't do this.
- attractivechaos 10y ago
  > It's even more a shame to see something become proprietary I wouldn't call this a "shame". A project as complex and significant as GIMP/paint.net may take a lot of time to maintain and to improve. If you can't find a persistent way to fund yourself, turning it proprietary becomes a tentative option. I understand and respect the decision of the developer of paint.net. As open source developers (I am one of them), we are responsible not only for our users but also for ourselves and our families. Everyone has a life after all.
  - phunehehe0 10y ago
    I believe "shame" in the grandparent post just means "pity". https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/oh-what-a-shame https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/oh-wh... > used for expressing sympathy or disappointment
Nexxxeh 10y ago
https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paintnet-v35/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paint...
- eriknstr 10y ago
  From the wording in the blog post I think that in some of the cases where people redistributed Paint.NET they broke the terms of the license. In such cases the original author is right to feel that his work has been plagiarized. None of my projects have been big enough that this has ever happened to me so I can't really offer any useful advice for what to do. I think it's sad that he chose to close the source though and as a consequence of it I can now no longer (since 2009 actually but this is the first time I've been made aware of the change of license because the last time I was using Windows on any of my own computers was around that time and the last time I installed Paint.NET on one of my computers it was still open source) advice friends and family to install Paint.NET when they are looking for a photo editing program. I release most of my own code under a license similar to MIT (the ISC license) and as long as the people who are using my code honor the conditions of the license they are free to rebrand it and sell it if they want to or to do whatever else that doesn't violate the license. Often I feel that if someone is going to redistribute an MIT licensed project with modifications, they should rebrand it. For example say that I wanted to sell copies of FreeBSD as a whole with some of my own patches and modifications. I would not be able to call that FreeBSD without first working out an agreement with the FreeBSD Foundation [1]. The reason for this being that FreeBSD is a trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation and so they get to retain control of it. This is how it should be. This is what I like about the MIT family of licenses, the code is free but the license does not grant rights to use a trademark. When I say rebrand, note that proper attribution is still required. However, if binaries are redistributed unmodified then I think it should be ok to refer to it by the original name because then that name is an accurate representation of exactly what is being distributed. Furthermore I think that when just maintaining source changes in a public repo it should not be necessary to rebrand. Meanwhile, if someone completely stripped my name from something I wrote and they didn't give me the proper attribution, they'd be in violation of the license and therefore the license would be void. If someone is going to use my code, they are going to attribute me in the manner that is set out in the license. IANAL, TINLA. [1]: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage-terms-and-conditions/ https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage-term...

RandomOpinion 10y ago

> GIMP is free software and ethical Implying that non-free software is unethical? That's a rather rude thing to say.

rvern 10y ago
From https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html: > A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical. For people who think that users deserve the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software they use, nonfree software is indeed unethical. Even more so when the software is used by the developers as an instrument of injust power.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Stallman founded the whole free software movement on the theory that asking a user to execute code without the ability to investigate/modify/share it is unethical. Read any of his essays (and you definitely should if you haven't) and it's clear that his motive is moral/ethical. This sentiment is frequently shared among open-source developers.
quadrangle 10y ago
It's a continuum. Respecting software freedom is the most ethical action, so using proprietary terms is less ethical. The software may, depending on your view, not be net unethical at that point. It's further unethical if they have problematic terms in the EULA besides being proprietary in the first place. Competing with free software and thus taking attention and therefore resources away from the free software is negative ethically, in the same sense that advertising bottled water is unethical even if it didn't have the environmental problems that it has. It's especially unethical if software spies on you and advertises at you or even worse things. Implying that non-free software is unethical isn't rude. Especially since I didn't insist that this particular software is deeply unethical. I just suggested that support for ethical software like GIMP is the right thing to do and so supporting less ethical software is something I'm suggesting avoiding. Now, having learned from other comments about this particular case, I'll agree that as proprietary software goes, Paint.net sounds unusually good in the ethics realm, just not quite on par with GIMP, but I'd say net ethical after all.