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This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I could also invent

This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I could also invent a definition of freedom that was contrived to be incompatible with copy-left licenses and then write a post about how those aren't "truly free" either. I'm not terribly convinced this legalistic nitpicking is really the right discussion though. I think the real questions here are normative. If I want to share my code freely with hobbyists and individuals, while ensuring that Amazon can't just steal it, pervert it into something I hate, and then borrow my own reputation to help them sell it, is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? From a developer's perspective: Why should code be 100% Certified Free™ instead of 95%, or even 50%? Is it a moral imperative to make code truly free, or an aesthetic ideal? What harms come from a CC-BY-NC license relative to MIT and why do those harms matter? I think answers to these questions are much harder and more interesting to come by than splitting hairs over the semantics of freedom.

sneak 5y ago
Yes, it's morally bad to restrict the freedoms of others when not doing so causes no harm to yourself. Amazon can't "steal" something that is given freely. That's the whole point of free software: it's no longer up to you how others get to use it. The core idea of copyrights and ownership of sequences of bytes is the problem. We need to stop thinking of information as something that it is possible to own.
- academia_hack 5y ago
  This is a fair point, although not in great alignment with many of the norms that keep society working outside of tech. However, don't all (or nearly all) licenses imply restrictions of some sort? Do you think code should just be released CC0/Public Domain or are certain restrictions (like copy-left) worth the cost?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Certain restrictions are indeed worth it, sure. But the FSF, OSI, and DFSG unanimously agree that a restriction on commercial use is not.
  - sneak 5y ago
    I personally think that the concept of copyright (that is, using state-sponsored violence (or threat of same) to enforce property rights over the reproduction of certain sequences of bytes) is insane. I understand why it exists and the economic incentives it creates, however I feel that the fundamental idea that someone can “own” a certain sequence of bytes is as absurd as someone owning the number 2.
    - novok 5y ago
      Overall the concept of property has similar absurdity if you think deeply about it, especially with the concept of land ownership, or ownership in general. Property, title, money and ownership are organization structures for human activity, congruent with human social instincts, enforced ultimately by violence too. It's otherwise a fiction.
      - sneak 5y ago
        I think there are some natural rights to personal property. As far as land goes, you're right. The same rules for objects probably shouldn't be used for land.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- PontifexMinimus 5y ago
  > We need to stop thinking of information as something that it is possible to own. Sure. But until we reach that world, software licenses have a place.
- cdent 5y ago
  If an entity makes profit off the back of my labour without compensation a reasonable case could be made that harm has been done to me. Or at least a labourer may legitimately claim they wish to share "freely" only to some. And they can also choose to change their mind on any subsequent work. This is especially the case when the entities involved are corporate, not individual humans.
  - ddevault 5y ago
    You can make that case, and you're entitled to distribute your software under terms that prevent this. But this is the deal you sign up for when you make free and open source software. If you want to make another kind of software, that's quite fine, but it's not free software nor open source.
    - Macha 5y ago
      Especially if your complaint is "We got lots of growth because people adopted our open source software but then Amazon published a hosted version and now we can't claim as much of the commercial opportunity, so we need a more restrictive license." Would the software have attained the userbase it did if they were the terms from the outset? A lot of these companies just assume that it would have been the exact same except for the absence of an amazon competitor if these licenses were used.
  - sneak 5y ago
    No, using information or tools (or tool designs) that you have released to make profit does not do harm to you.
  - rossy 5y ago
    I think this is where I disagree. I'm all for identifying corporate exploitation of free software, but this isn't it. If I work to enrich the commons, and as a result someone profits, I don't think harm has been done to me. Sure, it might feel bad to know that someone is profiting because of my work and they couldn't spare anything for me, but ultimately, I didn't expect to make any money when I did the work. I would have done it anyway. It's really hard to see how I've been harmed here.
- bsza 5y ago
  Information should definitely be something you can own, and you seem to understand this perfectly, because yesterday you wrote: "I would feel a lot more comfortable with this if it didn't collect any data of mine"
  - sneak 5y ago
    Having knowledge/access to data does not mean you own it. I have pirated movies on my hard drive. Do I own them?
    - bsza 5y ago
      I hacked your Facebook account and posted hate speech on it. Your employer fired you. Am I innocent?
      - sneak 5y ago
        Depends on what you mean by "hacked".
PontifexMinimus 5y ago
> This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I agree with this. I'll go further: any software license, other than "do whatever you like with this work", imposes some restrictions on what you can do with it, and therefore is, in some sense restricting freedom. However, the sense that it is restricting freedom is not a particularly useful one.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Not every restriction restricts freedom. For example, a license being copyleft only restricts power: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html
  - jobigoud 5y ago
    That's exactly the kind of semantics shenanigans the grandparent is talking about. The article you linked to uses a very specific definition of freedom that may or may not be shared by others intuitively, and uses that specific definition to argue that restricting certain uses are not actually restricting freedom but restricting another concept that they excluded from their definition of freedom in the first place.
    - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
      The GNU GPL and similar copy-left licenses are freedom-preserving. They ensure that software licensed under the GPL (or similar license) grants users the four fundamental freedoms (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en) and that those freedoms cannot be taken away by copies, forks, or derivative works. If you want your software completely unrestricted, then the GPL is not what you want, but don't be surprised if someone creates a proprietary work using the completely unrestricted software. The choice is yours.
      - Blikkentrekker 5y ago
dalbasal 5y ago
I agree with your point on semantics. "Free Software" means whatever you define it to mean. That said, sharing your code to be used in certain ways, not others, or for purposes you hate is maintaining control. That is relevant to "is it free?" I don't think it's morally bad, unless you take an absolutist stance that all software must be free. To the normative point... As more of the software industry is concentrated in monopolies, the benefits of Free Software tend to concentrate there too. At that point, it's harder to feel good about it and sharing your code selectively often feels better. I also think that server side software breaks some of the Free Software logic. Users of the software aren't technically users, and they don't inherit Free Software's rights. Again, this makes the normative point bland and unattractive.
seba_dos1 5y ago
> is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? Maybe not, but such a license will stop me from including it into Debian or other distros that provide Free Software only, and I won't be able to use your code in or mix with projects under a copyleft license such as GPL. If that's what your intention is, then go for it. If not, maybe rethink.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- user-the-name 5y ago
  But is that a problem with that license, or is it a problem with Debian? This is a discussion worth having, instead of sweeping it under the rug with "well that's how we've always done it".
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    It's clearly a problem with license incompatibility.
- kongin 5y ago
  And a GPL license will stop it from being included in OpenBSD. So what?
- api 5y ago
  Debian has a "non-free" repository. Perhaps it needs a tag for source-available licenses that are not unencumbered enough for core Debian.
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    ...which isn't an official part of Debian and isn't enabled by default, and some derivatives don't include it at all. Also, it seems to me that "non-free" is already a good and descriptive tag for non-free source available software.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
lmm 5y ago
Beyond the specific arguments for why commercial use is important (which the likes of the FSF do make), I think it's also important to draw a line in the sand and say what is and isn't permissible, or our freedoms will be nibbled away one bite at a time. The free software definition might not be perfect, but it's a coordination point that the community can stand behind and say: this far, but no further.
- kongin 5y ago
  The argument we're making is that it's a line that made sense in 1980s academia when you wanted printer drivers. Less so in 2020s real life where we are a hair width away from smart dust total surveillance.
  - lmm 5y ago
    Ok but you have to actually make the argument for what specifically has changed, not just gesture vaguely at the idea that the present is different from the past.
    - kongin 5y ago
      The vast majority of users never access the computers they use. Every open source license, apart from the AGPL, is for personal computing first and mainframe never. Which is why you don't have the source code for google even though you should.
      - lmm 5y ago
        The AGPL and related licenses have been around for decades and they address that problem in a very direct way (getting the community to adopt those licenses is a bigger issue). Where's the argument for a no commercial use rule being a better way of achieving the desired goal?
        kongin 5y ago
        This has nothing to do with what you asked in your last post.
abetusk 5y ago
The end goal is to enrich the commons. While the copy-left aspect of many of these licenses are forcing people to obey the golden rule, the intent is clearly to curtail bad corporate actors to make sure if it is used, it remains in the commons. My concern with non-commercial and non-derivative licensed works is having someone now gate keep access to the work. This has a chilling effect on use as anyone using it now clearly knows the author didn't want their work used for anything outside of "showing to your friends". Did I use the work when talking about it in a blog post? Am I in violation because there's advertising on it? Did I use the work to help make a video that gets a million views? Am I now in violation because I get a small income stream off of some other piece of work that used your non-commercial work on its periphery? You say you want to target hobbyists. Say I'm spending my time investing in learning your library and I want to use it in my job because I think it's cool and I've gained familiarity with it. Now I'm in the position of asking you for permission of whether I can use it or not. My time would have been better spent investing in something that told me from the outset I had permission to use it. You don't want people using your explicit approval, that's your prerogative and NC and ND are for you. If you want people to have control over the tools they learn, use and deploy, then it needs to be under a libre/free license. It's more than aesthetics. Putting a non-commercial license on works, especially software, is a death knell.
- kongin 5y ago
  >If you want people to have control over the tools they learn, use and deploy, then it needs to be under a libre/free license. I'm old enough to remember having this exact argument on dial up bbs's on why the BSD and MIT licenses were the only true free software licenses and the GPL wasn't. After all the GPL limits my freedom as a developer to not have to share all the source code I write as part of a program. The argument is as wrong then as it is now: the freedom isn't for you, it's for everyone. It doesn't help that that a bunch of squatters came into the commons and stole the words for free software and open source, those words were used long before the FSF and OSI stole them from the rest of us and they didn't mean at all what they were redefined to mean. At least the FSF had the self awareness to realize that they needed a new word and tried for libre.
  - 5y ago
ignoramous 5y ago
> If I want to share my code freely with hobbyists and individuals, while ensuring that Amazon can't just steal it, pervert it into something I hate, and then borrow my own reputation to help them sell it, is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? It isn't morally bankrupt but it is in contradiction to "share my code freely". Libre sharing of code with others invites contributions, which may or may not take the form of commercial enterprise around the fringes and/or of the code in-question itself. Think WordPress and Linux/RedHat; and not Redis and ElasticSearch. I agree that companies like Docker that created real value couldn't capture it all for themselves, but that's down to the rest of the ecosystem catching up to them and eventually overhauling them (some would argue, this is how it is supposed to work). If it is any consolation, they did end up creating an enormous amount of value with an industry changing innovation, but that happened on back of permissive licensing. You cite Amazon as an example, but as one counter, AWS now employs the RTOS lead developer and continue to fund the effort. Something similar happened when Rust-lang engineers were let go by Mozilla. So, it isn't all bed of nails. I hack on FOSS full-time, and in my view, favouring permissive licenses over restrictive ones is how the FOSS ecosystem flourished in the first place. Besides, unlike other forms of work, digital work inherently wants to be free. There's no caging it. And in letting it be is how we let it grow.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  > And in letting it be is how we let it grow. Is it? Can you truly support this argument? I can't work on open-source code full time without getting paid. I have bills to pay. If I release a project, try to make some money on the side, and Amazon swoops in, takes all my code, and offers it for less than I can afford, I will have to stop working on it. Does the software still grow now?
  - ignoramous 5y ago
    The economics of FOSS and its sociology can reinforce each other, and that's where the true benefit lies. Throwing the code at the wall to see if its sticks and if it does, then expecting it pay one's bills isn't what FOSS is about, unfortunately. On economics of software, these posts make for a good reading: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2004/12/16/the-economics-of-software-redux/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2004/12/16/the-economics-of-soft... On FOSS and permissive licensing, see these: https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-sustainable https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-... http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts-its-midlife-crisis/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts... > Is it? Can you truly support this argument? https://kk.org/thetechnium/technology-want/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/technology-want/
kumarsw 5y ago
Non-commercial clauses seem to be a good fit for software that is someone's "day job" where they charge for licenses. It's not common, but I've run across the following projects: Duplicacy by Gilbert Chen https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy Dome by Federico Milano http://faraday1.ucd.ie/dome.html http://faraday1.ucd.ie/dome.html Fman by Michael Herrmann https://fman.io https://fman.io From what I've gathered, success has been mixed. Duplicacy seems to be doing well based on forum activity and release history. Fman never made much money. If I recall correctly the Fman author was turned off by the number of people who criticized it for being fully open-source and wished he'd stuck with a closed-source full commercial model. I'd like for the open-source community to be more accepting of this model as there is potential value in it. As an example, Mathematica still refuses to let anyone not employed by the company see the source code, which creates a reproducibility/validation problem for math researchers. While Steven Wolfram understandably rejects pleas to make the software FOSS, there is real benefit in letting people see the code. Edit: Fixed names
- ghaff 5y ago
  It's effectively what you had in the Freeware for personal use only and Shareware (supposed to pay after a trial period) worlds. In practice, it was mostly companies that paid. When I had a small shareware business about half my revenues came from site licensing and the rest were split between individuals and companies. The software wasn't open source but, as a practical matter, for solo developer projects it worked pretty much the same way.
- mherrmann 5y ago
  Michael Herrmann. Thank you for the mention ;-) The post you mentioned about being criticized for not being open source: https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/ https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/
- Macha 5y ago
  > Duplicacy by Raymond Chen Gilbert Chen is a different person to Raymond Chen, unless I'm missing something?
da_chicken 5y ago
> This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I could also invent a definition of freedom that was contrived to be incompatible with copy-left licenses and then write a post about how those aren't "truly free" either. Look, don't pretend that you don't know that the FSF doesn't exist, or that that is what is conventionally meant by Free Software. Yes, English does have plain meanings for the word "free". However, you're not really doing yourself any favors here. You just sound like you're being willful or stubborn about the term Free Software. I agree that it's a poor term, but it's the term that has been selected. Complaining now in 2021 about computer terms devised in the mid 1980s is fruitless at best. > From a developer's perspective: Why should code be 100% Certified Free™ instead of 95%, or even 50%? Is it a moral imperative to make code truly free, or an aesthetic ideal? What harms come from a CC-BY-NC license relative to MIT and why do those harms matter? I think answers to these questions are much harder and more interesting to come by than splitting hairs over the semantics of freedom. Okay, so, if you look at the FSD link in the article [0], the very first thing is the four software freedoms: > - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. > - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). > - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The second thing in the FSD article explains why NC isn't Free: > “Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. On the contrary, a free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. This policy is of fundamental importance—without this, free software could not achieve its aims. > We want to invite everyone to use the GNU system, including businesses and their workers. That requires allowing commercial use. We hope that free replacement programs will supplant comparable proprietary programs, but they can't do that if businesses are forbidden to use them. We want commercial products that contain software to include the GNU system, and that would constitute commercial distribution for a price. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. Paid, professional support for free software fills an important need. > Thus, to exclude commercial use, commercial development or commercial distribution would hobble the free software community and obstruct its path to success. We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software. In other words, your open source, NC software will never achieve success because it's chosen to exclude one of the major causes for software success and distribution: commercial adoption. By extension, you've told all commercial systems to go build their own proprietary system and sell that instead. You've forced commercial systems to compete with your software. You've created a monster, because commercial enterprise is always going to have more resources than you do. You've ensured that if your software's purpose is necessary and important, your software will fail. [0]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
amatheus 5y ago
Maybe we should talk about ethical licenses instead of free ones then. Then the purpose would be clearer.
- st_goliath 5y ago
  Quite recently, a different group already adopted the term "ethical license". Ironically for licenses that attempt to discriminate against certain groups of people, thus also violating both the OSI and FSF definitions. So yes, that is apparently already thing now and distinct from "free" or "open source". [1] https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licenses/ https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licens... [2] https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic-license-cant-work/ https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic...
smichel17 5y ago
I think the second part of this post makes a more compelling argument against NC licensing. https://blog.wolftune.com/2011/07/brain-parts-song-video.html https://blog.wolftune.com/2011/07/brain-parts-song-video.htm... The core point: > The Creative Commons Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license (and also the BY-NC-SA license) substantially hampers the creation of non-commercial derivative works! In short, it's because BY-NC is incompatible with BY-SA, and the latter is probably enough to discourage exploitative commercial use, anyway.
- rossy 5y ago
  Yes! It's a huge peeve of mine when two well-meaning free software projects can't share code because of unintentional licence incompatibility. Throwing non-commercial licences into the mix would worsen things a lot.
atsmyles 5y ago
This is true. Period. Controlling the use of software is always not free. If I made a project with a license that said that anyone can use the software except for those who control the use of their software, I wouldn't be able to use my own software. As far as the developer goes, you can license your code however you like. But don't claim the moral high ground. These non commercial licenses are no different than proprietary software.
- api 5y ago
  By that argument the GPL is not free because it prevents me from (legally) stripping all the copyrights off and incorporating all the code into a commercial product.
  - atsmyles 5y ago
    No, you just don't understand the argument. Copyright is not a EULA.
  - adl 5y ago
    That's not limiting use, it's limiting distribution, different things.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      Assuming, of course, that use and distribution are entirely independent which is dubious at best. Regardless, controlling distribution still makes it not free.
- Thiez 5y ago
  > If I made a project with a license that said that anyone can use the software except for those who control the use of their software, I wouldn't be able to use my own software. That scenario is clearly wrong and absurd. You don't need a license to use your own intellectual property, and thus cannot be bound by that license in any way.
red_trumpet 5y ago
> If I want to share my code freely with hobbyists and individuals, while ensuring that Amazon can't just steal it, pervert it into something I hate, and then borrow my own reputation to help them sell it, is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? This is where the AGPL (at least for code) comes into play, which mostly is enough to prohibit Amazon from taking your code and hosting (a modification of it) on their servers.
account42 5y ago
> Restrictions on [...] use are incompatible with [...] what "free" means Yes.
dtagames 5y ago
I don't think it's the semantics that matter. It's the use case. If you rely on a library with a non-permissive license (ala, something tighter than MIT), then you are restricted (aka, not free) to use it in those cases, like commercialization in the case of the mentioned licenses. This is a Very Bad Thing because it keeps really good software from making it into commercial use over fear of the restrictions in the license. (APGL bans are great example.)

sneak 5y ago

Yes, it's morally bad to restrict the freedoms of others when not doing so causes no harm to yourself. Amazon can't "steal" something that is given freely. That's the whole point of free software: it's no longer up to you how others get to use it. The core idea of copyrights and ownership of sequences of bytes is the problem. We need to stop thinking of information as something that it is possible to own.

academia_hack 5y ago
This is a fair point, although not in great alignment with many of the norms that keep society working outside of tech. However, don't all (or nearly all) licenses imply restrictions of some sort? Do you think code should just be released CC0/Public Domain or are certain restrictions (like copy-left) worth the cost?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Certain restrictions are indeed worth it, sure. But the FSF, OSI, and DFSG unanimously agree that a restriction on commercial use is not.
- sneak 5y ago
  I personally think that the concept of copyright (that is, using state-sponsored violence (or threat of same) to enforce property rights over the reproduction of certain sequences of bytes) is insane. I understand why it exists and the economic incentives it creates, however I feel that the fundamental idea that someone can “own” a certain sequence of bytes is as absurd as someone owning the number 2.
  - novok 5y ago
    Overall the concept of property has similar absurdity if you think deeply about it, especially with the concept of land ownership, or ownership in general. Property, title, money and ownership are organization structures for human activity, congruent with human social instincts, enforced ultimately by violence too. It's otherwise a fiction.
    - sneak 5y ago
      I think there are some natural rights to personal property. As far as land goes, you're right. The same rules for objects probably shouldn't be used for land.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PontifexMinimus 5y ago
> We need to stop thinking of information as something that it is possible to own. Sure. But until we reach that world, software licenses have a place.
cdent 5y ago
If an entity makes profit off the back of my labour without compensation a reasonable case could be made that harm has been done to me. Or at least a labourer may legitimately claim they wish to share "freely" only to some. And they can also choose to change their mind on any subsequent work. This is especially the case when the entities involved are corporate, not individual humans.
- ddevault 5y ago
  You can make that case, and you're entitled to distribute your software under terms that prevent this. But this is the deal you sign up for when you make free and open source software. If you want to make another kind of software, that's quite fine, but it's not free software nor open source.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Especially if your complaint is "We got lots of growth because people adopted our open source software but then Amazon published a hosted version and now we can't claim as much of the commercial opportunity, so we need a more restrictive license." Would the software have attained the userbase it did if they were the terms from the outset? A lot of these companies just assume that it would have been the exact same except for the absence of an amazon competitor if these licenses were used.
- sneak 5y ago
  No, using information or tools (or tool designs) that you have released to make profit does not do harm to you.
- rossy 5y ago
  I think this is where I disagree. I'm all for identifying corporate exploitation of free software, but this isn't it. If I work to enrich the commons, and as a result someone profits, I don't think harm has been done to me. Sure, it might feel bad to know that someone is profiting because of my work and they couldn't spare anything for me, but ultimately, I didn't expect to make any money when I did the work. I would have done it anyway. It's really hard to see how I've been harmed here.
bsza 5y ago
Information should definitely be something you can own, and you seem to understand this perfectly, because yesterday you wrote: "I would feel a lot more comfortable with this if it didn't collect any data of mine"
- sneak 5y ago
  Having knowledge/access to data does not mean you own it. I have pirated movies on my hard drive. Do I own them?
  - bsza 5y ago
    I hacked your Facebook account and posted hate speech on it. Your employer fired you. Am I innocent?
    - sneak 5y ago
      Depends on what you mean by "hacked".

PontifexMinimus 5y ago

> This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I agree with this. I'll go further: any software license, other than "do whatever you like with this work", imposes some restrictions on what you can do with it, and therefore is, in some sense restricting freedom. However, the sense that it is restricting freedom is not a particularly useful one.

josephcsible 5y ago
Not every restriction restricts freedom. For example, a license being copyleft only restricts power: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html
- jobigoud 5y ago
  That's exactly the kind of semantics shenanigans the grandparent is talking about. The article you linked to uses a very specific definition of freedom that may or may not be shared by others intuitively, and uses that specific definition to argue that restricting certain uses are not actually restricting freedom but restricting another concept that they excluded from their definition of freedom in the first place.
  - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
    The GNU GPL and similar copy-left licenses are freedom-preserving. They ensure that software licensed under the GPL (or similar license) grants users the four fundamental freedoms (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en) and that those freedoms cannot be taken away by copies, forks, or derivative works. If you want your software completely unrestricted, then the GPL is not what you want, but don't be surprised if someone creates a proprietary work using the completely unrestricted software. The choice is yours.
    - Blikkentrekker 5y ago

dalbasal 5y ago

I agree with your point on semantics. "Free Software" means whatever you define it to mean. That said, sharing your code to be used in certain ways, not others, or for purposes you hate is maintaining control. That is relevant to "is it free?" I don't think it's morally bad, unless you take an absolutist stance that all software must be free. To the normative point... As more of the software industry is concentrated in monopolies, the benefits of Free Software tend to concentrate there too. At that point, it's harder to feel good about it and sharing your code selectively often feels better. I also think that server side software breaks some of the Free Software logic. Users of the software aren't technically users, and they don't inherit Free Software's rights. Again, this makes the normative point bland and unattractive.

seba_dos1 5y ago

> is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? Maybe not, but such a license will stop me from including it into Debian or other distros that provide Free Software only, and I won't be able to use your code in or mix with projects under a copyleft license such as GPL. If that's what your intention is, then go for it. If not, maybe rethink.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
user-the-name 5y ago
But is that a problem with that license, or is it a problem with Debian? This is a discussion worth having, instead of sweeping it under the rug with "well that's how we've always done it".
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  It's clearly a problem with license incompatibility.
kongin 5y ago
And a GPL license will stop it from being included in OpenBSD. So what?
api 5y ago
Debian has a "non-free" repository. Perhaps it needs a tag for source-available licenses that are not unencumbered enough for core Debian.
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  ...which isn't an official part of Debian and isn't enabled by default, and some derivatives don't include it at all. Also, it seems to me that "non-free" is already a good and descriptive tag for non-free source available software.
ashtonkem 5y ago

lmm 5y ago

Beyond the specific arguments for why commercial use is important (which the likes of the FSF do make), I think it's also important to draw a line in the sand and say what is and isn't permissible, or our freedoms will be nibbled away one bite at a time. The free software definition might not be perfect, but it's a coordination point that the community can stand behind and say: this far, but no further.

kongin 5y ago
The argument we're making is that it's a line that made sense in 1980s academia when you wanted printer drivers. Less so in 2020s real life where we are a hair width away from smart dust total surveillance.
- lmm 5y ago
  Ok but you have to actually make the argument for what specifically has changed, not just gesture vaguely at the idea that the present is different from the past.
  - kongin 5y ago
    The vast majority of users never access the computers they use. Every open source license, apart from the AGPL, is for personal computing first and mainframe never. Which is why you don't have the source code for google even though you should.
    - lmm 5y ago
      The AGPL and related licenses have been around for decades and they address that problem in a very direct way (getting the community to adopt those licenses is a bigger issue). Where's the argument for a no commercial use rule being a better way of achieving the desired goal?
      - kongin 5y ago
        This has nothing to do with what you asked in your last post.

abetusk 5y ago

The end goal is to enrich the commons. While the copy-left aspect of many of these licenses are forcing people to obey the golden rule, the intent is clearly to curtail bad corporate actors to make sure if it is used, it remains in the commons. My concern with non-commercial and non-derivative licensed works is having someone now gate keep access to the work. This has a chilling effect on use as anyone using it now clearly knows the author didn't want their work used for anything outside of "showing to your friends". Did I use the work when talking about it in a blog post? Am I in violation because there's advertising on it? Did I use the work to help make a video that gets a million views? Am I now in violation because I get a small income stream off of some other piece of work that used your non-commercial work on its periphery? You say you want to target hobbyists. Say I'm spending my time investing in learning your library and I want to use it in my job because I think it's cool and I've gained familiarity with it. Now I'm in the position of asking you for permission of whether I can use it or not. My time would have been better spent investing in something that told me from the outset I had permission to use it. You don't want people using your explicit approval, that's your prerogative and NC and ND are for you. If you want people to have control over the tools they learn, use and deploy, then it needs to be under a libre/free license. It's more than aesthetics. Putting a non-commercial license on works, especially software, is a death knell.

kongin 5y ago
>If you want people to have control over the tools they learn, use and deploy, then it needs to be under a libre/free license. I'm old enough to remember having this exact argument on dial up bbs's on why the BSD and MIT licenses were the only true free software licenses and the GPL wasn't. After all the GPL limits my freedom as a developer to not have to share all the source code I write as part of a program. The argument is as wrong then as it is now: the freedom isn't for you, it's for everyone. It doesn't help that that a bunch of squatters came into the commons and stole the words for free software and open source, those words were used long before the FSF and OSI stole them from the rest of us and they didn't mean at all what they were redefined to mean. At least the FSF had the self awareness to realize that they needed a new word and tried for libre.
- 5y ago

ignoramous 5y ago

> If I want to share my code freely with hobbyists and individuals, while ensuring that Amazon can't just steal it, pervert it into something I hate, and then borrow my own reputation to help them sell it, is it morally bad to add a license that stops this behavior? It isn't morally bankrupt but it is in contradiction to "share my code freely". Libre sharing of code with others invites contributions, which may or may not take the form of commercial enterprise around the fringes and/or of the code in-question itself. Think WordPress and Linux/RedHat; and not Redis and ElasticSearch. I agree that companies like Docker that created real value couldn't capture it all for themselves, but that's down to the rest of the ecosystem catching up to them and eventually overhauling them (some would argue, this is how it is supposed to work). If it is any consolation, they did end up creating an enormous amount of value with an industry changing innovation, but that happened on back of permissive licensing. You cite Amazon as an example, but as one counter, AWS now employs the RTOS lead developer and continue to fund the effort. Something similar happened when Rust-lang engineers were let go by Mozilla. So, it isn't all bed of nails. I hack on FOSS full-time, and in my view, favouring permissive licenses over restrictive ones is how the FOSS ecosystem flourished in the first place. Besides, unlike other forms of work, digital work inherently wants to be free. There's no caging it. And in letting it be is how we let it grow.

user-the-name 5y ago
> And in letting it be is how we let it grow. Is it? Can you truly support this argument? I can't work on open-source code full time without getting paid. I have bills to pay. If I release a project, try to make some money on the side, and Amazon swoops in, takes all my code, and offers it for less than I can afford, I will have to stop working on it. Does the software still grow now?
- ignoramous 5y ago
  The economics of FOSS and its sociology can reinforce each other, and that's where the true benefit lies. Throwing the code at the wall to see if its sticks and if it does, then expecting it pay one's bills isn't what FOSS is about, unfortunately. On economics of software, these posts make for a good reading: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2004/12/16/the-economics-of-software-redux/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2004/12/16/the-economics-of-soft... On FOSS and permissive licensing, see these: https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-sustainable https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-... http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts-its-midlife-crisis/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts... > Is it? Can you truly support this argument? https://kk.org/thetechnium/technology-want/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/technology-want/

kumarsw 5y ago

Non-commercial clauses seem to be a good fit for software that is someone's "day job" where they charge for licenses. It's not common, but I've run across the following projects: Duplicacy by Gilbert Chen https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy Dome by Federico Milano http://faraday1.ucd.ie/dome.html http://faraday1.ucd.ie/dome.html Fman by Michael Herrmann https://fman.io https://fman.io From what I've gathered, success has been mixed. Duplicacy seems to be doing well based on forum activity and release history. Fman never made much money. If I recall correctly the Fman author was turned off by the number of people who criticized it for being fully open-source and wished he'd stuck with a closed-source full commercial model. I'd like for the open-source community to be more accepting of this model as there is potential value in it. As an example, Mathematica still refuses to let anyone not employed by the company see the source code, which creates a reproducibility/validation problem for math researchers. While Steven Wolfram understandably rejects pleas to make the software FOSS, there is real benefit in letting people see the code. Edit: Fixed names

ghaff 5y ago
It's effectively what you had in the Freeware for personal use only and Shareware (supposed to pay after a trial period) worlds. In practice, it was mostly companies that paid. When I had a small shareware business about half my revenues came from site licensing and the rest were split between individuals and companies. The software wasn't open source but, as a practical matter, for solo developer projects it worked pretty much the same way.
mherrmann 5y ago
Michael Herrmann. Thank you for the mention ;-) The post you mentioned about being criticized for not being open source: https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/ https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/
Macha 5y ago
> Duplicacy by Raymond Chen Gilbert Chen is a different person to Raymond Chen, unless I'm missing something?

da_chicken 5y ago

> This is true in a technical sense. Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with a very specific interpretation of what "free" means. I could also invent a definition of freedom that was contrived to be incompatible with copy-left licenses and then write a post about how those aren't "truly free" either. Look, don't pretend that you don't know that the FSF doesn't exist, or that that is what is conventionally meant by Free Software. Yes, English does have plain meanings for the word "free". However, you're not really doing yourself any favors here. You just sound like you're being willful or stubborn about the term Free Software. I agree that it's a poor term, but it's the term that has been selected. Complaining now in 2021 about computer terms devised in the mid 1980s is fruitless at best. > From a developer's perspective: Why should code be 100% Certified Free™ instead of 95%, or even 50%? Is it a moral imperative to make code truly free, or an aesthetic ideal? What harms come from a CC-BY-NC license relative to MIT and why do those harms matter? I think answers to these questions are much harder and more interesting to come by than splitting hairs over the semantics of freedom. Okay, so, if you look at the FSD link in the article [0], the very first thing is the four software freedoms: > - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. > - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). > - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The second thing in the FSD article explains why NC isn't Free: > “Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. On the contrary, a free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. This policy is of fundamental importance—without this, free software could not achieve its aims. > We want to invite everyone to use the GNU system, including businesses and their workers. That requires allowing commercial use. We hope that free replacement programs will supplant comparable proprietary programs, but they can't do that if businesses are forbidden to use them. We want commercial products that contain software to include the GNU system, and that would constitute commercial distribution for a price. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. Paid, professional support for free software fills an important need. > Thus, to exclude commercial use, commercial development or commercial distribution would hobble the free software community and obstruct its path to success. We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software. In other words, your open source, NC software will never achieve success because it's chosen to exclude one of the major causes for software success and distribution: commercial adoption. By extension, you've told all commercial systems to go build their own proprietary system and sell that instead. You've forced commercial systems to compete with your software. You've created a monster, because commercial enterprise is always going to have more resources than you do. You've ensured that if your software's purpose is necessary and important, your software will fail. [0]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

amatheus 5y ago

Maybe we should talk about ethical licenses instead of free ones then. Then the purpose would be clearer.

st_goliath 5y ago
Quite recently, a different group already adopted the term "ethical license". Ironically for licenses that attempt to discriminate against certain groups of people, thus also violating both the OSI and FSF definitions. So yes, that is apparently already thing now and distinct from "free" or "open source". [1] https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licenses/ https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licens... [2] https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic-license-cant-work/ https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic...

smichel17 5y ago

I think the second part of this post makes a more compelling argument against NC licensing. https://blog.wolftune.com/2011/07/brain-parts-song-video.html https://blog.wolftune.com/2011/07/brain-parts-song-video.htm... The core point: > The Creative Commons Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license (and also the BY-NC-SA license) substantially hampers the creation of non-commercial derivative works! In short, it's because BY-NC is incompatible with BY-SA, and the latter is probably enough to discourage exploitative commercial use, anyway.

rossy 5y ago
Yes! It's a huge peeve of mine when two well-meaning free software projects can't share code because of unintentional licence incompatibility. Throwing non-commercial licences into the mix would worsen things a lot.

atsmyles 5y ago

This is true. Period. Controlling the use of software is always not free. If I made a project with a license that said that anyone can use the software except for those who control the use of their software, I wouldn't be able to use my own software. As far as the developer goes, you can license your code however you like. But don't claim the moral high ground. These non commercial licenses are no different than proprietary software.

api 5y ago
By that argument the GPL is not free because it prevents me from (legally) stripping all the copyrights off and incorporating all the code into a commercial product.
- atsmyles 5y ago
  No, you just don't understand the argument. Copyright is not a EULA.
- adl 5y ago
  That's not limiting use, it's limiting distribution, different things.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    Assuming, of course, that use and distribution are entirely independent which is dubious at best. Regardless, controlling distribution still makes it not free.
Thiez 5y ago
> If I made a project with a license that said that anyone can use the software except for those who control the use of their software, I wouldn't be able to use my own software. That scenario is clearly wrong and absurd. You don't need a license to use your own intellectual property, and thus cannot be bound by that license in any way.

red_trumpet 5y ago

account42 5y ago

> Restrictions on [...] use are incompatible with [...] what "free" means Yes.

dtagames 5y ago

I don't think it's the semantics that matter. It's the use case. If you rely on a library with a non-permissive license (ala, something tighter than MIT), then you are restricted (aka, not free) to use it in those cases, like commercialization in the case of the mentioned licenses. This is a Very Bad Thing because it keeps really good software from making it into commercial use over fear of the restrictions in the license. (APGL bans are great example.)