
Do we need to rethink what free software is? - reddotX
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52907.html
======
rubbingalcohol
Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do
with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage
guidelines into a license and still end up with free software.

Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that
the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship
mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"

Software is a tool. How that tool is used is at the discretion of the user. If
a developer is concerned that a project could be used for evil, then he or she
should consider whether releasing the software publicly is a morally good
choice in the first place.

~~~
xisukar
I couldn't have written it better myself.

On a related note, the person behind the Hippocratic License (HL) which they
define as "a modified MIT license that specifically prohibits the use of open
source software to harm others" was recently asked by OSI [1] to modify the
language in the original document since it might've led people to wrongly
believe that the aforementioned license was Open Source Software and that
software distributed under it was Open Source Software.

[1] [https://archive.is/hKA41](https://archive.is/hKA41)

~~~
johnisgood
"harm others"... that is extremely subjective. Everyone can claim they have
been harmed, say, psychologically or whatever. This is not going to end well.
Oh well, I am not surprised.

~~~
vincent-toups
There are many things which are subjective but that hardly means they are
completely ungrounded from human consideration, even when it comes to the
exercise of power. The (partial) subjectivity of a measurement isn't a good
excuse to completely give up on the domain.

------
Ace17
Feel free to create the "moral/ethical software" movement, but please don't
touch the current definition of free software.

People already have a hard time understanding what free software exactly
is/requires/provides. Changing the definition at this point would only create
confusion, especially if the new one is even more ethically grounded.

~~~
notus
What do you consider free software? Because I don't consider anything licensed
under GPL as free, but I would consider software licensed under MIT or BSD as
free.

~~~
carapace
GPL -> "Free"

MIT or BSD -> "Open"

~~~
louiz
These three licenses all conform with both the Open Source Definition AND the
Free Software Definition.

~~~
jraph
And by the way, Linus Torvalds is closer to the open source initiative that to
the free software foundation, which he does not like much, but his preferred
license is the GPLv2.

------
deogeo
Any sort of 'ethical' clause will open you to endless legal battles, and make
such software effectively impossible to use for anyone but large corporations
able to afford those battles, or to buy themselves custom licenses.

I.e. it will even further concentrate power, and accomplish the exact opposite
of what free software set out to do.

Not to mention the ethical nature of the software could be interpreted by
potentially hostile courts. "Spreading disharmony against the state" will fall
under "evil", and 'ethical' software will be reduced to another tool of
control and propaganda.

~~~
k__
Never understood why buying special licenses is an issue.

~~~
deogeo
In general, it's not. Only when the license is such that using the software is
impossible, even when the use is entirely in line with free software
principles. You're effectively writing non-free software, but masquerading as
free, and stealing its oxygen.

------
temac
The agenda is made very clear toward the end of the article:

> As stewards of the free software definition, the Free Software Foundation
> should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed. The
> priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to ensure
> that it can legitimately claim to represent the community and play the
> leadership role it's been failing to in recent years, otherwise the
> opportunity will be lost and much of the activist energy that underpins free
> software will be spent elsewhere.

Translation: now that Stallman is mostly gone, we may finally change the
definition of free software, thanks to a better "representativeness"

But this is extremely ridiculously naive to think that just because it would
be coming from that Frankenstein FSF, it would not fragment the community.
Debian would not follow. And tons of others.

Whatever you think of the current def, I think there is exactly zero chance of
not fragmenting significantly by attempting to change it. I even think this is
a huge misunderstanding of the very nature of free software to consider that
free corporate usage and exploitation shall be prevented.

~~~
bitwize
Sometimes they spill their spaghetti so willingly that all talk of ulterior
motives becomes moot.

And if they can't change the norms of the community, fracturing it beyond
repair is fine with them because it doesn't deserve to exist if it does not
conform to their moral standards.

~~~
temac
I do not think that there is a coordinated effort whatsoever to disrupt Free
Software communities (at least not at industrial scale, maybe there are groups
of 3 or 4 people with a similar mindset doing things together, but that is the
case for pretty much anything on earth...), only - and especially in this case
- personal opinions and approaches I sometimes strongly disagree with. Here to
the point of not even understanding from where Matthew comes from, although it
is true that some Linux devs are sometimes extremely far from the "canon" free
software ideologies -- or maybe simply never really thought deeply about it.

And certainly this is the case here: getting rid of freedom 0 is not exactly
something I would casually suggest esp in the name of preventing fracturing; I
would expect the effect to be _precisely_ the opposite :/ And I'm not sure at
all why anybody would expect otherwise.

~~~
bitwize
It takes "industrial scale" to build a large building, but not to burn one to
the ground. The people involved in disrupting the community are relatively
small in number, but they've developed an MO that lets them do great damage.
They identify leadership of the targeted community, demand that they submit or
be removed, and if neither of those happen they start contacting the sources
of the community's funding.

If you decide to speak out against the Church of Scientology, a Scientologist
may show up at your door telling you to stop. If you don't stop, your boss at
work will start to get anonymous calls about you, exposing what a horrible
person you are -- perhaps a sexual harasser, rapist, or child molester. Their
story will be backed up -- by other Scientologists (who won't identify as
such).

As for where Matthew is coming from, the details of that are not so important
as that the Right People are in leadership of the community. If the community
is not led by the Right People in service to the Right Ideas, then it is part
of the system of White-Supremacist-Capitalist-Patriarchy, does not deserve to
exist at all, and _should_ be destroyed. And yes, Matthew "Ted Ts'o is a Rape
Apologist" Garrett _is_ one of the Right People (though thankfully, Ts'o seems
to have a bit more spine than Stallman, so the smear didn't work nearly as
well as was hoped).

------
craigsmansion
Absent is any mention of the Affero GPL.

And that's the problem. Who is trustworthy?

> "The priority of the board right now should be to restructure itself to
> ensure that it can legitimately claim to represent the community"

Who is this appeal to, and what is it for? Is it genuine or an attempt, in the
current upheaval, to have the board restructured to make it less effective?

> "and play the leadership role it's been failing to in recent years"

Failed in what? In "Representing the community"? What community should be
represented here? Is the timing accidental? What is being sold to whom, or who
to what?

Meanwhile rms is looking for new accommodations[1]:

"There should not be ... a digital listening device such as Echo, Siri or
"Hello Google", or a card lock that records who opens the door. I will ask
about cameras."

If nothing else, rms is trustworthy when it comes to software freedom. I'm not
so sure about any new pretenders.

[1][https://stallman.org/seeking-housing.html](https://stallman.org/seeking-
housing.html)

~~~
raverbashing
Ethics evolve, and shouldn't be pinned to a person.

BSD licensed software is fine as well, nobody would say it is unethical.

In the same way the GPL3 came about due to external circumstances, other forms
of licensing should be able to be considered free (like the AGPL or maybe
others) with regards to the current landscape and circumstances.

~~~
temac
Everybody who matters already consider AGPL a free software licence, and
that's not even because of an hypothetical evolution of any position.

------
jraph
Interesting article.

The problem of ethical use of something is not limited to software. When you
get any tangible object, you don’t usually get usage restrictions from a
license. So, if this is a problem to solve, I think that the solution should
be sought more generally, not restricting the scope to software. (edit: and
not to an individual software, which would be a weak way of "preventing" an
unethical practice at the society level anyway).

Usage of tangible objects is restricted by law. I think it should be the same
for software. And yes, law is not perfect, and not the same for different
countries.

Everybody has their own, evolving, ethics. If everybody starts restricting
usage for random things in licenses, we may be in for a big mess. And I say
this as someone who has an opinion on many ethical matters.

~~~
UncleEntity
> Usage of tangible objects is restricted by law.

A company can refuse to sell you a product if they don't agree with what
you're going to do with it but they can't do anything at all if you somehow
legally get ahold of it through secondary means.

Same with sold copyrighted works through the first sale doctrine (and this
carries over to patents as well).

Software has seemed to have carved itself out a special niche where you don't
actually own the product so the producers can dictate what you can and can not
do with it after "first sale" since they don't really sell (or grant) you
anything other than the right to use the product.

------
daenz
I'm the author of some popular open source software, but I don't have any
illusions about the relative ease of building my software. This author sounds
like they are trying throw their weight around, but I'm not sure they realize
how much software is easily reproducible, given the right incentives, with
nothing more than a spec. Open source is a convenience, and that's why people
use it. Pretending that you can have serious influence over what companies are
allowed to do with your software, outside of a very narrow and legally well-
defined area, is seriously misguided.

~~~
DangitBobby
If you are making a new missile system and all of the free (as in beer)
software you want says you can't use it to kill people, then you suddenly have
to pay a lot more money to make your missile system. That seems like a good
thing to me.

I don't see how you could claim that it wouldn't be influencial if this became
standard practice.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The question is whether it could ever become standard practice, or whether
"no-killing-people" software would inevitably just become a hobby ecosystem
that nobody seriously considers running a business with.

~~~
DangitBobby
If people were actually committed to enforcing the ethics they espouse then
there wouldn't really be a question, if such options were available. I agree
that these are the things the discussion is ultimately about, and free
software foundations taking it seriously might make it possible to be more
than just a hobby ecosystem.

------
zajio1am
This discussion about enforcing specific ethical standards in software
licences is nothing new, freeware licences that forbade specific usage (like
in military) existed quarter century ago.

That is why freedom 0 (the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any
purpose) in free software definition is important, and rejection of
enforcement of specific ethical standard was intention and not omission.

This reflects modern liberal society, which accepts diversity of ethical
systems and positions, accents civil cooperation and enforces just common
necessary rules through law.

It is true that copyleft licences like GPL enforce free software idea itself,
and are ideological in that sense. But such ideology is restricted in scope,
so people with diverse ideological positions (say RMS and ESR) can accept it
as a common ground. And even with this there is fracturing on copyleft vs non-
copyleft free licences.

If 'free' software licences commited to some wider range of ideological and
ethical positions, then it would lead to fracturing of communities along those
lines and to endless infighting.

I would expect that such change would be advantageous to people with
mainstream ethical positions, but oppressive to people with heterodox ethical
positions. It would be ironic if free software would be more oppresive that
commercial one (who is at least limited by consumer protection laws).

In conclusion, seems to me that such change is not benefical to free software
and its users as a whole, but may be benefical to people who want to use free
software as a power lever to force their ethical positions on others.

(There are also technical problems, like such software would be incompatible
with GPL, and if forced as a new version of GPL that could delegitimize 'any
newer' ammendment in GPL-3+ licences.)

~~~
bitwize
Indeed. As I put it on Reddit the other day:

> Maybe you think that allowing people with a broad spectrum of opinions to
> work together on open source was only necessary in the early days when the
> movement was small and obscure, and now that it's popular and successful,
> those on the Right Side of History are justified in closing ranks and
> purging all who disagree because it's Their Movement. But I would say: why
> do you think the movement was successful in the first place? If you kill the
> common ground between hackers of all stripes, you're slaying the golden
> goose. The movement will not only resume languishing in obscurity, it will
> collapse in a series of petty squabbles over who has the correct exegesis of
> bell hooks's Ain't I A Woman with respect to routing underprivileged TCP/IP
> packets and who is obviously wrong and a cryptofascist and must therefore be
> expelled. Because that's where the movement will end up, once the current
> contingent of people pressing for power in FOSS get their way. (There is
> another theory which states that this has already happened; RMS is no right
> winger after all.)

> And that will be music to the ears of upper management of Intel, Microsoft,
> Oracle, etc. They will then drop their façade of loving open source. The
> peace floats will stop dead in their tracks and the tanks will roll out.

------
lacker
Free software means that anybody can use it. Even people you don’t like,
whether that is Amazon or the US military. You can add whatever restrictions
you want to your own software, but it doesn’t seem “free” if it restricts what
I can do with it.

~~~
xisukar
I think this is the issue. They want to create these licenses that restrict
people's use, whether be it "good" or "evil", of software and yet still brand
them as "free software" licenses which couldn't be further from the truth. In
the end , this only brews confusion and misunderstanding. My belief is that if
you want to create an "ethical" license, whatever that might mean at a point
in time, then do it and brand it as such but then don't come and try to pass
it as "free" when clearly it's not. This way people who want to use free
software (or license as such) and people who want to use "ethical" software
will know where to look respectively.

------
prepend
This article confuses me. It seems to be calling for FSF to think about
addressing the needs of non-free software.

~~~
jraph
I think it is calling for the FSF to think about addressing a potential
unwanted fragmentation of the free software community over opinions on ethical
uses of software and solutions based on restriction from licenses.

~~~
kube-system
The FSF has never viewed anyone who wants exceptions to copyleft as being part
of their community to begin with.

Even something simple like the JSON license is something that the FSF sees as
fundamentally incompatible with their values.

[https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:JSON](https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:JSON)

~~~
jraph
Yep, and I remember Stallman saying that these exceptions are not desirable in
a talk.

Matthew Garrett certainly knows it and certainly wants that something is done
on the matter. Which could be good. However, the title implies a possible
evolution of the definition of free software, but I just can't see that as
conceivable.

That would be akin to change the definition of the prime numbers to exclude 1,
breaking many demonstrations in the process ⸮

~~~
lambertsimnel
> That would be akin to change the definition of the prime numbers to exclude
> 1

But one isn't prime:
[https://primes.utm.edu/notes/faq/one.html](https://primes.utm.edu/notes/faq/one.html)

~~~
jraph
Yes, that was ironic. 1 used to be prime for some time at some point in the
past. I picked a mathematical definition that changed.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number#Primality_of_on...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number#Primality_of_one)

------
Iolaum
I think this is a slippery path.

Freedom 0 says: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.

If free software moves away from this how do we handle the curation of
acceptable and not acceptable uses? This is a can of worms I 'd rather be left
unopened.

I agree that there is a problem about monetization of software and I welcome
the discussion about it. Abolishing freedom 0 however is something I 'd be
very hesitant.

------
eitland
> As stewards of the free software definition, the Free Software Foundation
> should be taking the lead in ensuring that these issues are discussed.

They came to a consensus yeeeears ago about what can and cannot go into Free
Software licenses.

I'm all for more fairness, but remember that for example the GPL is a giant
legal hack, and maybe the next breakthrough will be an equally big legal
and/of technical hack and not necessarily an attempt to amend other free
licenses?

Edit: seeing how things play out in the US and Canada I'm even more sure than
before that politics should be kept far out of tech.

~~~
amelius
> but remember that for example the GPL is a giant legal hack

Tax avoidance schemes are also legal hacks. If you can (ab)use something for
bad things, then you should be able to (ab)use it for good things as well,
yes?

EDITED

~~~
kube-system
Tax evasion schemes are not legal, by definition.

Maybe you are thinking of 'tax avoidance'?

~~~
amelius
Yes, you get the point.

------
Santosh83
When it comes to ethical principles, perfect is the enemy of the good. No
ethical system can be perfectly watertight or universal, but that shouldn't
stop us from trying at all.

With software specifically, those authors concerned about the ethical
implications of the use of their software can add additional clauses to their
license of choice, spelling out ethical constraints, but I fail to see how it
can be reasonably enforced. I don't imagine for one moment that powerful
corporations or governments are going to stand by and watch their empire
crumble if the alternative would be to violate the ethical terms of a crucial
piece of software that will give them an edge in their amoral powerplays.

------
chiefalchemist
> "...but many projects of immense infrastructural importance are
> simultaneously fundamental to multiple business models and also chronically
> underfunded."

True. Which then means free isn't entirely free. Those using such software are
taking on risk - whether they care to admit it or not.

What's mind boggling is that this includes business entities large enough to
mitigate that risk (i.e., contribute people and/or money). I'm being a bit
cheeky but perhaps a license names "Use at your own risk" would be the way to
go? That would be something upper level decision makers (and legal) would
understand. As it is, many of those don't know GPL from MIT, etc.

------
mark_l_watson
Good write up. It is a tough question, but I personally think that we are all
well served with LGPL/GPL/AGPL, Apache 2, and MIT licenses.

I understand the motivation for other more specific licenses, but it is also
an advantage to just have a small set of licenses that people are familiar
with.

I like to release stuff under ‘use either Apache 2 or GPL’, your choice.
However, I honestly don’t know what problems that might cause people.

If I had to choose one license for all my stuff I would choose LGPL (permit
free commercial use, changes to library must be shared) but a lot of my open
source code is examples for my books so I like to be broad as possible,
license wise.

------
booleandilemma
_The JSON license includes a requirement that "The Software shall be used for
Good, not Evil"_

Thanks, I never knew this and needed a chuckle this morning.

~~~
johnisgood
Is it a joke or do they really not realize that there are no universal moral
truths and that "good" and "evil" are completely subjective? What are the
legal implications of that statement in theory and practice?

~~~
randallsquared
> _Is it a joke or do they really not realize that [...]_

In case you're not aware, the idea that there are no universal moral truths is
not universally accepted. :)

(But, yes, it was a joke at George W. Bush's expense, per wikipedia).

~~~
johnisgood
> the idea that there are no universal moral truths is not universally
> accepted.

Yes, I know, which further strengthens the point that this is an extremely
subjective territory. :P

------
carapace
Take it to the logical limit: either we have some sort of techno-utopia _al
la_ Star Trek -or- we have a world of Haves and Have-nots, Morlocks and Eloi,
Techno-N. Korea. Unless Nature kicks our asses whatever we set up today will
get amplified by technology one way or another.

Most people today can't even control their television (they can select what to
watch, but not decide not to be spied on by their own tv. This is on the
frontpage right now: "Watching You Watch: The Tracking Ecosystem of Over-the-
Top TV Streaming Devices" [pdf] (princeton.edu)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100404)
)

These are social/political issues. I think the FSF here is overwhelmed by a
tidal wave.

------
c-smile
> Do we need to rethink what free software is?

Yes we do need to do that.

Initial idea of FOSS was more about _personal_ use of OS applications, so at
times when "you can share your code with your neighbour without your neighbour
being able to deny the same freedom to others".

But that model simply does not work (or at least is not fair) in cases when OS
is used in paid services. And 90% of OS code now is in the form that is
suitable only for services. And that is the problem - FOSS is not motivating
fair use of our code. Sometimes - quite opposite.

~~~
kick
That is not true. Google "free software four freedoms".

~~~
c-smile
What exactly is "not true"?

~~~
kick
_Initial idea of FOSS was more about personal use of OS applications,_

This.

Free software was initially aimed at protecting both personal and commercial
freedoms, not just personal ones.

------
kazinator
> _The definition of free software includes the assertion that it must be
> possible to use the software for any purpose._

Rather, the assertion that the license must not assert any restrictions on
use.

------
skybrian
I don't know about free software, but I suspect there will still be a lot of
people releasing code under open source licenses, including most developers
working for companies.

Maybe there should be a standard license for non-commercial source code, but
that could be called a "source available" license.

------
raverbashing
> the Free Software Foundation should be taking the lead in ensuring that
> these issues are discussed

What I suspect will happen is that the FSF will keep their happy-naive view of
what "Free Software" is, ignoring the commercial and viability aspects of
software financing and their definition will become stale.

And we will see more software that while not being officially OpenSource™
will, for most practical purposes, be open source.

> If free software is going to maintain relevance, it needs to continue to
> explain how it interacts with contemporary social issues. If any
> organisation is going to claim to lead the community, it needs to be doing
> that.

True. Though I don't think it will be open source that will suffer, rather,
the organizations that miss the trends.

20 years ago most of the relevant free software was GNU, Apache, heavily Linux
centric, etc

Today, not so much.

------
benologist
We look at open source funding in isolation but wealth inequality is
pervasively unbalanced all over the place. Per-project funding has already
failed to allocate resources adequately because it's only corporate projects
that are funded not their dependencies. One proposed solution to this wider
inequality is Universal Basic Incomes, that funds open source by design.

There are a lot of reasons to like UBI as a funding channel for open source.
Open source contributes immensely to people learning how to use computers and
even the bad ideas can influence the future. There is all this value and
ecosystem being excluded when we look at funding on a per-project basis.

------
cousin_it
> _As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass
> surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel
> legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by
> allowing their software to be used for any purpose._

This reminds me of US visa application forms. After you list all your
relatives and past employers and places you've been in the last decade,
there's about three pages of questions like "have you tortured kids or are you
currently planning to", "have you committed genocide with biological weapons
or are you planning to" and such. The idea is that genocide mongers will tick
"yes", so the US can deny their visa.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The idea is that genocide mongers will tick "yes", so the US can deny their
> visa.

You have failed to understand the system.

The idea is that they will tick “no”, and that then even if their crimes can't
be proven to the criminal standard of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt)
necessary to impose imprisonment, capital punishment, or other criminal
sanction they will then be subject to civil sanction for immigration
violations, including deportation and bar from future legal entry, on the
lower standard applicable to those non-criminal sanctions.

------
baybal2
The answer is simple A-GPL

~~~
EdSharkey
Yep, and good luck acquiring users!

~~~
falcolas
Perhaps acquiring users is not their goal? Open source does not have to be a
popularity contest. Sharing for the sake of sharing - for increasing the
knowledge of the world at large - is many people’s goal.

------
wyldfire
Doesn't Affero GPL cover this?

------
GlitchMr
> As governments make more and more use of technology to perform acts of mass
> surveillance, detention, and even genocide, software authors may feel
> legitimately appalled at the idea that they are helping enable this by
> allowing their software to be used for any purpose.

Too bad, even if you were to disallow that in your license, governments won't
care, those things often are often already illegal - courts will dismiss your
cases about violation of copyright by saying it is "national security secret".

Additionally, licenses are based on copyright and cannot put additional
restrictions. Consider GPL, it doesn't add restrictions, rather it allows you
to do what copyright normally wouldn't allow. Programs are usable for any
purpose by default, GPL doesn't change that. You can use EULA to add
restrictions, however this requires an user to actually agree to those
restrictions (by, say, clicking "I agree").

~~~
lambertsimnel
Is it true that copyright licenses can't add restrictions? Patent retaliation
clauses in software copyright licenses suggest otherwise to me.

~~~
GlitchMr
This isn't a restriction. Rather, a license grants a patent license which has
its additional requirements. If you violate those requirements, you lose a
patent license, but you don't violate the copyright (at which point, the
license can be read as if it didn't have patent clause at all).

~~~
lambertsimnel
Can't copyright licenses terminate for any licensee who violates any term?
What about copyleft itself? Don't violators lose their licenses?

------
bbanyc
In this age of software as a service, the FOSS model is obsolete. Consider the
proposed backdooring of WhatsApp - even if I had all of WhatsApp's source code
and set up an instance on my own server, would anyone use it? Why? How would I
even get a non-backdoored encrypted chat program onto the app stores?

And let's be frank, app stores are a much better model for the non-techie end
user than the chaos of Windows 9x.

Stallman's (deserved) fall from grace is leading to some soul-searching in the
movement he founded and mismanaged for decades. Better late than never, but
I'm afraid it's already too late.

