7 ms·

While this article's tone is somewhat angry and personal, it makes some quite interesting points and takes a perspective that I've never heard before. Before r

by catern 7y ago

While this article's tone is somewhat angry and personal, it makes some quite interesting points and takes a perspective that I've never heard before. Before reading the article I was tentatively in favor of more expansive copyleft licenses such as Mongo's SSPL, for various reasons. But I hadn't considered something implied by that position, which this article says directly: The FSF and what one might call "mainstream copyleft" are aggressively defending corporate interests by attacking such licenses. Perhaps they (the FSF et al) don't do it intentionally, but that's nevertheless their effect...

api 7y ago
I've thought this for years: the aggressive defense of super liberal OSS licenses with no sort of "SaaS clause" or other limits turns FOSS into free labor for SaaS companies. SaaS is more closed than closed: you control nothing, not even your data, and can trivially be spied on and monetized in other questionable ways. The fact that some of the pieces of a SaaS site are open source is meaningless and changes nothing. If all code must be free "as in beer" for all uses then this kind of SaaS (paid or "free" and paid for via surveillance capitalism) is literally the only possible business model. Well that and traditional 100% closed. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are fine with that.
- kemitchell 7y ago
  > SaaS is more closed than closed Nice turn of phrase. I'd add only that services not only can be more closed than software, it's normal and in some sense acceptable that they are. Whether it's freedom rhetoric or business advice, there's a strange disconnect between received wisdom for software and received wisdom for services.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- closeparen 7y ago
  >free labor for SaaS companies Approximately all then open source software I work with on a daily basis is SaaS companies pooling efforts on the problems they have in common, yes.
  - api 7y ago
    That's by no means all of open source. Some of us are working on things designed to re-enable a peer to peer personal computing model.
- skybrian 7y ago
  Just as a side note, "free labor" is common and not necessarily a bad thing. Whenever you give someone a gift, whatever work you did on it is effectively free labor. You could also think of donations to charity that way when you fund them out of your salary, not to mention volunteering. It's true that often people don't want to do that, though, and this is certainly understandable.
  - api 7y ago
    I don't want to give free gifts to surveillance capitalist companies.
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  > SaaS is more closed than closed: you control nothing, not even your data, and can trivially be spied on and monetized in other questionable ways Spot on, and those companies managed to subvert and violate the spirit of FLOSS in many ways.
phkahler 7y ago
Two point he made that I've often wondered about. 1) why wasn't AGPL used for GPLv3? 2) why should companies be able to keep proprietary version from being distributed? The second one I can see being possible by having employees agree not to exercise their GPL redistribution rights as a condition of employment. Still it seems like a large group of companies could all agree to that kind of thing to effectively take a GPLed work private. But yeah why have AGPL as a separate thing?
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Maybe because it would upset developers who had chosen GPL2-or-later version. They might see it as overreach. That could hurt adoption.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  employees agree not to exercise their GPL redistribution rights If you prepare a derivative of a GPL app as a work for hire, what GPL rights would you have? You don't own the copyright on the modifications, the employer does.
  - pygy_ 7y ago
    Hypothetically: the employer gave you a copy of the modified software (by having you modify it). He's bound by the license and so are you?
    - pratyushc 7y ago
      Interesting. If you were given the copy on a computer owned by your employer, is it your copy or theirs?
      - newnewpdro 7y ago
        I believe it's theirs. If I loan you my laptop brimming with free software, and you use it for a day, have I redistributed the software to you? No. You had use of a computer you didn't own executing the software, no copy was made. It's no different from the well-known SaaS loophole the AGPL attempts to close.
simonh 7y ago
The FSF is not 'attacking' such licenses, they're just arguing that they aren't free libre software licenses. It's the SSPL people and others, by trying to co-opt the free and Libre software movement by claim their licenses are something they are not, which are mounting the assault. And let's be clear it is a pernicious, aggressive and deliberate attack threatening, and in some cases knowingly intended to fundamentally undermine free software principles. This is an existential threat to the FSF. If they just went away and propagated and argued for their licenses on their own terms, the FSF wouldn't have anything in particular to say about it.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  And the FSF has even come up with their own license for network services, namely the AGPL - that is a full free-software license, since compared to the GPL it only clarifies requirements around public performance of the covered work (which unlike mere "use" of the software, is something that copyright law expressly grants as an exclusive right of the copyright holder!)
  - kemitchell 7y ago
    SSPL was a direct response to perceived loopholes and inadequacies in AGPL. I’ve written about that here: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h... Most people never get that far, because they write the license off as an attack on principles. The debate about the substance didn’t really get to happen. As for public performance, I’m not aware of any case law to suggest that the public performance right applies to software as you suggest. And I’ve never seen FSF or independent legal counsel argue that GPLv3 and AGPLv3 are functionally equivalent due to background law. The FSF theorists I’ve read describe AGPL as “synthesizing” a public performance right for software that doesn’t otherwise exist under current copyright law. They do so out of two existing exclusive rights: the right to prepare derivative works (making changes or building larger programs) and the right to reproduce in copies (incidental to use).
    - zozbot234 7y ago

by catern 7y ago

api 7y ago

I've thought this for years: the aggressive defense of super liberal OSS licenses with no sort of "SaaS clause" or other limits turns FOSS into free labor for SaaS companies. SaaS is more closed than closed: you control nothing, not even your data, and can trivially be spied on and monetized in other questionable ways. The fact that some of the pieces of a SaaS site are open source is meaningless and changes nothing. If all code must be free "as in beer" for all uses then this kind of SaaS (paid or "free" and paid for via surveillance capitalism) is literally the only possible business model. Well that and traditional 100% closed. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are fine with that.

kemitchell 7y ago
> SaaS is more closed than closed Nice turn of phrase. I'd add only that services not only can be more closed than software, it's normal and in some sense acceptable that they are. Whether it's freedom rhetoric or business advice, there's a strange disconnect between received wisdom for software and received wisdom for services.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
closeparen 7y ago
>free labor for SaaS companies Approximately all then open source software I work with on a daily basis is SaaS companies pooling efforts on the problems they have in common, yes.
- api 7y ago
  That's by no means all of open source. Some of us are working on things designed to re-enable a peer to peer personal computing model.
skybrian 7y ago
Just as a side note, "free labor" is common and not necessarily a bad thing. Whenever you give someone a gift, whatever work you did on it is effectively free labor. You could also think of donations to charity that way when you fund them out of your salary, not to mention volunteering. It's true that often people don't want to do that, though, and this is certainly understandable.
- api 7y ago
  I don't want to give free gifts to surveillance capitalist companies.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> SaaS is more closed than closed: you control nothing, not even your data, and can trivially be spied on and monetized in other questionable ways Spot on, and those companies managed to subvert and violate the spirit of FLOSS in many ways.

phkahler 7y ago

Two point he made that I've often wondered about. 1) why wasn't AGPL used for GPLv3? 2) why should companies be able to keep proprietary version from being distributed? The second one I can see being possible by having employees agree not to exercise their GPL redistribution rights as a condition of employment. Still it seems like a large group of companies could all agree to that kind of thing to effectively take a GPLed work private. But yeah why have AGPL as a separate thing?

paulryanrogers 7y ago
Maybe because it would upset developers who had chosen GPL2-or-later version. They might see it as overreach. That could hurt adoption.
nitrogen 7y ago
employees agree not to exercise their GPL redistribution rights If you prepare a derivative of a GPL app as a work for hire, what GPL rights would you have? You don't own the copyright on the modifications, the employer does.
- pygy_ 7y ago
  Hypothetically: the employer gave you a copy of the modified software (by having you modify it). He's bound by the license and so are you?
  - pratyushc 7y ago
    Interesting. If you were given the copy on a computer owned by your employer, is it your copy or theirs?
    - newnewpdro 7y ago
      I believe it's theirs. If I loan you my laptop brimming with free software, and you use it for a day, have I redistributed the software to you? No. You had use of a computer you didn't own executing the software, no copy was made. It's no different from the well-known SaaS loophole the AGPL attempts to close.

simonh 7y ago

The FSF is not 'attacking' such licenses, they're just arguing that they aren't free libre software licenses. It's the SSPL people and others, by trying to co-opt the free and Libre software movement by claim their licenses are something they are not, which are mounting the assault. And let's be clear it is a pernicious, aggressive and deliberate attack threatening, and in some cases knowingly intended to fundamentally undermine free software principles. This is an existential threat to the FSF. If they just went away and propagated and argued for their licenses on their own terms, the FSF wouldn't have anything in particular to say about it.

zozbot234 7y ago
And the FSF has even come up with their own license for network services, namely the AGPL - that is a full free-software license, since compared to the GPL it only clarifies requirements around public performance of the covered work (which unlike mere "use" of the software, is something that copyright law expressly grants as an exclusive right of the copyright holder!)
- kemitchell 7y ago
  SSPL was a direct response to perceived loopholes and inadequacies in AGPL. I’ve written about that here: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h... Most people never get that far, because they write the license off as an attack on principles. The debate about the substance didn’t really get to happen. As for public performance, I’m not aware of any case law to suggest that the public performance right applies to software as you suggest. And I’ve never seen FSF or independent legal counsel argue that GPLv3 and AGPLv3 are functionally equivalent due to background law. The FSF theorists I’ve read describe AGPL as “synthesizing” a public performance right for software that doesn’t otherwise exist under current copyright law. They do so out of two existing exclusive rights: the right to prepare derivative works (making changes or building larger programs) and the right to reproduce in copies (incidental to use).
  - zozbot234 7y ago