8 ms·

FSF marks commons clause as non-free, recommends users fork software using it

196 points by DannyBee 8y ago

metildaa 8y ago
This judgement by the FSF is unsurprising, Commond Clause is like the Patriot Act, a purposeful misnomer by its authors to attempt to gain unearned goodwill & respect.
- eganist 8y ago
  > Commond [sic] Clause is like the Patriot Act, a purposeful misnomer by its authors to attempt to gain unearned goodwill & respect. The author (not plural) describes in depth the differences between recognized open source licenses v. the commons clause (https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/) and also describes her intent behind developing the license. Specific emphasis appears to have been devoted toward distinguishing this license as being distinctly non-open in the FAQ printed on the root of the domain. (To be clear: I have no affiliation with the author or with this license and any known implementations of it.)
  - metildaa 8y ago
    The Commons Clause is added as a restriction to existing open source licensed projects, to those that aren't clued in that the Commons Clause has been applied, they can easily be misled by this poorly named restriction.
    - kemitchell 8y ago
      Creative Commons offers noncommercial licenses even more restrictive than Commons Clause. I'd've picked a different name, too. But the idea that "commons" means only open source, or only free software, doesn't sit right. Compared to pulling their software back as fully closed or source-available, all-rights-reserved, a Commons Clause combo makes a lot more available.
      - duskwuff 8y ago
        Creative Commons specifically recommends against the use of any of their licenses for software. The CC licenses are primarily intended to be applied to artistic works, and the NC/ND variants make a lot more sense in that context.
        c22 8y ago
        They make an exception for CC0 though [0]. [0] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC0_to_computer_software.3F_If_so.2C_is_there_a_recommended_implementation.3F https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC...
        cyphar 8y ago
        CC0 is basically a public domain contribution with a very permissive fallback, and is very unlike any of their other licenses. But this is getting off-track -- the CC licenses being discussed are the ones other than CC0.
        kemitchell 8y ago
        CC0 was proposed to OSI approval, but hung up, due largely to the fact that it expressly says it does not cover patent rights.
        kemitchell 8y ago
        You're right. And I'm well aware. But I don't think that changes my point on "commons". CC-BY-NC is a "commons" license for artwork, music, screenplays, scripts, poems, and novels. Why wouldn't a noncommercial software license be a "commons" license, as well?
ru999gol 8y ago
Thats what killed Redis, good on them for warning about it. https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/22/Commons-clause-will-destroy-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/22/Commons-clause-will-destr...
- cpburns2009 8y ago
  Isn't the "commons clause" only on a few modules? Redis itself is still BSD. See: https://redislabs.com/community/licenses/ https://redislabs.com/community/licenses/
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    They failed so badly at the PR around this change that many people overlooked that fact. They still inflicted damage on their reputation. It's kind of like how the Internet was left with the incorrect impression that Google removed "don't be evil" from their Code of Conduct. (It's still there, now at the end instead of the beginning after a rewording. The new parent company Alphabet has a different but similar slogan; both apply to Google. This is separate question, of course, from any more concrete discussion of Google's current ethics than what their code of conduct says.)
  - fmajid 8y ago
    Redis’ core is still BSD-licensee but Salvatore Sanfilippo transferred the IP rights to Redis Labs, which means there is nothing to stop Redis Labs from pulling another bait-and-switch and making Redis itself non-free. http://antirez.com/news/121 http://antirez.com/news/121 I think all companies using Redis should make contingency plans for when that happens. I’m afraid forking Redis will likely prove necessary given Redis Labs’ record of questionable behavior.
inasring 8y ago
"So if anyone tries to convince you that Commons Clause is wrong because it doesn't meet all the requirements of the Open Source Definition, you should ask them if proprietary is better." "Freedom for others to commercialize your software comes with starting an open source project, and while that freedom is important to uphold, growth and commercial pressures will inevitably force some projects to close." https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/
- LukeShu 8y ago
  > "you should ask them if proprietary is better [than Commons Clause]." Neither is better, because they are the same. Commons Clause is proprietary. If a piece of FOSS that I used became proprietary, I would fork (or use a fork) based on the last FOSS version. Just because the Commons Clause kinda looks like it's FOSS if you squint, doesn't make it any different.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Commons Clause is clearly neither Free Software nor Open Source, but I don't see how that makes it proprietary.
    - LukeShu 8y ago
      Well, the FSF defines "“proprietary software” as synonymous with nonfree software."[1] But that's kind of a cop-out answer. "Proprietary" means that the copyright holder retains certain rights, rather than granting the rights to the recipient. In the case of the Commons Clause, the rights that they retain propriety of are the rights to commercial use. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySo...
      - int_19h 8y ago
        When someone releases their software under GPL, they still retain certain rights rather than granting them to the recipient - notably, the right to sell it commercially without providing the source, and without requiring the buyers to adhere to the terms of the GPL. This is clearly a valuable right, seeing how many companies have business models that are built around dual-licensing GPL'd code for commercial proprietary use. Strictly speaking, the only license that doesn't have the copyright holder retaining any rights is the lack of one (i.e. releasing to public domain). If you're not releasing to PD, that's necessarily because you want to retain some rights. And then it's just a question of which ones. GPL has one answer, something like MIT has another, and Commons Clause has another still. I fail to see what makes some of them proprietary, while others are not. From my perspective, if I can get the code, hack on it, and release the changed version to others who can also do all of these things in turn, that's enough to make it non-proprietary already. Proprietary is when the software is closed source outright, or the source is provided for "educational use only" (i.e. no derived works allowed), or when derived works cannot be redistributed. Licenses that allow redistribution of patches, but not original code with patches applies, would be the grey territory.
fro0116 8y ago
Is the controversy here that the Commons Clause piggy backs on top of existing free software licenses and thus could mislead users to think that software using it is free software when it's in fact proprietary by their definitions? As a part-time independent developer of software myself, I personally find the combination of a free software license + Commons Clause to be very compelling. I'm willing to grant to the user every right offered by free software licenses with the exception of rights to commercial use. If that means my software has to be labeled as proprietary by the FSF, so be it, but at the same time I'd prefer not to mislead users into thinking my software is being offered under a vanilla free software license. Is there a proprietary license I can release my software under, with the properties of a free software + commons clause license, that doesn't run the risk of misleading users? If not, I'll likely continue releasing my software under a free software + commons clause license, along with some kind of disclaimer above the license section in the project's readme.
- matthewbauer 8y ago
  I think there is a creative commons license that comes pretty close.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    BY-NC sounds philosophically like exactly what OP wants, but those licenses are not intended for software and the CC org themselves say: "We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative."
    - kemitchell 8y ago
      Here's a modern permissive license, plus CC-style noncommercial limit, with a built-in, thirty-two-day trial: https://licensezero.com/licenses/prosperity https://licensezero.com/licenses/prosperity
chdurjchy 8y ago
I'm still wrapping my head around the commons clause but I think I really like it. The FSF licenses are designed to create a parallel open "copyleft" ecosystem. However, they fall short of identifying capitalism as the system that creates value in "copyright" and creates scarcity where none exists in the name of profit. The commons clause has more revolutionary content in that it prohibits participation in capitalism. I'm trying to decide if there should be additional limitations or exemptions for institutions that build a better more democratic and humane society. For example, perhaps worker coops can use the software, but heirarchical institutions cannot. Perhaps science and medicine can use it, but stores cannot. I recognize the point of the commons clause is a kind of rebellion within capitalism against exploitation of individuals by business. However, like the GPL, perhaps it's time to go further than copyleft and advance a real left agenda by supporting left institutions.
- bigiain 8y ago
  While I agree with you, and personally I think we're on the brink of (or perhaps we've shot right past and just haven't noticed yet) a new kind of software creation - some kind of "company-supported, source-available, relatively-free-to-use, but with restrictions on uses that compete with or financially benefit from things the company that mostly funds the software do" thing. I don't know if it'll work out long term, or if it does whether it'll be a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it's worth a shot to see what happens when you pursue those ideas, and will be watching RedisLabs and MongoDB (and others) with interest over the coming years. There's a very left leaning socialist part of me who thinks "That's bad. Apache and MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP and many many other genuinely free software projects have worked fine for decades now, why change to less free alternatives if Stallman-style free software can and does work?", but there's also a pragmatic part of me that thinks "I wonder what new software might come into existence if companies can afford to hire teams of devs and architects (and QA people and tech writers and and and) by limiting _some_ of the freedom to allow themselves to generate revenue more easily, without limiting anything like as much freedom as, say, Microsoft or Oracle do?" Personally, I don't think I'll be contributing to any "commons clause" restricted software, but I _do_ wish the people experimenting with that new model the best of luck and have some optimism that it _might_ open up new and unexpected opportunities as it changes the landscape around how software gets written, shared, and monetised.
tannhaeuser 8y ago
It's not surprising FSF sees the Commons Clause as non-F/OSS according to their definition. The question, though, is whether OSI's taxonomy is even relevant today when there are other, more imminent concerns. Namely, if you want your software project to contribute to software and information monopolization in "the cloud" and on very few content aggregation sites such as Fb, github, and others that themselves don't reciprocally allow eg. indie search crawlers and untracked linking.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  This is a different issue, as you yourself have mentioned. And it has an easy solution: you are free to host the code yourself if you don’t like putting it on a centralized service.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    That's exactly the kind of limited perspective I'm questioning. FSF bases their copyleft concept on ethical beliefs. But what are the ethics of publishing your project on github such that your user's clicks are tracked, and you can't even scrape github for building up a search index unless you're GoogleBot or Bing? What are the ethics of giving your labor to cloud providers working hard to lock users in to their ecosystem? What is ethical about OSI's no-purpose-limitation criterion such that your software can be easily weaponized in one form or another? What is ethical about promoting the idea that software developers need to give all their work away such that only very few cloud providers can benefit, to the detriment of financing further development and maintenance?
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      I still don't understand your point. The GPL provides none of the protections you are asking for, since I am free to post my code wherever I see fit. Are you asking for protections as to where I am legally allowed to host my code?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
zeckalpha 8y ago
I’m surprised there’s not a mention of AGPL as an alternative. While not equivalent de jure, it seems to be equivalent de facto.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  I'm really happy to see someone else emphasize the difference between the effect AGPL has had, and what it actually says. If you haven't already, take a look at MongoDB's Server Side Public License. In particular, here's their submission statement to OSI: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-October/003603.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o... I've written about the license, and what I think it means politically, here: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h...

196 points by DannyBee 8y ago

This judgement by the FSF is unsurprising, Commond Clause is like the Patriot Act, a purposeful misnomer by its authors to attempt to gain unearned goodwill & respect.

eganist 8y ago
> Commond [sic] Clause is like the Patriot Act, a purposeful misnomer by its authors to attempt to gain unearned goodwill & respect. The author (not plural) describes in depth the differences between recognized open source licenses v. the commons clause (https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/) and also describes her intent behind developing the license. Specific emphasis appears to have been devoted toward distinguishing this license as being distinctly non-open in the FAQ printed on the root of the domain. (To be clear: I have no affiliation with the author or with this license and any known implementations of it.)
- metildaa 8y ago
  The Commons Clause is added as a restriction to existing open source licensed projects, to those that aren't clued in that the Commons Clause has been applied, they can easily be misled by this poorly named restriction.
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    Creative Commons offers noncommercial licenses even more restrictive than Commons Clause. I'd've picked a different name, too. But the idea that "commons" means only open source, or only free software, doesn't sit right. Compared to pulling their software back as fully closed or source-available, all-rights-reserved, a Commons Clause combo makes a lot more available.
    - duskwuff 8y ago
      Creative Commons specifically recommends against the use of any of their licenses for software. The CC licenses are primarily intended to be applied to artistic works, and the NC/ND variants make a lot more sense in that context.
      - c22 8y ago
        They make an exception for CC0 though [0]. [0] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC0_to_computer_software.3F_If_so.2C_is_there_a_recommended_implementation.3F https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC...
        cyphar 8y ago
        CC0 is basically a public domain contribution with a very permissive fallback, and is very unlike any of their other licenses. But this is getting off-track -- the CC licenses being discussed are the ones other than CC0.
        kemitchell 8y ago
        CC0 was proposed to OSI approval, but hung up, due largely to the fact that it expressly says it does not cover patent rights.
      - kemitchell 8y ago
        You're right. And I'm well aware. But I don't think that changes my point on "commons". CC-BY-NC is a "commons" license for artwork, music, screenplays, scripts, poems, and novels. Why wouldn't a noncommercial software license be a "commons" license, as well?

ru999gol 8y ago

Thats what killed Redis, good on them for warning about it. https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/22/Commons-clause-will-destroy-open-source.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/22/Commons-clause-will-destr...

cpburns2009 8y ago
Isn't the "commons clause" only on a few modules? Redis itself is still BSD. See: https://redislabs.com/community/licenses/ https://redislabs.com/community/licenses/
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  They failed so badly at the PR around this change that many people overlooked that fact. They still inflicted damage on their reputation. It's kind of like how the Internet was left with the incorrect impression that Google removed "don't be evil" from their Code of Conduct. (It's still there, now at the end instead of the beginning after a rewording. The new parent company Alphabet has a different but similar slogan; both apply to Google. This is separate question, of course, from any more concrete discussion of Google's current ethics than what their code of conduct says.)
- fmajid 8y ago
  Redis’ core is still BSD-licensee but Salvatore Sanfilippo transferred the IP rights to Redis Labs, which means there is nothing to stop Redis Labs from pulling another bait-and-switch and making Redis itself non-free. http://antirez.com/news/121 http://antirez.com/news/121 I think all companies using Redis should make contingency plans for when that happens. I’m afraid forking Redis will likely prove necessary given Redis Labs’ record of questionable behavior.

inasring 8y ago

"So if anyone tries to convince you that Commons Clause is wrong because it doesn't meet all the requirements of the Open Source Definition, you should ask them if proprietary is better." "Freedom for others to commercialize your software comes with starting an open source project, and while that freedom is important to uphold, growth and commercial pressures will inevitably force some projects to close." https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/

LukeShu 8y ago
> "you should ask them if proprietary is better [than Commons Clause]." Neither is better, because they are the same. Commons Clause is proprietary. If a piece of FOSS that I used became proprietary, I would fork (or use a fork) based on the last FOSS version. Just because the Commons Clause kinda looks like it's FOSS if you squint, doesn't make it any different.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Commons Clause is clearly neither Free Software nor Open Source, but I don't see how that makes it proprietary.
  - LukeShu 8y ago
    Well, the FSF defines "“proprietary software” as synonymous with nonfree software."[1] But that's kind of a cop-out answer. "Proprietary" means that the copyright holder retains certain rights, rather than granting the rights to the recipient. In the case of the Commons Clause, the rights that they retain propriety of are the rights to commercial use. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySo...
    - int_19h 8y ago
      When someone releases their software under GPL, they still retain certain rights rather than granting them to the recipient - notably, the right to sell it commercially without providing the source, and without requiring the buyers to adhere to the terms of the GPL. This is clearly a valuable right, seeing how many companies have business models that are built around dual-licensing GPL'd code for commercial proprietary use. Strictly speaking, the only license that doesn't have the copyright holder retaining any rights is the lack of one (i.e. releasing to public domain). If you're not releasing to PD, that's necessarily because you want to retain some rights. And then it's just a question of which ones. GPL has one answer, something like MIT has another, and Commons Clause has another still. I fail to see what makes some of them proprietary, while others are not. From my perspective, if I can get the code, hack on it, and release the changed version to others who can also do all of these things in turn, that's enough to make it non-proprietary already. Proprietary is when the software is closed source outright, or the source is provided for "educational use only" (i.e. no derived works allowed), or when derived works cannot be redistributed. Licenses that allow redistribution of patches, but not original code with patches applies, would be the grey territory.

fro0116 8y ago

Is the controversy here that the Commons Clause piggy backs on top of existing free software licenses and thus could mislead users to think that software using it is free software when it's in fact proprietary by their definitions? As a part-time independent developer of software myself, I personally find the combination of a free software license + Commons Clause to be very compelling. I'm willing to grant to the user every right offered by free software licenses with the exception of rights to commercial use. If that means my software has to be labeled as proprietary by the FSF, so be it, but at the same time I'd prefer not to mislead users into thinking my software is being offered under a vanilla free software license. Is there a proprietary license I can release my software under, with the properties of a free software + commons clause license, that doesn't run the risk of misleading users? If not, I'll likely continue releasing my software under a free software + commons clause license, along with some kind of disclaimer above the license section in the project's readme.

matthewbauer 8y ago
I think there is a creative commons license that comes pretty close.
- bigiain 8y ago
  BY-NC sounds philosophically like exactly what OP wants, but those licenses are not intended for software and the CC org themselves say: "We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative."
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    Here's a modern permissive license, plus CC-style noncommercial limit, with a built-in, thirty-two-day trial: https://licensezero.com/licenses/prosperity https://licensezero.com/licenses/prosperity

chdurjchy 8y ago

I'm still wrapping my head around the commons clause but I think I really like it. The FSF licenses are designed to create a parallel open "copyleft" ecosystem. However, they fall short of identifying capitalism as the system that creates value in "copyright" and creates scarcity where none exists in the name of profit. The commons clause has more revolutionary content in that it prohibits participation in capitalism. I'm trying to decide if there should be additional limitations or exemptions for institutions that build a better more democratic and humane society. For example, perhaps worker coops can use the software, but heirarchical institutions cannot. Perhaps science and medicine can use it, but stores cannot. I recognize the point of the commons clause is a kind of rebellion within capitalism against exploitation of individuals by business. However, like the GPL, perhaps it's time to go further than copyleft and advance a real left agenda by supporting left institutions.

bigiain 8y ago
While I agree with you, and personally I think we're on the brink of (or perhaps we've shot right past and just haven't noticed yet) a new kind of software creation - some kind of "company-supported, source-available, relatively-free-to-use, but with restrictions on uses that compete with or financially benefit from things the company that mostly funds the software do" thing. I don't know if it'll work out long term, or if it does whether it'll be a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it's worth a shot to see what happens when you pursue those ideas, and will be watching RedisLabs and MongoDB (and others) with interest over the coming years. There's a very left leaning socialist part of me who thinks "That's bad. Apache and MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP and many many other genuinely free software projects have worked fine for decades now, why change to less free alternatives if Stallman-style free software can and does work?", but there's also a pragmatic part of me that thinks "I wonder what new software might come into existence if companies can afford to hire teams of devs and architects (and QA people and tech writers and and and) by limiting _some_ of the freedom to allow themselves to generate revenue more easily, without limiting anything like as much freedom as, say, Microsoft or Oracle do?" Personally, I don't think I'll be contributing to any "commons clause" restricted software, but I _do_ wish the people experimenting with that new model the best of luck and have some optimism that it _might_ open up new and unexpected opportunities as it changes the landscape around how software gets written, shared, and monetised.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

It's not surprising FSF sees the Commons Clause as non-F/OSS according to their definition. The question, though, is whether OSI's taxonomy is even relevant today when there are other, more imminent concerns. Namely, if you want your software project to contribute to software and information monopolization in "the cloud" and on very few content aggregation sites such as Fb, github, and others that themselves don't reciprocally allow eg. indie search crawlers and untracked linking.

saagarjha 8y ago
This is a different issue, as you yourself have mentioned. And it has an easy solution: you are free to host the code yourself if you don’t like putting it on a centralized service.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  That's exactly the kind of limited perspective I'm questioning. FSF bases their copyleft concept on ethical beliefs. But what are the ethics of publishing your project on github such that your user's clicks are tracked, and you can't even scrape github for building up a search index unless you're GoogleBot or Bing? What are the ethics of giving your labor to cloud providers working hard to lock users in to their ecosystem? What is ethical about OSI's no-purpose-limitation criterion such that your software can be easily weaponized in one form or another? What is ethical about promoting the idea that software developers need to give all their work away such that only very few cloud providers can benefit, to the detriment of financing further development and maintenance?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I still don't understand your point. The GPL provides none of the protections you are asking for, since I am free to post my code wherever I see fit. Are you asking for protections as to where I am legally allowed to host my code?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

zeckalpha 8y ago

I’m surprised there’s not a mention of AGPL as an alternative. While not equivalent de jure, it seems to be equivalent de facto.

kemitchell 8y ago
I'm really happy to see someone else emphasize the difference between the effect AGPL has had, and what it actually says. If you haven't already, take a look at MongoDB's Server Side Public License. In particular, here's their submission statement to OSI: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-October/003603.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o... I've written about the license, and what I think it means politically, here: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h...