Mastodawn

Jenniferplusplus Nov 15

@erlend this more or less aligns with my thinking, but I would go further with it. I would suggest that public licenses are the problem, not merely indiscriminate ones. Because of you license it to "everyone except that one guy" that guy is on the honor system to respect your wishes. And we already don't trust that guy.

I think instead project governance should license to a common pool, which can then sublicense to specific people bring the pool, using basically the same mechanisms as proprietary projects. The pool can set conditions and negotiate terms, using access to the entire pool as leverage.

Irenes (many)Nov 15

@jenniferplusplus @erlend this feels like a hierarchical power structure that future generations of activists will have to dismantle after it inevitably becomes unjust

just our initial reaction; sorry to be negative. we do very much think creative thinking like this is important

Jenniferplusplus Nov 15

@ireneista @erlend maybe? I'm not sure I see the problem though. Usually with power hierarchies, taking part in the hierarchy is compulsory, and that's the root of the worst effects. That wouldn't be the case here. If, for example, the pool organized by the fsf is behaving in a way project maintainers don't approve of, they can leave the pool. They could join a different one, or go back to the old public license status quo.

the esoteric programmer Nov 15

@jenniferplusplus @ireneista @erlend they can leave the pool, but they can't fork the code and leave with it. And say, if that code is medical software someone needs, and if the pool which made it is a bunch of elitists who became fascists, imagine hyprland stuff, then what do we do? rewrite code over and over for different pools of licenses? and what happens when a pool essentially makes stuff that's useful, but mostly libraries, so the other pools trying to use that would have to join with the first one? that would be a concentration of monopoly, and if that pool lapses into the stuff we're trying to escape from today, what do we do? we can rewrite all that code, or use the thing and not complain, because we lost our ability to just fork it. Sure, forking is difficult, it's difficult even now, but under that system, forking, one of the essential powers we have as foss contributors and developers, would be pretty much taken away. We need stronger licenses, I agree, and this is already getting into the hard to define stuff, like how do you define this can't be used for military purposes? is someone trying to defend themselves from attacks using the software for military purposes? However, this way of doing it would make the issues worse, in my opinion at least.

Jenniferplusplus Nov 16

@esoteric_programmer @ireneista @erlend
That doesn't seem like a real problem. The medical device manufacturer can negotiate long term contracts, and they can pay someone to maintain the version of the software they do have, if for some reason they can't license future versions. We don't need to be held hostage by our past labor in order to have a functioning society

@jenniferplusplus @ireneista @erlend I dk how sustainable that is, because if there are security fixes for example, you can't pull them in, and as such, you would have to duplicate the work pretty much. Yes, we need more than foss, but making copyright even more complicated and constraining than before isn't something we should do imo, after all, we all saw what happened with the rights to sampling in music, the last time we tried to change copyright to be more restrictive. I'm thinking that licenses like the I'm so tired license that go to social's packages on yunohost use would be a very, very good first step, because making cohorts of people who are explicitly allowed to look at software someone else produces isn't only against the original foss which we established isn't updated for the current era of exploitation we live in so it doesn't really matter to this discussion, but it's also against furthering the societal values of collaboration, mutual aid and stuff like that which we want to see in the world. This goes back to allowlist vs denylist federation as well I think, but maybe we should solve the human problem of nazis using our software to do harm to our community with the human solution of not allowing the nazis in our community in the first place?

@jenniferplusplus @ireneista @erlend and what do you mean by we can't be held back by our past labor? like the issues where we can't relicense a program without everyone agreeing?

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend we're not really able to explain this properly right now, but it feels to us like it has the same general "holding yourself hostage" shape as professional licensing systems do, and the same complex ethical quandaries

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend because to the extent such a system works as a tool for change, it is also resistant to efforts by its members to hold it accountable to its stated purpose

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend if that doesn't make sense, we apologize but it's probably the best we can do right now. we're not all here.

Jenniferplusplus Nov 16

@ireneista @esoteric_programmer @erlend
That is what i meant, yes. For some reason, people act like doing foss work creates a perpetual obligation to keep doing maintenance on that original work. It doesn't. That past labor doesn't create any future obligation whatsoever. That's something that would need to be explicitly negotiated and agreed to.

@jenniferplusplus @ireneista @erlend O yes, for sure it doesn't. I have a project I started a few years ago, but some better stuff came along, so I didn't continue it, it'd be weird if I had to perpetually maintain it. But yeah, I guess the key point here is that we do need better licenses than just the gpl, and we also have to balance that with not becoming what we fight against, aka techno-feudalism, which is hard indeed

Jenniferplusplus Nov 16

@esoteric_programmer @ireneista @erlend
Yes. It sounds like you're identifying the software recipient's right to repair. Which is important. But I don't think there's any inherent conflict with the software author's right to (refuse to) associate with people.

the esoteric programmer

@jenniferplusplus @ireneista @erlend O yes! I mean, I wouldn't accept contributions from nazis either, nor would I willingly give them the stuff I make, but shouldn't a denylist be more appropriate than an allowlist here? Of course, I don't mean denylist as in this specific company or whatever can't use it, but it can't be used for this purpose

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend we're also just mindful of, like....

any sort of group decision-making mechanism here, wields a fair amount of under-the-radar power. think for example about what a big deal it is that Benevity imposes eligibility criteria for all the donation matching programs it administers

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend back in the early days there was this idea of a license coming with a right to distribute under a newer version of the same license, and that lasted only until RMS had goals for the GPL3 that Linus did not share

@esoteric_programmer @jenniferplusplus @erlend which, like.... it's a shame that didn't work out, putting it in the user's court like that. that would have been nice and simple, if things worked that way.