Non-thoughts on the Open Source Initiative (2020)
yakshav.es
yakshav.es
Indeed, beyond license listings, they are not addressing the big problems we have.
Look at OpenSSL. They went for years with basically no money, had horrible security issues, and then got a ton of sponsorships because companies realized they relied on it.
The OSI can do a variety of things that help open source contributors and maintainers beyond just licenses. Most developers aren't good at things like fundraising, as it's not their core competency. In an ideal world the OSI would build industry connections and use that to funnel money to projects that need it, while also helping build knowledge that smaller projects can use to market themselves. None of that requires turning their back on their open source principles. Legal frameworks, as mentioned above, can even be as simple as making it easier to get tax breaks when donating to open source projects, or having prebuilt legal agreements that help small projects work with big companies for funding in a streamlined way.
To be honest, this is why the OSI and FSF have been so disappointing to me. There's a huge amount of space here for advocacy, public policy initiates, and so much more. Unfortunately these groups are so insular and stuck in their ways, and would rather do things like defend abortion jokes when they could be building communities, that I don't have much hope. However, there really is a lot that could be done without making any changes to the licenses.
https://opensource.org/osd https://github.com/ssddanbrown/Open-Source-Confusion-Cases
https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your...
If the OSI was truly interested in spreading open source, its sole focus would be in developing a license that allows the sustainable development of open source code outside of a FAANG.
The OSI exists not to spread open source, but preserve Google and Amazon's access to free labor.
The perl user groups, perl mongers etc have been incredibly diffused and grassroot movements, including cheap conferences and such.
I'm no perl dev, but I think most of what subsequent communities did right builds on the camel's path.
I'm not much familiar with what the OSI is in any specific sense; but yes, "Open Source" has always been a nebulous term that fits the container of who's using it. I like the great point of e.g. JS being the real "on the ground open source" for better and (often) worse; it's provided a lot of good real life lessons on the limitations of vague ideas and why real licenses with hard tooth legal rules are important.
Generally, I think we've seen "why you really do need lawyers." I like ideas like Creative Commons and e.g. the Do WTF you want license, but they're no substitute for grown-up law.
No one cries "unfair!" or "selfish!" more than a proprietary coder who can't use some gpl code, and the louder they cry the more they themselves advertise how simply correct and necessary that license is.
Stallman was and is right.
The GPLs restrict software authors from being the masters of their users, without requiring them to be the servants of their users. Since the author is choosing the license, it's a voluntary relinquishment of rights that should never have been given by government to merchants. You choose open source if instead you want to give away the those rights (the rights to obscure functionality and lock people out of their own possessions) to whoever wants them. When Amazon picks those up, don't cry about it.
If someone requires other terms, the existence of GPL code in no way restricts them from writing or buying other code that is compatible with whatever terms they require.
Anyone crying about that is only crying that they are not allowed to steal something that is already free.
From an authors perspective, do what you want. Don't use GPL if you don't share the single value it enshrines.
It doesn't make you righter or more rational or the GPL wrong or anything like that, and the desire to rent out access to the use of a secret is the most common and least interesting thing in the world, as is the desire to try to present that as being any sort of principle about freedom instead of the crass food-gathering thing that it is.
I'm not surprised to see their astroturf around here, and I'm not surprised that the astroturf probably isn't paid for, either.
The GPL just asks that you engage in basic human decency. The MIT license declares you a mark.
I use MIT for trivial things like examples, asnswers to questions where you have to declare something or the answer or example is of no value and then why bother writing it.
But nothing substantial. I "selfishly" only want to contribute to the guaranteed for all and eternity pool.
So I don't use or recommend MIT.
But I do think that at least some examples of MIT are the result of the authors being essentially saints. Giving so selflessly that they even give to the devil, making the world a better place only through the mechanism that the most people end up using the best functioning available code. IE it's better that Microsoft sell the use of the TCP/IP stack, than have users end up having to use something else. It was them being better than I think they have to be, and better than I am, but not actually misguided and harmful.
Many uses of MIT do strike me as exactly misguided and long term more harmful than helpful, but not automatically all.
I'm just not a saint myself and don't require anyone else to be either, and I think the world would be at least just as fine if there never was any MIT code but only normal copyrighted and full GPL style.
- take GPL code, do whatever you want with it and NEVER GIVE IT TO ANYONE.
- take GPL code, have someone to pay you do something crazy with it, give it to them and neither of you choose to never give it to anyone.
The only thing the GPL says is that, whoever you give it to gets all the rights you got when you took it.
Well, yes. That's the point after all - you took someone else's code, made changes to it, gave it to a third person, so now you can't very well tell that third person "Sorry, that code I gave you is now a secret!"
> If an employee works on a Linux driver that you'd prefer be a trade secret, those GPL imports are going to be a massive problem.
In theory, sure. In practice, it hasn't stopped any manufacturer from distributing binary blobs. Nvidia, with proprietary drivers, is still the most popular graphics card on Linux[1].
So here we see that there is no problem for a vendor to be wildly profitable and have the best penetration of all its competitors even though they are strictly adhering to the license.
If an employee is working on any Linux driver, your business is depending on the success of Linux itself to make that driver economically viable to develop.
If your success depends on building on GPL code and not giving back, then maybe try to find success elsewhere.
[1] IIRC, that is. I last checked the Steam stats a long time ago, they may have changed.
The whole point of a contract is to spell out in enough detail for both parties (and if it comes down to it a judge) what the expectations of a given arrangement happen to be. Plenty of employees won't actively exercise all their rights under the GPL (related: [0]), but that fact is independent of the GPL itself.
> If your success depends on building on GPL code and not giving back, then maybe try to find success elsewhere.
Just 3 lines ago didn't you point out a massive company successfully building on GPL code and not giving back, touting their ability to do so as a pro for GPLv2? Regardless, the quibble wasn't with whether that clause is reasonable (I prefer to release under GPL), but that paying somebody to do something crazy with the code and then not release it isn't actually in your control if the code in question is released under GPLv2; for that to happen you require either trust/luck or a different license.
> Well, yes. That's the point after all - you took someone else's code, made changes to it, gave it to a third person, so now you can't very well tell that third person "Sorry, that code I gave you is now a secret!"
Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor. While we're stuck with intellectual property as a meaningful legal concept there's always going to be another way to look at the problem evoking different emotions and notions of what's fair or reasonable.
No, I did not. I pointed out how strictly adhering to the GPL was not in any way an impediment to the success of writing device drivers.
> Or you took someone else's code, paid a third party for business-critical customizations, and expect the product you paid for to not wind up in the hands of a competitor.
If you don't want your 0.001% of contributions to a product to benefit others, including those who built 99.99% of the product, then don't contribute to it. Put your 0.001% effort into some other product that lets you keep the entire 100% for yourself.
You're effectively arguing that it's unfair that you can't take someone else's labour and sell it on without their permission.
I really don't feel bad for you in that case. It's someone else's labour, not yours. Crying "unfair" because you want to add 0.001% of value and want to keep 100% of value doesn't get you much sympathy.
Especially when, as you pointed out when you referred to my nvidia example, this isn't a hurdle to someone who simply wants to use the GPL software and add their own value into it without violating the license.
It's perfectly possible, just not palatable to people who want the original labour for themselves. NVidia supplying binary blobs aren't trying to own the entire Linux kernel for anyone using their blobl. Someone supplying some proprietary driver, and wanting to keep that driver secret, is doing the opposite.
You apparently have made an unsafe assumption about what my stance is on that.
"copyleft bros" is like saying "soup kitchen volunteer bros"
What do you mean? Can you unpack this?
We can beat them, so stop joining them.
I think the poster above was suggesting anti-trust lawsuits though, get the US government to split them up.
Even if the Ethical Source guys and their Hippocratic License might not be watertight, it's still a much better effort than "you can use it for anything you want". Leeching and entitlement is highly prevalent (just watch what happens when someone accidentally publishes software with a wrong license and the abuse they get for correcting their mistake) and the whole original philosophy of open source is being disregarded.
I think (maybe controversially) it's the same when people talk about training AI on web content. People want all the upside of their choice of distribution (wider exposure) but complain about the perceived downside (somebody other than them profiting).
When deciding on a license, people are choosing what they think defines success for their code instead of success for the world or the ecosystem or all the current and future users.
They (think they) are optimizing for adoption or quantity of users, regardless of type, meaning do whatever it takes to appeal to business, right now, on business's terms.
If a thing is good and useful, big business will use it on YOUR terms if they have to. But you have to have thought about this some and arrived at a solid principle and reasons for it, and be willing to not care if your thing is not adopted, by an Amazon, today.
You have to be willing to think that it's better for all the users if it is either adopted on GPL terms, or not adopted ...by Amazon. That doesn't mean not adopted, it just means maybe someone who's not a dick might use it instead, and everyone gets TWO benefits out of that single decision. The project itself is more useful long term, and the existence of some other services or products besides Amazon. Either it makes the likes of Amazon better by force, or it allows others who are natively better more oxygen.
90% of the reason people can even enjoy the luxury of the powerful useful rich tools to build things today, for free as kids with no money and no permissions and no special access to their parents work tools etc, is only because other people in the past suffered the inconvenience of defying business and declaring strict ideals. But not just random meaningless idealism with arbitrary limitations, a correct idea, with only the surgically specific and correct limitations, as fully thought out as possible, that stands up to any accusation.
That's because copyright exists. You can't compare people not understanding licenses to people ignoring them.
> Even if the Ethical Source guys and their Hippocratic License might not be watertight, it's still a much better effort than "you can use it for anything you want".
There is nothing wrong with “you can use it for anything you want”. There are many reasons to avoid copyleft licenses. So you need to be more persuasive and provide more insights if you want to be taken seriously.
> Leeching and entitlement is highly prevalent (just watch what happens when someone accidentally publishes software with a wrong license and the abuse they get for correcting their mistake)
You seem to have an issue with a specific case; which one is it? Otherwise, any licensing change is controversial if you listen to the “right” people. Your point is a bit puzzling though, as from my experience, the bullies are people advocating for the FSF and GPL. They tend to be even worse because of the moral implications of the Free Software movement, which sees anything non-GPL as a personal offense. Open Source proponents merely say that the developer should do whatever the hell they want with their code.
> and the whole original philosophy of open source is being disregarded.
The philosophy of Open Source is that the source should be open. All the whining about leaching and freeloaders does not come from Open Source advocates but from the people you seem to defend for some reason. What specific bits of the various Open Source philosophies is at odds with people re-using the code for closed applications?
Not in these internal "spirit of open source" discussions. All the Free Software advocates I've seen only have one comment to make: if you wanted a restrictive license, you should have chosen one, not open source. The FSF provides many licenses that might protect authors from feeling "taken advantage of," and you can also write your own, non-FOSS license. Open source is meant to be used by anyone for any reason.
It was even weirder to see hordes of people rally behind Amazon's moral crusade against it.
It's all rather reminiscent of Google's anti AGPL tantrum (e.g. like when they banned it from their code hosting platform).
lol? OSI is usually the first one complaining when SaaS companies relicense from MIT/Apache type licenses to other nonstandard open licenses.
The FOSS shorthand has confused people. Now they're rootless, thinking that there was a some moral underpinning to open source. Free software is the one with the ethical philosophy. Open source is about public collaboration to lower costs and raise software quality.