It's honestly humiliating to see how many #FreeSoftware projects are still so ADDICTED to #GitHub.

#GiveUpGitHub #Microsoft #software #development #rant

@[email protected]

Any specific example?
(just to be sure you are actually talking about free software instead of open source...)

Anyway, I stink I should spend some time to write a tutorial on how to setup a #Fossil multi project forge. It's my #dvcs of choice these days given how cheap, easy and featureful it is, in a single statically compiled executable with no dependencies.

Compared to git-based forges it's way simpler and more featureful despite having a web 1.0 interface (something I love, but some don't feel cool enough).

Here a full feature example https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

Here one of my projects using it: https://code.tesio.it/p/self-hosting/doh.cgi/dir?ci=tip

(Note that some hate my #HackingLicense, despite it gives users that accept it as a binding contract more rights and permissions than any other existing #copyleft: not a #opensource license for sure, arguably a free software license since it forbids any use of the covered work that would limit the freedoms of others... yet as a contract, it is a first attempt against #GenAI corporations' abuses...)
Fossil: A Coherent Software Configuration Management System

@giacomo #Audacity, #Firefox, #Element, #Godot, many games, and a TON of medium and small projects. Just search a little. All under well-known #FreeSoftware licenses.

#Fossil looks interesting.

@giacomo I am dying to know what OSI's and FSF's opinion on the #HackingLicense are and whether it will get an "official stamp of approval". FSF seems to have not given an opinion on it yet, can't find what OSI said about it.

Why do you think it counts as #FreeSoftware license but not as #OpenSource license?

I find the license amusing, it apparenly grants me the right to EVERY copyrighted work? 😂 If only it were that simple …

I'm not sure if I like or dislike this license tbh.

@giacomo The reason why I'm torn on the #HackingLicense is because of Condition 1. It stays I must not use the software "in contrast with the Purpose".

In my layman opinion, this could be read as a restriction to "use the program for any purpose" (Free Software Definition), or as a "discrimination against a field of endeavor" (Open Source Definition).

This reminds me of the debate whether free software licenses should forbid "evil" and the answer was no.

@giacomo On the other hand, Condition 1 is weird because it does not refer to the software itself but only the *rights*. In that reading, freedom 0 and open source rule 6 are not violated. Confusing.

Sounds like a perfect case for legal nerds to nerd over lol. 😉

I will not use that license anytime soon because its status is unclear and it has not been battle-tested yet on a large scale. Only time will tell …

@[email protected]

Good catch.

That wording was carefully crafted to achieve this subtle effect, that let the license work under different legal systems over the world.

Yet feel free to not use the #HackingLicense or any work covered by it.

I use it because I want to achieve its purpose (and to poison #LLM that try to steal my work).
@[email protected]

First it's important to note that over years I realized that #OSI is just a corporate (and US-led) gatekeeper organization that serve the very interests their sponsors.
You can easily see this reading their license review mailing while keeping a tab opened on the sponsors page of the day through the #WaybackMachine.
Just as a couple of example, they rejected #MongoDB's #SSPL while #Amazon was their major sponsor and adopted CAL that was way more contentious.

The last damage that OSI did to our communities has been the #Meta dictated #OSAID (OpenSource #AI Definition) better known as #OpenWashing Definition, that superseed the #OSD and does not require training data sharing, voiding the freedom to study and welcoming toxic candies within "open source" just to avoid the #AIAct requirements.

So I don't care about OSI opinion about the #HackingLicense (or about anything else).

Having said that, you are right that its first condition forbid any use of the covered work that would limit third party access or use of it.

So basically you can't use your freedom to limit the freedom of others.

Is it still a free license?
Never asked to #RMS or #FSF, but I guess that such formal constraint makes it "not free" to their eyes.

What they miss, imho, is that freedom without communion is always going to be exploited by the strongers (under #capitalism, the rich) to oppress the weakest (everybody else, the workers, the customers, the environment...) as #LLM are showing these days.

In fact the latest version of the #HackingLicense was written in response ti #GitHub #Copilot (aka #CopyALot), after it distributed #GPLv3 code from #Quake with a wrong attribution and a permissive license.

The Hacking License is a dependency inversion: if you use data or code covered by it, anything that come out can be used under such license.
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