this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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NC is copyfarleft-compatible; still free software, just not OSI’s definition of it
NC is not free software by any definition. Here's the reference: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#CC-BY-NC
GNU does not own a monopoly on the definition of free software. It wouldn’t be hard to argue that capitalist exploitation of the commons ruins the freedoms many would like to see.
Terming it as a 'monopoly' doesn't invalidate what it is. FSF's definition of Free software is what's accepted as canonical definition of free software - just as OSI's definition is accepted as the definition of open source. The entire analysis of FOSS ecosystem is based on these definitions. It's not open to interpretation. You can't claim victory by insisting on accepting a falsehood as the truth.
That's not an excuse for misrepresenting the motives of a project. If you don't want capitalists not using your work, you're free to restrict that. What you are not free to do is to claim it as free software. You can't have it both ways.
Yet folks often say their $0 software is free software because gratis. Words evolve/change & only mean what the folks think it means. If anyone wanted to take over a word, they could. To say it’s not open to interpretation is silly. To assume the ideas they first put out long ago never need a revision or update or were infallible missing no changes to software/society is a religion. Right now we see folks come to terms that outside GPL, a lot of code is being used for AI training models & then sold while not giving users a hint at who wrote it or where to get the source. These ideas probably need to change & projects like Peer Production or Blue Oak or License Zero feel they want to actually take on your enshrined terms like “free” & “open source” because there is not a better word to describe what they are proposing, then I don’t see a problem other than possible confusion (but folks might be confused either way like saying those licenses are nonfree just because a for-profit entity can’t use even if individuals, collectives, nonprofits can).
You are still continuing to question a well defined standard meaning over vague technicalities. Lack of gratis/libre separation is an English language problem. That is no excuse to hijack a standard terminology when a better term like 'source available' is present. The only reason for insisting on such hijacks is for deliberate misdirection and exploitation.
Oh! So you are going to interpret the meaning of a dollar? Or the size of a legal sized paper? After all, they are centralized definitions and you don't subscribe to any of those. If saying it's not open to interpretation is silly, insisting on absence of standard definitions is sheer stupidity.
You are still beating around the bush. Standardization is necessary. If that's a religion, it's much more acceptable to a world where people live like cave animals who can't communicate anything meaningfully due to lack of agreed upon standard terms.
my enshrined terms? LOL! I gave very well defined and well known places where they are defined. Instead, your kind resort to misdirection and dishonesty to exploit established norms. Somebody doing AI training is merely an excuse to justify such malpractices. A tactic those AI companies pioneered and you share with them.
AGPL restricts freedoms in response to exploitation of the cloud providers. It was & still is met with criticism due to additional restrictions. If blocking that exploration is fine, what’s wrong with extending that to non-libre LLMs? What wrong with going to the root of this issue & cut out the for profits? All I want to see is that “FOSS” isn’t standardized in the way a commodity is but is free to evolve in response to these exploitations to the commons & creators/maintainers. To do that, the rules need to adapt like sports do for safety, etc.
It is kind of copyfarleft, so by essence it is it open source according to the OSI definition (which must by the only definition to use), more free / libre according to the FSF definition (which is the only definition also to keep).
All I’m saying is folks should be more open towards these extra clauses if they feel it can prevent exploitation of their work along with being open to different definitions of free.
There is one definition of free in FLOSS. The FSF definition.
There is also only a finite set of English words for the concept & it seems silly that that one entity would get the final say one what one true Scotsman is. Even the average layman thinks “free software” only applies to gratis. Words can have multiple meanings, but what would you propose software in licensed as free-but-anti-capitalist be called without invoking a long hyphenated adjective?
In software ecosystem indeed there is an issue about the word “free” which can mean “free of charge” or “libre”, that is the reason why the term FOSS should be replaced by FLOSS.
In this very software world, the OSI defined “open source” by 10 conditions. The FSF defined also since eons the term “free / libre” by 4 liberties. These two things are the base of trust and understanding for every one.
For several years capitalist companies try to redefine these words because cannot bear to see that communities dislike or hate how they change the licences of their products (e.g. Elastic with BSL, Mongo with SSPL, Terraform with BSL too). They try to get excuse and fake reasons to be allowed to change the definitions but they are not legit at all.
About your example for a “free and anticapitalist” license, it cannot by “free” because one of the four liberties of the “free” definition is not filled.
However this is an interesting point because there is a new family of licences which appeared several years ago: the ethical licenses brought by the Organisation for Ethical Source (https://ethicalsource.dev/) which define the term « ethical source » by 7 principles. You can get more details about the anti-capitalist license here: https://anticapitalist.software/).
In few words, we must keep the OSI, FSF and OES definitions for open source, free and ethical source words because there are meanings, history, facts and fights behind. If they are disturbing for people or if people disagree, they have to create something else. Not change the definition for pure rebranding.
Well put.
I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with what OSI & FSF are putting forth nor would I discount all of the importance of the past & the trail they have blazed to get these ideas in the software zeitgeist—but I will say is there should be room in the discussion for supporting these alternative ideologies on what “free” and “the commons” should be. You can choose words like “ethical” and that might be applicable, but as a result, consider your perception of a software now being tagged “nonfree”—I know I get a bad feeling about that personally.
Copyfair & copyfarleft licenses offer an alternative interpretation that I think a lot of folks agree with on priciple—such as megacorp with its massive profits gained by using our software should be contributing back in maintenance, documentation, marketing, or cold cash for financial compensation (e.g. not agree without exception to FSF’s freedoms)—because a work wasn’t created with those entities in mind. Where this gets tho most messy however is taking such stances (obviously) makes one’s project incompatible with the large body of existing work, but also shaming of folks interested in choosing those software licenses or even going CC *-NC on creative works due to compatibility with strict OSI/FSF definitions.
Speaking of the “nonfree” thing,
nixpkgsas things labeled only under those terms while these other banners such as “ethical” are missing. Perhaps I should take a look at what it would take to cover those licenses too as you’re almost meant to feel guilty for using “nonfree” software which requires environment variables/config flag & for, at a high level, trying to accomplish a similiar goal of allowing users to share their source with the commons.