Programming

17406 readers

57 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities [email protected]

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Bruce Perens proposes draft Post-Open Zero Cost License (www.theregister.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Fuck this bullshit. This problem was of your own making, Bruce, by pushing "Open Source" and permissive licensing over "Free Software" and copyleft.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

It’s not really free software if I get to tell you what you have to do with it, now is it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

He's talking about compensation to developers.

How would "Free Software" help with getting developers paid vs. "Open Source Software"?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

First of all, that's not really the point. The goal of Free Software was always about trying to ensure users maintained sovereignty over their computers, so they couldn't be exploited by DRM and other forms of enshittification.

Second, while copyleft doesn't get developers paid directly, it does at least given them a fairer chance to compete on more equal footing with big tech companies that would otherwise embrace and (closed-source) extend if it were permissively-licensed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

First of all, that’s not really the point.

It's not your point but It's exactly the point of what Bruce is trying to do though.

You can't pay bills with "software freedom". And when the industry starts to depend on some random developer in Nebraska it becomes a problem for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Second, while copyleft doesn’t get developers paid directly, it does at least given them a fairer chance to compete on more equal footing with big tech companies that would otherwise embrace and (closed-source) extend if it were permissively-licensed.

This is throughtout a group where significant members are in frequent communication. It maybe wasn't clear 30 years ago, but organization and centralization of contributors is arguably more obvious today. Equal footing would be able to demand more because of powers like unionization.

I don't even know if people who are primarily licensing would have that goal. It's seems common for someone in this type of position to already have really good career/pay options, they may not see a purpose for organization

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

not entirely sure but this doesn't feel like something the fsf would like . most definetly it violates freedoms 0. because it discriminates against companies with over 5 M$ in income and against people living in Japan (see 2.14 , though I'm not sure its enough to qualify) , and possibly by restricting what you can do with the software , though I'm not sure on that one . it also violates freedoms 2. and 3. by requiring publicly releasing your changes (fsf requires that free software licenses allow for private modifications) and possibly by requiring contacting the licensor or the post-open administration though I'm unsure of if it does (entering into a post-open source zero-cost / paid contract seems to me to imply contacting either the licensor or the post-open administration) .