this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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Outside of software spaces the discussion around copyright seems so much more nuanced. Any creative commons license is generally considered "copyleft" regardless of the details, and some are far more restrictive than the FUTO license. Consider projects like Wikipedia which accept content licensed under GDFL, or CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA, Apache 2.0, or PD.
I am not a programmer, so maybe I am missing a huge piece of context, but what is the insistence in the free software community for what seems like total license purity? I even see software engineers arguing that "everyone" should use Apache or MIT and not the other, which is somehow bad for the FOSS community. What am I missing? Isn't more free better than less free?
I might not be the best person to explain this, but I believe you are, in fact, missing a bit of context.
Inside software spaces, specific needs beget specific discussions. They are as nuanced as they need to be.
Did you know Creative Commons themselves recommend against using CC licenses for software?
The software world, and open source in particular, has historically had a lot of complex and frustrating moments due to licenses and the misaligned interactions of volunteers and companies. This probably leads many people to strongly advocate for what they believe would've helped in the past, and may help in the future.
I won't get into whether everyone should use Apache or MIT—which aren't considered copyleft, I think—but it's also important to remember that even inside software spaces, people will often hold different and sometimes even conflicting views regarding ethical/ideological matters. They can also be just straight up wrong due to lack of knowledge, experience, misunderstandings, etc. That includes me, by the way!
I hope that helped. I can point more resources later, if you want.
Thank you - I would love to read any resources that you have
Well, that's wonderful to hear!
If you're wondering what sort of issue being careless with licenses can cause, see the (in)famous case of Tivoization. GPL 3 was written partly to solve issues like this.
Note how issue here is still subjective. Linux stays on GPL 2 and the people in charge are largely uninterested in planning a path forwards, or outright refuse to even consider it.
For a more recent example of how community/contributors and owner/company interest misalignment can make a huge mess, see the consequences of HashiCorp changing the Terraform license from MPL to BUSL. Relevant facts I'd like to note:
Or, for a slightly funny case:
A while back I saw a project on GitHub licensed as CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. The developer was considering writing a guide for contributors, even though I'm pretty sure you can't fork and modify it to open a PR (popular way to offer contributions), because that'd break the ND clause (sharing derivatives). Were people supposed to e-mail patches straight to the developer? Who knows! There are people who are into that, such as some Linux Kernel folks.
And finally, here's what I thought was a very interesting take on what "free" means when talking about software licenses, touching upon obligations, rights and copyleft.
I'm trying to avoid opining too much, even though I can't help it and, really, it's inevitable. I hope these serve as entry points for further research, and that they help you form your own perspective on all this. And if you do happen to end up agreeing with me in the end... well, I obviously won't complain :^)
Thanks, I appreciate it. I'll check it out.
Part of it is 'can the current license facilitate them doing a rug pull'. A LOT of the licenses on these new tech darlings are written in such a way that they absolutely can change the terms, close the source and/or dramatically restrict access, and you can go get fucked.
They use Contributor License Agreements to ensure they own all the rights, and whenever they feel it's advantageous for them, suddenly it's now under a new, more restrictive license because there's nothing in the old license that stops them from doing so.
I'm a big fan of actual, real, forced-to-stay-open licenses like the AGPL and very much against CLAs because those two stances are essential for what's open and useful staying open and useful.
Whatever this is licensed under is... not that.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
I just don't understand what is in the text of the License itself that would do so any differently than say the Apache 2.0 license.
Would you point me to the language you are referring to?
It's less what's in FUTO's license, than what's NOT in the license.
The main problem with those cute little licenses is that if the right is not EXPLICITLY mentioned, you don't have it.
That license is more a list of thou-shalt-nots than outlining your rights to own and use the software: literally half of it is a list of things you cannot do.
It also doesn't require you to provide source code for your modifications, nor does it require you make it available AT ALL.
It also, at no point, says anything whatsoever about source code access - it merely says "the software" which could mean anything they want it to mean.
So basically it's a license telling you you have a license to their software, what you cannot do with it, and zero requirement that ANYONE share the source code.