6 ms·

Do the (A)GPL or the EUPL really require the publication of hacks for private use? I thought that was always linked to redistribution of the software, not use.

Do the (A)GPL or the EUPL really require the publication of hacks for private use? I thought that was always linked to redistribution of the software, not use. Also, doesn't the Parity Public License violate the OSI definition of "Open Source" by requiring users to “Contribute software you develop, operate, or analyze with this software”. This kinda reminds me of MongoDB's SSPL which (I think?) violated the "license can not restrict other software" rule: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

JoshTriplett 7y ago
> Also, doesn't the Parity Public License violate the OSI definition of "Open Source" by requiring users to “Contribute software you develop, operate, or analyze with this software”. Yes, it does. It's a license that pretends to be open, but isn't, much like MongoDB, or the Redis "Commons Clause". The whole rant linked from this article, about the OSI, is very much a case study for why you should ignore any license that claims to be open or uses terminology that vaguely sounds open but isn't actually OSI-approved. (With a dose of "and you should be scared of copyleft" FUD thrown in.)
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  No, you should ignore OSI crap. They interpret "open" as open to be closed and abused by corporations, not remaining open for end users.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    A requirement to "Contribute software you develop, operate, or analyze with this software" is incredibly extensive - imagine if, e.g. gcc or valgrind were licensed with this clause! You would be well advised not to ignore what OSI has to say; they're there to protect users and developers, not just corporate entities.
    - _frkl 7y ago
      But it's good to have the option, no? Always depends what you try to license, and in some cases I think it's good to have a very strong copyleft license available. gcc might not be it, other software might. Also, I think saying 'protect' is quite one-sided, and signalling virtue while at the same time unfairly painting a copy left license like Parity as sorta predatory. Just my opinion, of course, but I wish every piece of software in the world was copy left licensed. I know that is unrealistic on millions of levels, but I still think it's a valid course of action to try to get us at least a tiny bit in that direction, and choosing a license that restricts a few small parts of select freedoms in exchange for that. Just because OSI has been seen as the champion of open source in the past doesn't mean we all agree that was justified, and a good thing. Most people think differently to me in this regard, or don't really care, but this is not and will never be a settled argument.
      - JoshTriplett 7y ago
        We don't need more non-FOSS licenses in the world. I'd like to see more use of copyleft as well, but the whole point of copyleft is to keep software FOSS. If the license isn't FOSS to begin with, that defeats the purpose.
        _frkl 7y ago
        See, thats where we disagree. And thats perfectly fine, but i do honestly think we need at least one more copyleft license, one that actually works. FOSS ist just a bunch if words, which, apparently mean different things to you than they do to me. Maybe you are going to say that my interpretation is invalid, and i should be accepting the status quo. But well, that just doesn't make any sense to me... To me, it really boils down to this: I dont care that much about the freedom of people who dont care about their users freedom, i think restricting those peoples freedom is an acceptable tradeoff. With Parity, for example, as long as you open up your code you can use everything licensed with it. If you don't, or you use other non free software then parity licensed software doesn't really make anything worse to you as a user, since you already accept non open source code in your infrastructure/project. Parity might not be the best license ever, although i like it quite a bit, but i think it is at least a very valid attempt to fix a problem some people see as problem. You apparently dont think there is a problem, or its not that bad compared to such a solution, but that doesn't mean there's a guarantee you are right. Nor I.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    > No, you should ignore OSI crap. They interpret "open" as open to be closed and abused by corporations, not remaining open for end users. This is incorrect. OSI's approved licenses include copyleft licenses, which do not permit releasing closed-source versions.
- zzo38computer 7y ago
  I think that you should select a license which is both FSF and OSI approved. Alternatively, publish the source code as public domain.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  Different people have different meanings for "open". Right now there seems to be something of a crisis of terminology, where "open source" originally just meant "the source is available". The the OSI stepped in and gave it a specific definition with the OSD, but some people still continue to use it in the original "source is available"-way, whereas others use it only to mean OSD-compatible or OSI-approved. I'm not sure if inventing more terms will be successful or useful, so the only way forward I see is to relax and assume good intent from everyone, use "OSI-approved" or "compatible with OSD", and "open source" as a very broad umbrella term for anything where the source is available. This is already how many people use the term, especially those not intimately familiar with software dev/open source. I've never seen a single instance where telling people that "you're technically using that commonly used term wrong" is successful.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    People also misuse the term "public domain" to refer to a wide variety of things that mostly amount to "I found it somewhere and I want to use it". That doesn't make it correct. There's a difference between an unintentional mistake of loose terminology, and someone intentionally trying to create confusion and FUD for their own benefit. In the former case, I've run into multiple people who did appreciate learning what "open source" actually means. (I'm in a position of providing mentorship on a variety of topics, including on FOSS.) In the latter case, anyone trying to misleadingly brand their software as open while using a license that isn't actually open needs a strong response; the companies engaging in such misleading practices are unlikely to listen to that response themselves, but many of their customers and potential users will listen, and steer clear. We don't need to invent new terms. We have terms. We need to discourage misuse of the terms we have. If (hypothetically) we invented a new term and that term caught on, then people would try to abuse that term. There's an incentive to latch onto the popular terminology while attempting to work around its requirements; there needs to be a strong disincentive to doing so, as well.
    - kemitchell 7y ago
      When a large number of people use a word to mean something, that's what the word means. My definition of "public domain" doesn't trump their definition, just because I'm a lawyer or a programmer or somehow more specific. Neither does James Boyle's or Larry Lessig's. The first group to latch onto "open source" was OSI. "Open" had been a buzzword in computing for a whole generation before. The media didn't eat up ESR's line because OSI had a definition or a license list. Initially, it had neither. The media ate it up because of the software, which hadn't been called by that name before. Nobody's abusing anything here but OSI's sense of entitlement. Comment above is right: there's no exclusive right to the term.
- kemitchell 7y ago
  Parity pretends nothing and hides nothing. Unlike scores of OSI approved terms, its rules are plain for all to read and understand. Hackers can quote the terms in HN posts and grok them without taking anyone else's word for it. You can dismiss my points as a rant. In your position, I might be very tempted to do the same. But that is exactly why OSI is where it is right now. When every OSI critic is a heretic to be ignored, OSI becomes more and more insular by the day. The heretics come to outnumber the faithful.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    > Parity pretends nothing and hides nothing. It portrays itself as open, it talks all about being "free for open source", it uses pictures like https://licensezero.com/doors.svg https://licensezero.com/doors.svg (warning, site contains misleading misinformation), but it's intentionally misleading and equivocating, and benefits from the resulting uncertainty and lack of clarity. It's a proprietary software license that tries to convince people to let it into their ecosystem. What's more dangerous to leave around unlabeled? The poison that looks like glowing green toxic sludge and smells so bad it makes your eyes water, or the poison that looks like clean drinking water at a glance? Which one is more likely to harm the unwary and the uninformed? Parity's brand of poison might not have a label on it that explicitly says "clean water, drink me", but it's more dangerous if you're not deeply familiar with license minutiae and history. It's an attractive nuisance. > Unlike scores of OSI approved terms, its rules are plain for all to read and understand. So are the Creative Commons non-commercial and no-derivs licenses, and they're not FOSS either. > But that is exactly why OSI is where it is right now. Wildly successful in maintaining a list of licenses people can trust that describe an ever-growing amount of software, against a multitude of threats? OSI is an extremely cautious and conservative organization, as it should be. > When every OSI critic is a heretic to be ignored, Constructive criticism can be useful. Competing agendas advancing not-quite-open licenses are not. And no, not ignored, nor elevated to any position as vaunted as "heretic"; ignoring would be dangerous. FUD needs countering, and software that tries to go from FOSS to proprietary (including "proprietary but we wish you'd pretend it's open") needs forking and the original consigned to a historical curiosity and a reference for anyone thinking of doing the same. > The heretics come to outnumber the faithful. Only in their wildest dreams. The self-styled "heretics" are just loud.
mplanchard 7y ago
I had the same understanding as you regarding hacks for private use and was also confused there. My understanding of the [A]GPL is that you can modify software and even use it internally at a company without the distribution restrictions kicking in. I’m far from an expert on the topic though.
csande17 7y ago
AGPL says roughly "you have to give the source code to anyone who accesses the software over a network". In other words, it's basically trying to say that software-as-a-service counts as "redistribution" for the purpose of the license. Regarding the Parity license, it used to be called "License Zero Reciprocal" and was submitted to the OSI for approval. When it became clear that that wasn't going to happen (because, as you mention, it clearly violates the OSI definition of Open Source), the author withdrew it[1] and changed the name before it could be formally rejected. [1] https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-December/003855.html https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists....
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > In other words, it's basically trying to say that software-as-a-service counts as "redistribution" for the purpose of the license. Copyright law regulates public performance of any covered work - whether some activity counts as "redistribution" is ultimately a matter of law, not just licensing. AGPL protects the user by providing explicit language for what's required wrt. the public-performance case. Other copyleft licenses do not deal with this ambiguity.
- kemitchell 7y ago
  I never withdrew L0-R and OSI never rejected it. But that implies a formality to the process that was never there. I still disagree strongly that L0-R fell outside OSI's definition. Do you have a reading of that definition that doesn't exclude existing OSI-approved licenses? A few folks tried to build some, purpose-built to exclude L0-R, but they didn't stand up. People opposed the license for entirely separate reasons, and only tried to talk in definition terms after weeks of trying to steer discussions there. Your description of AGPL is pretty good, but it better suits OSL than AGPL. AGPL's approach to network copyleft stands largely apart from its approach to distribution-triggered copyleft. Only the definitions of "modify" and "Corresponding Source" get reused in meaningful ways.
pabs3 7y ago
The GPL indeed only triggers on redistribution. The AGPL's extra clauses over the GPL only trigger on modification of the software (not use) and only require source redistribution to users of the service.
pe-schmitz 7y ago
For private use, certainly not. In case of distribution, yes. The EUPL consider as distribution "providing on-line access to essential functionalities of a software". This is tha case of SaaS.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

> Also, doesn't the Parity Public License violate the OSI definition of "Open Source" by requiring users to “Contribute software you develop, operate, or analyze with this software”. Yes, it does. It's a license that pretends to be open, but isn't, much like MongoDB, or the Redis "Commons Clause". The whole rant linked from this article, about the OSI, is very much a case study for why you should ignore any license that claims to be open or uses terminology that vaguely sounds open but isn't actually OSI-approved. (With a dose of "and you should be scared of copyleft" FUD thrown in.)

zzzcpan 7y ago
No, you should ignore OSI crap. They interpret "open" as open to be closed and abused by corporations, not remaining open for end users.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  A requirement to "Contribute software you develop, operate, or analyze with this software" is incredibly extensive - imagine if, e.g. gcc or valgrind were licensed with this clause! You would be well advised not to ignore what OSI has to say; they're there to protect users and developers, not just corporate entities.
  - _frkl 7y ago
    But it's good to have the option, no? Always depends what you try to license, and in some cases I think it's good to have a very strong copyleft license available. gcc might not be it, other software might. Also, I think saying 'protect' is quite one-sided, and signalling virtue while at the same time unfairly painting a copy left license like Parity as sorta predatory. Just my opinion, of course, but I wish every piece of software in the world was copy left licensed. I know that is unrealistic on millions of levels, but I still think it's a valid course of action to try to get us at least a tiny bit in that direction, and choosing a license that restricts a few small parts of select freedoms in exchange for that. Just because OSI has been seen as the champion of open source in the past doesn't mean we all agree that was justified, and a good thing. Most people think differently to me in this regard, or don't really care, but this is not and will never be a settled argument.
    - JoshTriplett 7y ago
      We don't need more non-FOSS licenses in the world. I'd like to see more use of copyleft as well, but the whole point of copyleft is to keep software FOSS. If the license isn't FOSS to begin with, that defeats the purpose.
      - _frkl 7y ago
        See, thats where we disagree. And thats perfectly fine, but i do honestly think we need at least one more copyleft license, one that actually works. FOSS ist just a bunch if words, which, apparently mean different things to you than they do to me. Maybe you are going to say that my interpretation is invalid, and i should be accepting the status quo. But well, that just doesn't make any sense to me... To me, it really boils down to this: I dont care that much about the freedom of people who dont care about their users freedom, i think restricting those peoples freedom is an acceptable tradeoff. With Parity, for example, as long as you open up your code you can use everything licensed with it. If you don't, or you use other non free software then parity licensed software doesn't really make anything worse to you as a user, since you already accept non open source code in your infrastructure/project. Parity might not be the best license ever, although i like it quite a bit, but i think it is at least a very valid attempt to fix a problem some people see as problem. You apparently dont think there is a problem, or its not that bad compared to such a solution, but that doesn't mean there's a guarantee you are right. Nor I.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  > No, you should ignore OSI crap. They interpret "open" as open to be closed and abused by corporations, not remaining open for end users. This is incorrect. OSI's approved licenses include copyleft licenses, which do not permit releasing closed-source versions.
zzo38computer 7y ago
I think that you should select a license which is both FSF and OSI approved. Alternatively, publish the source code as public domain.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
Different people have different meanings for "open". Right now there seems to be something of a crisis of terminology, where "open source" originally just meant "the source is available". The the OSI stepped in and gave it a specific definition with the OSD, but some people still continue to use it in the original "source is available"-way, whereas others use it only to mean OSD-compatible or OSI-approved. I'm not sure if inventing more terms will be successful or useful, so the only way forward I see is to relax and assume good intent from everyone, use "OSI-approved" or "compatible with OSD", and "open source" as a very broad umbrella term for anything where the source is available. This is already how many people use the term, especially those not intimately familiar with software dev/open source. I've never seen a single instance where telling people that "you're technically using that commonly used term wrong" is successful.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  People also misuse the term "public domain" to refer to a wide variety of things that mostly amount to "I found it somewhere and I want to use it". That doesn't make it correct. There's a difference between an unintentional mistake of loose terminology, and someone intentionally trying to create confusion and FUD for their own benefit. In the former case, I've run into multiple people who did appreciate learning what "open source" actually means. (I'm in a position of providing mentorship on a variety of topics, including on FOSS.) In the latter case, anyone trying to misleadingly brand their software as open while using a license that isn't actually open needs a strong response; the companies engaging in such misleading practices are unlikely to listen to that response themselves, but many of their customers and potential users will listen, and steer clear. We don't need to invent new terms. We have terms. We need to discourage misuse of the terms we have. If (hypothetically) we invented a new term and that term caught on, then people would try to abuse that term. There's an incentive to latch onto the popular terminology while attempting to work around its requirements; there needs to be a strong disincentive to doing so, as well.
  - kemitchell 7y ago
    When a large number of people use a word to mean something, that's what the word means. My definition of "public domain" doesn't trump their definition, just because I'm a lawyer or a programmer or somehow more specific. Neither does James Boyle's or Larry Lessig's. The first group to latch onto "open source" was OSI. "Open" had been a buzzword in computing for a whole generation before. The media didn't eat up ESR's line because OSI had a definition or a license list. Initially, it had neither. The media ate it up because of the software, which hadn't been called by that name before. Nobody's abusing anything here but OSI's sense of entitlement. Comment above is right: there's no exclusive right to the term.
kemitchell 7y ago
Parity pretends nothing and hides nothing. Unlike scores of OSI approved terms, its rules are plain for all to read and understand. Hackers can quote the terms in HN posts and grok them without taking anyone else's word for it. You can dismiss my points as a rant. In your position, I might be very tempted to do the same. But that is exactly why OSI is where it is right now. When every OSI critic is a heretic to be ignored, OSI becomes more and more insular by the day. The heretics come to outnumber the faithful.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  > Parity pretends nothing and hides nothing. It portrays itself as open, it talks all about being "free for open source", it uses pictures like https://licensezero.com/doors.svg https://licensezero.com/doors.svg (warning, site contains misleading misinformation), but it's intentionally misleading and equivocating, and benefits from the resulting uncertainty and lack of clarity. It's a proprietary software license that tries to convince people to let it into their ecosystem. What's more dangerous to leave around unlabeled? The poison that looks like glowing green toxic sludge and smells so bad it makes your eyes water, or the poison that looks like clean drinking water at a glance? Which one is more likely to harm the unwary and the uninformed? Parity's brand of poison might not have a label on it that explicitly says "clean water, drink me", but it's more dangerous if you're not deeply familiar with license minutiae and history. It's an attractive nuisance. > Unlike scores of OSI approved terms, its rules are plain for all to read and understand. So are the Creative Commons non-commercial and no-derivs licenses, and they're not FOSS either. > But that is exactly why OSI is where it is right now. Wildly successful in maintaining a list of licenses people can trust that describe an ever-growing amount of software, against a multitude of threats? OSI is an extremely cautious and conservative organization, as it should be. > When every OSI critic is a heretic to be ignored, Constructive criticism can be useful. Competing agendas advancing not-quite-open licenses are not. And no, not ignored, nor elevated to any position as vaunted as "heretic"; ignoring would be dangerous. FUD needs countering, and software that tries to go from FOSS to proprietary (including "proprietary but we wish you'd pretend it's open") needs forking and the original consigned to a historical curiosity and a reference for anyone thinking of doing the same. > The heretics come to outnumber the faithful. Only in their wildest dreams. The self-styled "heretics" are just loud.

mplanchard 7y ago

I had the same understanding as you regarding hacks for private use and was also confused there. My understanding of the [A]GPL is that you can modify software and even use it internally at a company without the distribution restrictions kicking in. I’m far from an expert on the topic though.

csande17 7y ago

AGPL says roughly "you have to give the source code to anyone who accesses the software over a network". In other words, it's basically trying to say that software-as-a-service counts as "redistribution" for the purpose of the license. Regarding the Parity license, it used to be called "License Zero Reciprocal" and was submitted to the OSI for approval. When it became clear that that wasn't going to happen (because, as you mention, it clearly violates the OSI definition of Open Source), the author withdrew it[1] and changed the name before it could be formally rejected. [1] https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-December/003855.html https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists....

zozbot234 7y ago
> In other words, it's basically trying to say that software-as-a-service counts as "redistribution" for the purpose of the license. Copyright law regulates public performance of any covered work - whether some activity counts as "redistribution" is ultimately a matter of law, not just licensing. AGPL protects the user by providing explicit language for what's required wrt. the public-performance case. Other copyleft licenses do not deal with this ambiguity.
kemitchell 7y ago
I never withdrew L0-R and OSI never rejected it. But that implies a formality to the process that was never there. I still disagree strongly that L0-R fell outside OSI's definition. Do you have a reading of that definition that doesn't exclude existing OSI-approved licenses? A few folks tried to build some, purpose-built to exclude L0-R, but they didn't stand up. People opposed the license for entirely separate reasons, and only tried to talk in definition terms after weeks of trying to steer discussions there. Your description of AGPL is pretty good, but it better suits OSL than AGPL. AGPL's approach to network copyleft stands largely apart from its approach to distribution-triggered copyleft. Only the definitions of "modify" and "Corresponding Source" get reused in meaningful ways.

pabs3 7y ago

The GPL indeed only triggers on redistribution. The AGPL's extra clauses over the GPL only trigger on modification of the software (not use) and only require source redistribution to users of the service.

pe-schmitz 7y ago

For private use, certainly not. In case of distribution, yes. The EUPL consider as distribution "providing on-line access to essential functionalities of a software". This is tha case of SaaS.