8 ms·

The fourth freedom is rephrased as the "right to collaborate". Yeah, right, but the official "definition" is pretty clear to me so I don't see the point in re-w

by wiz21c 3y ago

The fourth freedom is rephrased as the "right to collaborate". Yeah, right, but the official "definition" is pretty clear to me so I don't see the point in re-writing it. Moreover, but in my own opinion, nowadays free software is more about the obligation to share the modifications. I gather that many know what open source is, but that obligation, is crucially important and embodies the political statement of the FSF. It's what puts free software truly apart (and makes it great, IMHO). So I'd move the copyleft explanation higher in the list, closer to the 4 freedoms.

smlavine 3y ago
You'd be surprised how many people in the software engineering tutoring/mentoring group at my university -- the students who are more interested than anyone else in writing, sharing, and reading code -- who know no more about FOSS at all than that "open source" means you can download it for free, or do whatever you want with it. I'm not simplifying; many have not learned of the concept of software licenses in the way many FOSS contributors have. It seems to me that the website is taking the position of explaining free software from first principles, rather than as this branch or strain of open source that you already have to understand to really get. I think that's a good thing.
- distcs 3y ago
  > I'm not simplifying; many have not learned of the concept of software licenses in the way many FOSS contributors have. Just give it sometime and you'll see many examples of that in this very thread. Everytime the topic of opensource license comes up, there will surely be a comment that conflates "source available" with "opensource" or even worse insist that "source available" also qualifies to be "opensource". It is like words don't mean anything anymore. It is like apple is apple and pear is also apple because it looks round and we can eat it. stops ranting. Coming back to this post, I think it is valuable to explain opensource from first principles like this.
  - bityard 3y ago
    This is becoming so common that I am starting to wonder if it's intentional, to erode and dilute the actual meaning of "open source." There have been a spate of startup products that advertise themselves as "open source" to capitalize on the marketing/SEO advantages of doing so. And when called out on this in comments or whatever, the founder eventually presents some kind of argument along the lines of, "well if anyone can read the code then it is open!" or even the old "language can evolve" canard that people trot out when they want the meaning of a commonly-understood word or phrase inverted to fit their specific business or political agenda.
  - gcoakes 3y ago
    People "conflate" the two because that's the logical implication of the phrase when one does not have the historical context of living through and being aware of the early days of the open source movement. Words do have meaning. You're just adding additional meaning to them that is not commonly understood. Attach the same adjective to "park" or "road," and you'll understand my frustration with people claiming dominion over the word, "open." You don't have an obligation to cut the grass or fill a pot hole. If you want people to understand what you mean, use more specific language like, "copy-left." That was a fabrication of the open source movement and doesn't clash with commonly understood language. If they don't already understand the jargon, at least it will be obvious, and they can seek out the definition. No, I don't care what some open source foundation defines it as. I don't recognize their authority to extend the definition of the word, "open."
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > use more specific language like, "copy-left." But copyleft already means something different from open source. It's more like what people unfamiliar with open source software think that open source software is.
    - linguae 3y ago
      Exactly. AT&T Unix was the quintessential example of source-available software. Companies and institutions could get licenses for the Unix source code, but they weren’t allowed to redistribute it, and it certainly wasn’t free. If I recall correctly, while it was originally only $99 for academic institutions, the price went up by orders of magnitude after the breakup of AT&T (before the breakup it was prohibited from monetizing Unix due to an agreement made with the US government when AT&T was involved in an anti-trust case). We wouldn’t have our modern BSDs if it weren’t for people being frustrated with source-available Unix. BSD initially started out as essentially a collection of additions to AT&T Unix. Eventually after the divestiture of AT&T and the resulting dramatic price hikes for Unix source licenses, the Berkeley developers embarked on a campaign to replace AT&T source code to develop a fully open source Unix. They beat GNU to the punch (see GNU Hurd), only to be stymied by lawsuits from AT&T.
simiones 3y ago
Most free software is not copyleft though, and fewer and fewer new free software projects are choosing copyleft licenses. Ultimately copyleft is mostly a bureaucratic exercise, and it ends up stifling collaboration in all but the most hostile environments (such as the one Linux faced in its early days).
- phkahler 3y ago
  Sure, but any important project will probably face a very hostile environment at some time. The license better be ready for it.
  - simiones 3y ago
    I don't think that's true anymore. Linux proved to many companies how beneficial collaborating on software can be, and I believe the vast majority took that lesson to heart. The problems that the GPL mitigates compared to more permissive licenses just don't happen in practice for many classes of software.
- flushit 3y ago
  This is pretty sad. I believe there needs to be a critical mass. If, say, 90% of all FOSS projects were copyleft, then it would be much easier to introduce copyleft-licensed FOSS in companies, since they'd already know how to deal with it and it would not be a big deal. Today, many companies basically ban GPL-licensed or otherwise copyleft software projects, perhaps apart from a handpicked list of exceptions, because they don't want to deal with the hassle. MIT, fine, GPL, no. And that's pretty sad. Because it means that if write a new project you need to choose between "people will use it but it won't be copyleft" and "copyleft but a sizeable part of the community won't touch it with a 10ft pole".
  - simiones 3y ago
    I don't see why it's sad. As long as the code isn't forked and maintained internally as part of some proprietary piece of code, why would you care whether it's technically legal to do so or not?
z3t4 3y ago
With just open source someone can steal your house and lock you out. With copyleft they can still "steal" your house - but not lock you out, so you can still enjoy any improvements. Company owners hate GPL because they don't control the keys.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  What does “steal your house” mean in this context? I think you are just talking about a situation where someone forks an open source code into a private one. But the original author still has the code. If someone steals my house but I get to keep my copy… nobody has lost anything. I don’t think analogies to physical objects work all that well for software.
  - z3t4 3y ago
    Software is more then just code. There are communities and ecosystems around it. When you release software you gain goodwill which is worth money to the right buyer. And all your users are good upsale and marketing targets. An unscrupulous company can take your code, win users over by marketing their fork, and if there is no copyleft they can implement extra features that only exist in their version.
- CrampusDestrus 3y ago
  How exactly has Sony using FreeBSD for its consoles impacted my ability to go to FreeBSD.org and download their source?
golergka 3y ago
Copyleft licenses typically only force you to publish modifications if you distribute modified software. But more and more software just sits on company's servers responding to API calls, which hardly constitutes distribution or "conveying the work", in GPL terms.

by wiz21c 3y ago

smlavine 3y ago

You'd be surprised how many people in the software engineering tutoring/mentoring group at my university -- the students who are more interested than anyone else in writing, sharing, and reading code -- who know no more about FOSS at all than that "open source" means you can download it for free, or do whatever you want with it. I'm not simplifying; many have not learned of the concept of software licenses in the way many FOSS contributors have. It seems to me that the website is taking the position of explaining free software from first principles, rather than as this branch or strain of open source that you already have to understand to really get. I think that's a good thing.

distcs 3y ago
> I'm not simplifying; many have not learned of the concept of software licenses in the way many FOSS contributors have. Just give it sometime and you'll see many examples of that in this very thread. Everytime the topic of opensource license comes up, there will surely be a comment that conflates "source available" with "opensource" or even worse insist that "source available" also qualifies to be "opensource". It is like words don't mean anything anymore. It is like apple is apple and pear is also apple because it looks round and we can eat it. stops ranting. Coming back to this post, I think it is valuable to explain opensource from first principles like this.
- bityard 3y ago
  This is becoming so common that I am starting to wonder if it's intentional, to erode and dilute the actual meaning of "open source." There have been a spate of startup products that advertise themselves as "open source" to capitalize on the marketing/SEO advantages of doing so. And when called out on this in comments or whatever, the founder eventually presents some kind of argument along the lines of, "well if anyone can read the code then it is open!" or even the old "language can evolve" canard that people trot out when they want the meaning of a commonly-understood word or phrase inverted to fit their specific business or political agenda.
- gcoakes 3y ago
  People "conflate" the two because that's the logical implication of the phrase when one does not have the historical context of living through and being aware of the early days of the open source movement. Words do have meaning. You're just adding additional meaning to them that is not commonly understood. Attach the same adjective to "park" or "road," and you'll understand my frustration with people claiming dominion over the word, "open." You don't have an obligation to cut the grass or fill a pot hole. If you want people to understand what you mean, use more specific language like, "copy-left." That was a fabrication of the open source movement and doesn't clash with commonly understood language. If they don't already understand the jargon, at least it will be obvious, and they can seek out the definition. No, I don't care what some open source foundation defines it as. I don't recognize their authority to extend the definition of the word, "open."
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > use more specific language like, "copy-left." But copyleft already means something different from open source. It's more like what people unfamiliar with open source software think that open source software is.
  - linguae 3y ago
    Exactly. AT&T Unix was the quintessential example of source-available software. Companies and institutions could get licenses for the Unix source code, but they weren’t allowed to redistribute it, and it certainly wasn’t free. If I recall correctly, while it was originally only $99 for academic institutions, the price went up by orders of magnitude after the breakup of AT&T (before the breakup it was prohibited from monetizing Unix due to an agreement made with the US government when AT&T was involved in an anti-trust case). We wouldn’t have our modern BSDs if it weren’t for people being frustrated with source-available Unix. BSD initially started out as essentially a collection of additions to AT&T Unix. Eventually after the divestiture of AT&T and the resulting dramatic price hikes for Unix source licenses, the Berkeley developers embarked on a campaign to replace AT&T source code to develop a fully open source Unix. They beat GNU to the punch (see GNU Hurd), only to be stymied by lawsuits from AT&T.

simiones 3y ago

Most free software is not copyleft though, and fewer and fewer new free software projects are choosing copyleft licenses. Ultimately copyleft is mostly a bureaucratic exercise, and it ends up stifling collaboration in all but the most hostile environments (such as the one Linux faced in its early days).

phkahler 3y ago
Sure, but any important project will probably face a very hostile environment at some time. The license better be ready for it.
- simiones 3y ago
  I don't think that's true anymore. Linux proved to many companies how beneficial collaborating on software can be, and I believe the vast majority took that lesson to heart. The problems that the GPL mitigates compared to more permissive licenses just don't happen in practice for many classes of software.
flushit 3y ago
This is pretty sad. I believe there needs to be a critical mass. If, say, 90% of all FOSS projects were copyleft, then it would be much easier to introduce copyleft-licensed FOSS in companies, since they'd already know how to deal with it and it would not be a big deal. Today, many companies basically ban GPL-licensed or otherwise copyleft software projects, perhaps apart from a handpicked list of exceptions, because they don't want to deal with the hassle. MIT, fine, GPL, no. And that's pretty sad. Because it means that if write a new project you need to choose between "people will use it but it won't be copyleft" and "copyleft but a sizeable part of the community won't touch it with a 10ft pole".
- simiones 3y ago
  I don't see why it's sad. As long as the code isn't forked and maintained internally as part of some proprietary piece of code, why would you care whether it's technically legal to do so or not?

z3t4 3y ago

With just open source someone can steal your house and lock you out. With copyleft they can still "steal" your house - but not lock you out, so you can still enjoy any improvements. Company owners hate GPL because they don't control the keys.

bee_rider 3y ago
What does “steal your house” mean in this context? I think you are just talking about a situation where someone forks an open source code into a private one. But the original author still has the code. If someone steals my house but I get to keep my copy… nobody has lost anything. I don’t think analogies to physical objects work all that well for software.
- z3t4 3y ago
  Software is more then just code. There are communities and ecosystems around it. When you release software you gain goodwill which is worth money to the right buyer. And all your users are good upsale and marketing targets. An unscrupulous company can take your code, win users over by marketing their fork, and if there is no copyleft they can implement extra features that only exist in their version.
CrampusDestrus 3y ago
How exactly has Sony using FreeBSD for its consoles impacted my ability to go to FreeBSD.org and download their source?

golergka 3y ago

Copyleft licenses typically only force you to publish modifications if you distribute modified software. But more and more software just sits on company's servers responding to API calls, which hardly constitutes distribution or "conveying the work", in GPL terms.