6 ms·

Or you know, like, the 4 freedoms matter?

sarchertech 1y ago
This was the original 1986 definition of “free software”. ‘The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.’ Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then.
- cube00 1y ago
  The conglomerates can also host it on their extensive cloud infra at a price small competitors will never be able to match because they own the cloud infrastructure too. Somehow the service+infra is the same cost or cheaper then buying the infra alone and trying to deploy the open source version to it.
- jrochkind1 1y ago
  I don't know, they were focused on freedom for users not for vendors/programmers. I think it's very intentional that a restriction on what you can do with software -- including reselling it -- is a violation of the "four freedoms" -- freedoms for what someone can do with software, including redistribute it or use it for any purpose they want (including reselling it). These licenses meant to prohibit users from using the software in ways that harm the business interests of the programmers -- I am confident the original creators of free software four freedoms would agree they are not free software. It is very intentional that they were saying the freedom of users to do what they want with software should not be limited for the convenience of the business interests of those who wrote the software.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    The 4 freedoms came later. The above definition predates them. There’s nothing in that definition that makes me think anyone was thinking of anything beyond community created software, distributed by the community. This license isn’t about users. If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. This license in particular isn’t my favorite, but I’m totally fine in theory with licenses that attempt to patch loopholes exploited by bad actors.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      > If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. In the Free Software community, this line was always blurry, almost non-existent even. Even if the receiver of the Free Software package is not a programmer by any definition, at worst case, they can ask for a friend to patch something up, and if another friend wanted his patched version, the modified source code has to move with the software package. Open Source software can block even this simple pathway by not giving back the modified source from friend to the user, creating a dependency. It'd be heartless to do this between two friends, but companies will happily do that. My most vivid example of this is SDKs for hardware. Half of the API is open, but the patched version of the (open source) libraries cost $2K+, several NDAs and allegiance to company for the rest of your life or you can be sent to a concentration camp operated by an alliance of companies doing the same thing. ...and this is just for a small biometric scanner you happen to find in a piece of 10 year old discarded tech.
    - ants_everywhere 1y ago
      > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
      - forgetfulness 1y ago
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I try to remember this and remind to others while chatting: - Open Source software is about developer freedom. - Free Software is about user freedom. I'm for the latter, strongly.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- blibble 1y ago
  > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. this is absolutely right, and the OSI has been successfully captured by these companies would RedHat be able survive to IPO these days? I very much doubt it (see: Oracle Linux) a new term is needed, "Open Source" is no longer fit for purpose in a world where the hyperscalers exist "Fair Source"?
- Qwuke 1y ago
  "First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you" I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. So, even under this definition it is not free or open source. The GNU Project and Richard Stallman, who made this statement, would agree that it's not free under even this earliest definition. They in-fact made it even clearer when they defined freedom of "use" as the distinct 0th freedom eventually to make it even clearer that being able to use the software freely is fundamental to their idea of freedom. Again, freedom isn't about price, it's about usage, availability, redistribution and lack of restrictions on this. I cannot freely redistribute FSL licensed code under the original definition of free software. "Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then." Yes, the GNU project were acutely aware of this and designed the GPL licenses around such scenarios - they just didn't design it for SaaS businesses, where if you redistribute the built program externally after modifying it but only distributed its responses over a network, you technically weren't obligated to open source that modification. AGPL resolved this issue, and has more case law behind it than this 2 year old license, and has certainly less daunting implications than a not legally well defined 'competing purpose'. Wrt to the legal concerns with AGPL, they're not actually that it wouldn't provide any protection, but rather that it might offer the originally distributing entity too much power: legal power to declare all software used in the stack to produce a network request MUST be made source available. I have not seen any lawyer concerned with whether or not Amazon would be able to bypass its protections, and the license was made by lawyers to clearly provide protection. Did you create this legal theory yourself? Because I've not seen any writing from a lawyer on the internet that suggests that Amazon could firewall themselves off in a friendly jurisdiction under any reading of the license, and I read a lot of AGPL lawyerblogging. Sentry, the company who created FSL, even states that this license restricts user freedom explicitly - for the sake of the business interests of the original developer. So summing up.. Richard Stallman, the FSF, the GNU Project, the OSI, the creators of the FSL, the company now currently using FSL, all agree that this source available license does not meet the definition of "free software". So, whose definition are we using out of thin air?
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    >I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. You’re free to distribute it to your neighbors for free for any purpose. You’re free to distribute it for a fee for almost any purpose save one. You just can’t commercialize it as a competing product. “Source available” again calling this source available is disingenuous. You’re deliberating using the least free term that is technically accurate. This isn’t my favorite license, but it provides a lot more freedoms than merely looking at the source code. With respect to AGPL providing “too much control”. That is a valid and likely reason for courts to find it unenforceable.
- sneak 1y ago
  > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. That's not a bug, that's a feature. Freedom 0 applies to everyone. Giving a gift does not confer an obligation, and "contributing back" is meaningless in this context. Someone using a gift you gave them to run a business does not harm you in any way whatsoever.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    If it was merely about “giving a gift” with no obligations or restrictions there should be no open source licenses. Everything would just be released into the public domain. Free software has never been about giving gifts with no obligations.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Public domain is indeed an open source “license”. It’s what I release all of my code under (via the WTFPL).
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    This is implying that free software is a 'gift'. It's not, it is an exchange. You gain the ability to use the library or program in exchange for releasing your changes and modifications. Well, unless it's MIT licensed, in which case you're kind of a sucker and it all but _is_ a gift to Big Tech.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Copyleft is not congruent and coterminous with free software. There is plenty of FOSS that is not copyleft.

This was the original 1986 definition of “free software”. ‘The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.’ Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then.

cube00 1y ago
The conglomerates can also host it on their extensive cloud infra at a price small competitors will never be able to match because they own the cloud infrastructure too. Somehow the service+infra is the same cost or cheaper then buying the infra alone and trying to deploy the open source version to it.
jrochkind1 1y ago
I don't know, they were focused on freedom for users not for vendors/programmers. I think it's very intentional that a restriction on what you can do with software -- including reselling it -- is a violation of the "four freedoms" -- freedoms for what someone can do with software, including redistribute it or use it for any purpose they want (including reselling it). These licenses meant to prohibit users from using the software in ways that harm the business interests of the programmers -- I am confident the original creators of free software four freedoms would agree they are not free software. It is very intentional that they were saying the freedom of users to do what they want with software should not be limited for the convenience of the business interests of those who wrote the software.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  The 4 freedoms came later. The above definition predates them. There’s nothing in that definition that makes me think anyone was thinking of anything beyond community created software, distributed by the community. This license isn’t about users. If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. This license in particular isn’t my favorite, but I’m totally fine in theory with licenses that attempt to patch loopholes exploited by bad actors.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    > If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. In the Free Software community, this line was always blurry, almost non-existent even. Even if the receiver of the Free Software package is not a programmer by any definition, at worst case, they can ask for a friend to patch something up, and if another friend wanted his patched version, the modified source code has to move with the software package. Open Source software can block even this simple pathway by not giving back the modified source from friend to the user, creating a dependency. It'd be heartless to do this between two friends, but companies will happily do that. My most vivid example of this is SDKs for hardware. Half of the API is open, but the patched version of the (open source) libraries cost $2K+, several NDAs and allegiance to company for the rest of your life or you can be sent to a concentration camp operated by an alliance of companies doing the same thing. ...and this is just for a small biometric scanner you happen to find in a piece of 10 year old discarded tech.
  - ants_everywhere 1y ago
    > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
    - forgetfulness 1y ago
bayindirh 1y ago
I try to remember this and remind to others while chatting: - Open Source software is about developer freedom. - Free Software is about user freedom. I'm for the latter, strongly.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
blibble 1y ago
> Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. this is absolutely right, and the OSI has been successfully captured by these companies would RedHat be able survive to IPO these days? I very much doubt it (see: Oracle Linux) a new term is needed, "Open Source" is no longer fit for purpose in a world where the hyperscalers exist "Fair Source"?
Qwuke 1y ago
"First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you" I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. So, even under this definition it is not free or open source. The GNU Project and Richard Stallman, who made this statement, would agree that it's not free under even this earliest definition. They in-fact made it even clearer when they defined freedom of "use" as the distinct 0th freedom eventually to make it even clearer that being able to use the software freely is fundamental to their idea of freedom. Again, freedom isn't about price, it's about usage, availability, redistribution and lack of restrictions on this. I cannot freely redistribute FSL licensed code under the original definition of free software. "Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then." Yes, the GNU project were acutely aware of this and designed the GPL licenses around such scenarios - they just didn't design it for SaaS businesses, where if you redistribute the built program externally after modifying it but only distributed its responses over a network, you technically weren't obligated to open source that modification. AGPL resolved this issue, and has more case law behind it than this 2 year old license, and has certainly less daunting implications than a not legally well defined 'competing purpose'. Wrt to the legal concerns with AGPL, they're not actually that it wouldn't provide any protection, but rather that it might offer the originally distributing entity too much power: legal power to declare all software used in the stack to produce a network request MUST be made source available. I have not seen any lawyer concerned with whether or not Amazon would be able to bypass its protections, and the license was made by lawyers to clearly provide protection. Did you create this legal theory yourself? Because I've not seen any writing from a lawyer on the internet that suggests that Amazon could firewall themselves off in a friendly jurisdiction under any reading of the license, and I read a lot of AGPL lawyerblogging. Sentry, the company who created FSL, even states that this license restricts user freedom explicitly - for the sake of the business interests of the original developer. So summing up.. Richard Stallman, the FSF, the GNU Project, the OSI, the creators of the FSL, the company now currently using FSL, all agree that this source available license does not meet the definition of "free software". So, whose definition are we using out of thin air?
- sarchertech 1y ago
  >I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. You’re free to distribute it to your neighbors for free for any purpose. You’re free to distribute it for a fee for almost any purpose save one. You just can’t commercialize it as a competing product. “Source available” again calling this source available is disingenuous. You’re deliberating using the least free term that is technically accurate. This isn’t my favorite license, but it provides a lot more freedoms than merely looking at the source code. With respect to AGPL providing “too much control”. That is a valid and likely reason for courts to find it unenforceable.
sneak 1y ago
> Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. That's not a bug, that's a feature. Freedom 0 applies to everyone. Giving a gift does not confer an obligation, and "contributing back" is meaningless in this context. Someone using a gift you gave them to run a business does not harm you in any way whatsoever.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  If it was merely about “giving a gift” with no obligations or restrictions there should be no open source licenses. Everything would just be released into the public domain. Free software has never been about giving gifts with no obligations.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Public domain is indeed an open source “license”. It’s what I release all of my code under (via the WTFPL).
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  This is implying that free software is a 'gift'. It's not, it is an exchange. You gain the ability to use the library or program in exchange for releasing your changes and modifications. Well, unless it's MIT licensed, in which case you're kind of a sucker and it all but _is_ a gift to Big Tech.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Copyleft is not congruent and coterminous with free software. There is plenty of FOSS that is not copyleft.