5 ms·

Maybe it is time to enshrine open-source software development into law, and out of the realm of merely relying on an old copyright hack. It was a very clever ha

Maybe it is time to enshrine open-source software development into law, and out of the realm of merely relying on an old copyright hack. It was a very clever hack, of course, but maybe the software industry has outgrown it and needs more legal basis to rely on.

epicureanideal 4y ago
How do we accomplish that without an army of lobbyists?
- kanzure 4y ago
  Major corporations have entire strategies built around open-source, with many household names that you know (Facebook, Microsoft, Google, ...). According to random estimates on the internet, open-source software is a $50 billion annual market. There's enough "there" there to get you something.
- ForHackernews 4y ago
  Hold the entire world's technology industry hostage. Nice multi-billion dollar business you got there, be a real shame if somebody started introducing subtly-breaking bugs into that critical library you use, wouldn't it?
  - kanzure 4y ago
    Well, extortion and blackmail isn't exactly a way of further legitimizing open-source software development.
    - ForHackernews 4y ago
      Works for the copyright industry, doesn't it?
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      What exactly do you think the legal process accomplishes, when you have a bad actor with deep pockets that sues people that do not have equal means to defend themselves?
  - nateb2022 4y ago
    I can guarantee you that the Big Tech that does use open source takes a number of measures against this. They usually maintain a fork against the upstream repository, for one. There is no case where you could commit code to an open source library and immediately have it affect any Big Tech code.
    - ForHackernews 4y ago
      Haha, c'mon now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number_b.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number... I can keep going. The notion that big tech has the time or inclination to rigorously audit all the free software they're using is absolutely laughable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jrm4 4y ago
If only there were a different license that kind of predicted all of this and governed itself accordingly? At least some kind of much better starting point from which to begin these things? If only someone had thought of that? In all seriousness, it appears as if I'm the first to mention the GPL in this thread and I find that very odd. There's your starting point.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  (IANAL.) … if the MIT license's warranty disclaimer doesn't hold up in this regard, what makes you think the GPL's would, or for that matter, any FOSS license's such section? The result allegedly reached here is absurd. No amount of legalese can defend against absurd conclusions.
  - midmagico 4y ago
    Yeah, this.
arp242 4y ago
What would that look like exactly, and how would it help in this case? At the end of the day, there will still be conflicts over responsibility, no matter what the law or licenses say. Making authors of open source software immune from all responsibility in any and all circumstances doesn't strike me as a good idea, because it will also enable abuse by bad faith actors.
- pksebben 4y ago
  It doesn't need to be all-or-nothing. The broad standard in most law (that I know of) is sufficient: if you can establish a _mens rea_, you're entitled to damages. Not that establishing intent to do harm would be easy, or that the law is effective or efficient. But if you're looking for a watermark to shoot for...
  - arp242 4y ago
    But isn't it the court's job to find out if that's the case? I don't see what needs changing here. Or: the MIT license has essentially worked as intended for almost 40 years. Now one bad-faith troll abuses the court system. Do we really need to start panicking? Courts exist to settle disputes, and sooner or later some bozo will come by with a faux-dispute. It's kind of inevitable, and unless there's a structural problem – which doesn't seem to be the case – it doesn't strike me as something that needs new legislation.
    - auxym 4y ago
      The problem is that a volunteer developer will now have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds (according to nullc's comments in this thread) to defend against said bozo with a faux-dispute.
      - arp242 4y ago
        That's how the legal system works. Maybe it should work different, but that has nothing to do with specific legislation for open source authors. And being a volunteer doesn't guarantee immunity from lawsuits, nor should it IMO.
fsckboy 4y ago
just too much confusion here to sort out > time to enshrine open-source software ... merely relying on an old copyright hack the copyright hack you're referring to is the copyleft hack, associated primarily with GPL, whose hacker author (Stallman, and not that kind of author) chose to call "free software". (This is the idea that if you take a copy of copyleft software and use it to create a product, users of that product are permitted to see the source code if they want, just as you got to see the source code that you used to create it. If you don't want to agree to that, don't use that free software in your product) the people who chose to distinguish themselves (ESR Eric Raymond) from "copyleft free software" chose to call their movement "open source", and their disagreement was precisely with the requirement that you share and share alike what was shared with you; and their disagreement was not in regard to whether it was a copyright hack or a signed contract, it was the meaning or intent of the express user permission to see the source (which they like to portray as a restriction on their right to hide the source) so it doesn't make sense for you to conflate "open source" with the old copyright/copyleft hack, which more importantly has nothing at all to do with with warranties. seems to me the issue OP has brought up has more to do with "click/shrink wrap" licensing. I don't know where the UK stands on click&shrink wraps, but seems to me you'd attack entire ediface rather than specific terms within (although I am aware that european regulators (and to a lesser extent american consumer rights advocates) obsess over customer rights to warranties)
- midmagico 4y ago
  This is incorrect; all OSS licensing including the MIT licence is a hack which defeats and circumvents the current automatic copyright regime. The issue in this case is that for any software which is released by anyone, for free, no matter the licence attached to it, the UK courts are contemplating doing do may create a fiduciary duty between the author and the user based on the user's actions entirely. The fact that FLOSS types both view this as an absurdity that couldn't possibly affect them, and in some cases that since Bitcoin is unfashionable in certain circles it is somehow just punishment in the form of psychopaths with money trying to ruin the Bitcoin developers and their families, while talking openly of shooting them all in the backs of their heads, on video, while fondling an illegal weapon that the cops in the UK are doing absolutely nothing about—well, this kind of blind eye they're turning to the developments in this case are astounding to me since there's no logical/sensible way to disintangle the notion that a user's actions are what create the fiduciary duty, from literally every other project on the planet. lol
breck 4y ago
Yes! It is time to fix the Constitution. We need a #FreedomToPublish amendment: Section 1. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of this Constitution is hereby repealed. Section 2. Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to publish or peaceably implement ideas.

epicureanideal 4y ago

How do we accomplish that without an army of lobbyists?

kanzure 4y ago
Major corporations have entire strategies built around open-source, with many household names that you know (Facebook, Microsoft, Google, ...). According to random estimates on the internet, open-source software is a $50 billion annual market. There's enough "there" there to get you something.
ForHackernews 4y ago
Hold the entire world's technology industry hostage. Nice multi-billion dollar business you got there, be a real shame if somebody started introducing subtly-breaking bugs into that critical library you use, wouldn't it?
- kanzure 4y ago
  Well, extortion and blackmail isn't exactly a way of further legitimizing open-source software development.
  - ForHackernews 4y ago
    Works for the copyright industry, doesn't it?
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    What exactly do you think the legal process accomplishes, when you have a bad actor with deep pockets that sues people that do not have equal means to defend themselves?
- nateb2022 4y ago
  I can guarantee you that the Big Tech that does use open source takes a number of measures against this. They usually maintain a fork against the upstream repository, for one. There is no case where you could commit code to an open source library and immediately have it affect any Big Tech code.
  - ForHackernews 4y ago
    Haha, c'mon now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number_b.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number... I can keep going. The notion that big tech has the time or inclination to rigorously audit all the free software they're using is absolutely laughable.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jrm4 4y ago

If only there were a different license that kind of predicted all of this and governed itself accordingly? At least some kind of much better starting point from which to begin these things? If only someone had thought of that? In all seriousness, it appears as if I'm the first to mention the GPL in this thread and I find that very odd. There's your starting point.

deathanatos 4y ago
(IANAL.) … if the MIT license's warranty disclaimer doesn't hold up in this regard, what makes you think the GPL's would, or for that matter, any FOSS license's such section? The result allegedly reached here is absurd. No amount of legalese can defend against absurd conclusions.
- midmagico 4y ago
  Yeah, this.

arp242 4y ago

What would that look like exactly, and how would it help in this case? At the end of the day, there will still be conflicts over responsibility, no matter what the law or licenses say. Making authors of open source software immune from all responsibility in any and all circumstances doesn't strike me as a good idea, because it will also enable abuse by bad faith actors.

pksebben 4y ago
It doesn't need to be all-or-nothing. The broad standard in most law (that I know of) is sufficient: if you can establish a _mens rea_, you're entitled to damages. Not that establishing intent to do harm would be easy, or that the law is effective or efficient. But if you're looking for a watermark to shoot for...
- arp242 4y ago
  But isn't it the court's job to find out if that's the case? I don't see what needs changing here. Or: the MIT license has essentially worked as intended for almost 40 years. Now one bad-faith troll abuses the court system. Do we really need to start panicking? Courts exist to settle disputes, and sooner or later some bozo will come by with a faux-dispute. It's kind of inevitable, and unless there's a structural problem – which doesn't seem to be the case – it doesn't strike me as something that needs new legislation.
  - auxym 4y ago
    The problem is that a volunteer developer will now have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds (according to nullc's comments in this thread) to defend against said bozo with a faux-dispute.
    - arp242 4y ago
      That's how the legal system works. Maybe it should work different, but that has nothing to do with specific legislation for open source authors. And being a volunteer doesn't guarantee immunity from lawsuits, nor should it IMO.

fsckboy 4y ago

just too much confusion here to sort out > time to enshrine open-source software ... merely relying on an old copyright hack the copyright hack you're referring to is the copyleft hack, associated primarily with GPL, whose hacker author (Stallman, and not that kind of author) chose to call "free software". (This is the idea that if you take a copy of copyleft software and use it to create a product, users of that product are permitted to see the source code if they want, just as you got to see the source code that you used to create it. If you don't want to agree to that, don't use that free software in your product) the people who chose to distinguish themselves (ESR Eric Raymond) from "copyleft free software" chose to call their movement "open source", and their disagreement was precisely with the requirement that you share and share alike what was shared with you; and their disagreement was not in regard to whether it was a copyright hack or a signed contract, it was the meaning or intent of the express user permission to see the source (which they like to portray as a restriction on their right to hide the source) so it doesn't make sense for you to conflate "open source" with the old copyright/copyleft hack, which more importantly has nothing at all to do with with warranties. seems to me the issue OP has brought up has more to do with "click/shrink wrap" licensing. I don't know where the UK stands on click&shrink wraps, but seems to me you'd attack entire ediface rather than specific terms within (although I am aware that european regulators (and to a lesser extent american consumer rights advocates) obsess over customer rights to warranties)

midmagico 4y ago
This is incorrect; all OSS licensing including the MIT licence is a hack which defeats and circumvents the current automatic copyright regime. The issue in this case is that for any software which is released by anyone, for free, no matter the licence attached to it, the UK courts are contemplating doing do may create a fiduciary duty between the author and the user based on the user's actions entirely. The fact that FLOSS types both view this as an absurdity that couldn't possibly affect them, and in some cases that since Bitcoin is unfashionable in certain circles it is somehow just punishment in the form of psychopaths with money trying to ruin the Bitcoin developers and their families, while talking openly of shooting them all in the backs of their heads, on video, while fondling an illegal weapon that the cops in the UK are doing absolutely nothing about—well, this kind of blind eye they're turning to the developments in this case are astounding to me since there's no logical/sensible way to disintangle the notion that a user's actions are what create the fiduciary duty, from literally every other project on the planet. lol

breck 4y ago

Yes! It is time to fix the Constitution. We need a #FreedomToPublish amendment: Section 1. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of this Constitution is hereby repealed. Section 2. Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to publish or peaceably implement ideas.