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>> My willingness to “go along” with an FSF CLA is much, much greater than for a random company who wants to trade on and benefit from the goodwill of the “we’r

>> My willingness to “go along” with an FSF CLA is much, much greater than for a random company who wants to trade on and benefit from the goodwill of the “we’re open-source!!” banner and yet be able to rug-pull later. FSF is the only organization that I would trust with a CLA. Everyone else has mixed motives. As this stuff keeps happening I think the GPL will regain popularity.

wizzwizz4 1y ago
Consider adding the Software Freedom Conservancy to that list: I'd even trust them more than the FSF.
- Supermancho 1y ago
  Can you explain why anyone would trust the SFC over the FSF? The FSF are effectively zealots with a specialized interest. I can understand saying that donations might be better spent with the SFC, but I am not sure that translates to more trust.
  - pabs3 1y ago
    SFC are the same as FSF effectively, or even better. Their GPL lawsuit against Vizio for example is brilliant, they are suing as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL, rather than as a copyright holder. If they win then it means any recipient of GPLed binaries can sue for compliance. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html They are also the only folks doing GPL compliance work for the Linux kernel and hardware vendors.
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      > If they win then it means any recipient of GPLed binaries can sue for compliance. I hope they win the case (meaning, I think it's both morally and legally correct), but I hope that the conclusion of the case is not what this sentence says. I don't want "company uses GPL software and takes pains to not distribute it [they run it only internally]; disgruntled employee finds a way to smuggle a copy of the binaries out, gives that copy to someone else; now that someone else can now demand enforcement of the GPL terms" to be legally supported. To me, that's entirely different from "I use GPL software to make a TV and I sell that TV to anyone who will buy it." In that case, any buyer of the TV should be entitled to use the terms in clause 3 & 6 of the license and receive the source code that's covered by GPLv2. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html (clause numbers above refer to this license)
      - wizzwizz4 1y ago
        That's not what "recipient" means: it's a term of art. If I want the source code to your private fork of my GPL'd software, and I see your old laptop on Craig's List, I can't buy the laptop, recover the undeleted binaries from the hard drive, then sue you for the source; this ruling wouldn't affect that.
Arch-TK 1y ago
For a long while I was using MIT a lot, these days I have started switching to GPL especially for anything significant. All because of the nonsense and all the rugpulls.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  In my experience, the usefulness of any particular license is only as good as your ability to enforce it in court.
  - type0 1y ago
    Using a license that contributors trust your project to abide by is far more useful than any potential litigation that may or may not happen.
  - palata 1y ago
    It's also a risk for the other side. Big companies wouldn't take the risk to go in court, they'd rather not use your project.
    - ranger_danger 1y ago
      That has not been my experience... instead, they realize that struggling individual developers cannot and do not want to fight for their rights, so they openly abuse them knowing nothing will happen.
      - bigiain 1y ago
        GPL pretty much guarantees Google won't use you code. Although in this post "Do no evil" world that may no longer be true. And even if it is, Google don't need to use your code. They have enough resources to clean-room re-engineer pretty much any useful piece of code ever written - perhaps short of Linux, MacOS, and Windows. If Google decide they need to use your GPL Open Source project, they'll just assign a team to fully document it while meticulously not using any copyrightable text from your project in their version of the documentation, then assign a different team to write software that matches their own internal documentation - most likely in a different language - probably Golang. Or more likely, they'll make sure there are enough subpoena-able internal internal comms to make it look like they did that, then just get some external-jurisdiction non-english-speaking intern to use Gemini to copyright whitewash the Golang rewrite directly from your open source code. (I just sat here for 5 minutes trying to work out how to end this post on a positive note - but I've got nothing...)
account42 1y ago
The FSF is also the one organization that effectively already has a CLA via the "version n or later" clause commonly used with GPL licenses. The question then is of course why they'd need a real CLA on top of that.

wizzwizz4 1y ago

Consider adding the Software Freedom Conservancy to that list: I'd even trust them more than the FSF.

Supermancho 1y ago
Can you explain why anyone would trust the SFC over the FSF? The FSF are effectively zealots with a specialized interest. I can understand saying that donations might be better spent with the SFC, but I am not sure that translates to more trust.
- pabs3 1y ago
  SFC are the same as FSF effectively, or even better. Their GPL lawsuit against Vizio for example is brilliant, they are suing as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL, rather than as a copyright holder. If they win then it means any recipient of GPLed binaries can sue for compliance. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html They are also the only folks doing GPL compliance work for the Linux kernel and hardware vendors.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    > If they win then it means any recipient of GPLed binaries can sue for compliance. I hope they win the case (meaning, I think it's both morally and legally correct), but I hope that the conclusion of the case is not what this sentence says. I don't want "company uses GPL software and takes pains to not distribute it [they run it only internally]; disgruntled employee finds a way to smuggle a copy of the binaries out, gives that copy to someone else; now that someone else can now demand enforcement of the GPL terms" to be legally supported. To me, that's entirely different from "I use GPL software to make a TV and I sell that TV to anyone who will buy it." In that case, any buyer of the TV should be entitled to use the terms in clause 3 & 6 of the license and receive the source code that's covered by GPLv2. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html (clause numbers above refer to this license)
    - wizzwizz4 1y ago
      That's not what "recipient" means: it's a term of art. If I want the source code to your private fork of my GPL'd software, and I see your old laptop on Craig's List, I can't buy the laptop, recover the undeleted binaries from the hard drive, then sue you for the source; this ruling wouldn't affect that.

Arch-TK 1y ago

For a long while I was using MIT a lot, these days I have started switching to GPL especially for anything significant. All because of the nonsense and all the rugpulls.

ranger_danger 1y ago
In my experience, the usefulness of any particular license is only as good as your ability to enforce it in court.
- type0 1y ago
  Using a license that contributors trust your project to abide by is far more useful than any potential litigation that may or may not happen.
- palata 1y ago
  It's also a risk for the other side. Big companies wouldn't take the risk to go in court, they'd rather not use your project.
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
    That has not been my experience... instead, they realize that struggling individual developers cannot and do not want to fight for their rights, so they openly abuse them knowing nothing will happen.
    - bigiain 1y ago
      GPL pretty much guarantees Google won't use you code. Although in this post "Do no evil" world that may no longer be true. And even if it is, Google don't need to use your code. They have enough resources to clean-room re-engineer pretty much any useful piece of code ever written - perhaps short of Linux, MacOS, and Windows. If Google decide they need to use your GPL Open Source project, they'll just assign a team to fully document it while meticulously not using any copyrightable text from your project in their version of the documentation, then assign a different team to write software that matches their own internal documentation - most likely in a different language - probably Golang. Or more likely, they'll make sure there are enough subpoena-able internal internal comms to make it look like they did that, then just get some external-jurisdiction non-english-speaking intern to use Gemini to copyright whitewash the Golang rewrite directly from your open source code. (I just sat here for 5 minutes trying to work out how to end this post on a positive note - but I've got nothing...)

account42 1y ago

The FSF is also the one organization that effectively already has a CLA via the "version n or later" clause commonly used with GPL licenses. The question then is of course why they'd need a real CLA on top of that.