
The Anti-Capitalist Software License - LeoPanthera
https://anticapitalist.software
======
weeksie
Any license with an ideological component is a timebomb that goes off when the
developer decides you are no longer pure enough. You’d have to be insane to
use any software with a license like this (if one was enforceable)

~~~
0xy
It's often a joke among far-left communities that garden variety liberals are
more contemptible than right-wing organizations, so I believe it.

When you get to the fringes of political ideology, infighting and corruption
tend to be insane. There's constant backstabbing (sometimes in a literal
sense) at both extremes.

~~~
non-entity
yeah I have some ML friends I followed on social media and got a first hand
look at so called leftist infighting. Seems mostly counterproductive.

------
_delirium
This seems related to the _copyfarleft_ concept proposed by Dmytri Kleiner [1]
and his Peer Production License as a first-draft implementation of the
concept. That's spawned a few license variants and been debated a bit [2].
Would be interesting to know whether the authors of this license are aware of
those licenses and debate, and how they see their goals as relating.

[1] [http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-
manifesto/](http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto/)

[2] E.g., [https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/copyfarleft-
crit...](https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/copyfarleft-critique),
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2468731](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2468731),

------
wrnr
I sometimes amuse myself with the idea of creating a software license out of
spite for certain organisation, a kind of black list if you will, like Arya
Starks kill list but more childish. At any rate you'd probably want to look
into all the ways rich people make money with not-for-profits. The difference
in intent and word of law is damn difficult problem to solve.

~~~
aaron-santos
For all of the GitHub supporting ICE condemnation, I'm surprised there isn't a
license which forbids GitHub from using a piece of software.

~~~
kazinator
How about something a bit different: a license that prevents Github hosting?

That should be easy.

You create two licenses for your software: a license for the code _per se_ ,
and a separate one for your _git repo_ of the software.

So that is to say, for instance, your program could be MIT licensed. But your
git repository (all the Git objects and meta-data: commit messages, hashes,
branches, tags, ...) could have a more restrictive license which asserts "this
may not be mirrored on Github".

It's intriguing. If we regard the work you're creating to be your git repo,
then that is not free. If we regard the work you're creating to be baselines
of an artifact that you're committing to the git repo, then that is free.

------
kemotep
This doesn't respect the 4 freedoms. If by some odd circumstance, all the
FAANG companies became worker cooperatives and adopted all the requirements
for this license and released new versions of their software using this
license, would that really make the world a better place?

I feel without the 4 software freedoms, like with the GPL, you are not
respecting the freedoms of the end user. They mention requiring, "not
exploiting non-members". To me that requires the 4 software freedoms.

Is my understanding of this license and the software freedoms incorrect?

~~~
Kednicma
If each FAANG released backend code:

* Facebook: We'd learn what sorts of data collection and aggregation they do, and how metrics are planned and gamed.

* Apple: We'd learn something about the App Store rejection policy, and we'd also get to jailbreak and repair our phones.

* Amazon: We'd find out how their billing and egress policies really work. We'd also get to see how customers are tracked.

* Netflix: Oh look, tracking of customers, something we'd learn.

* Google: Customers, tracking, etc. But also they know stuff about their long-term hardware vendor partners.

How would this not make the world a better place? It's clearly in line with
both the copyleft programme of ending copyright protections on source code,
and also more general anti-corporate and anti-surveillance ideologies.

~~~
kemotep
This license doesn't require them to share the source though, just limit who
is allowed to use it. Is that reading of the license wrong, is my question.
They specifically mention not caring if source code is shared but if the
companies that utilize software licensed with this license are worker
collectives or not.

Which is why I feel it would be better to advocate for the [A]GPL as that
would result in the situation you describe.

~~~
Kednicma
Google has a public AGPL policy [0], so advocating for it will not have the
effect that you like.

[0] [https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-
policy/](https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/)

~~~
kemotep
The page you linked says Google bans the use of AGPL code in their core
products.

Are you saying that since Google has a public policy banning the use of AGPL
code in their products there is no use in advocating for a 4 freedom
respecting copyleft license?

------
neckardt
> An organization of people that seeks shared profit for all its members and
> does not exploit the labor of non-members

It doesn't make indication of the distribution of the profit. If I were a
business owner couldn't I get around this by giving each employee $1 in stock
options? If the value of the organization goes up there's still shared profit,
no matter how minuscule it is.

------
0xy
Forgive my naivety, but why aren't worker-owned cooperatives considered to be
profitable enterprises?

Taking an example of a typical factory making widgets, profit is essential so
that the organization running the place has a buffer in case of unexpected
breakdowns or room for expansion.

This agreement appears to forbid worker-owned cooperatives, since profit is
essential to the orderly operation of any factory.

Without profit, there is no emergency fund and there is no preventative
maintenance.

~~~
marcinzm
Presumably a worker-owned cooperative would fall under 2c and 3.

>2c. An organization of people that seeks shared profit for all its members
and does not exploit the labor of non-members

>3\. If the User is an organization with owners, then all owners are workers
and all workers are owners with equal share.

~~~
0xy
If profit is shared, it's not profit the organization can use as a buffer. The
organization itself requires profit. That profit cannot be distributed without
putting continuity of the organization at risk.

~~~
marcinzm
The wording is "seeks shared profit" which does not to me read as "distributes
all profit." My read is "seeks shared financial gain" (in contrast to "seeks
shareholder financial gain"). Even a non-profit institution is able to re-
invest it's income without being a for-profit institution.

~~~
0xy
What is the fundamental difference between a factory owned by a cooperative
and a factory owned by a corporation with workers of the factory having shares
in that company?

The profit objectives are identical. They have to be, because the basic
realities of factory processes mandate profit for ongoing operations and
expansion.

If that's true, then why is one excluded and not the other?

~~~
gremlinsinc
Those are essentially the same thing, as long as the CEO makes the same as an
entry level worker. Because the keyword is equal share. Nobody is elevated
financially above another.

You could still have surplus, but workers get to vote on how much that should
be, and a flat-style management system still could have managers over others
who manage projects, they could pitch budget proposals and vote. Then at the
end of the year whatever is left over goes out equally to all (or based on #
of hours worked), as a bonus or dividend payout.

But most factories the CEO makes 50 million, the worker might get a 3% match
in a 401k, and $15 an hour. In other words the ceo is making 300x more, and is
definitely not worth that much. Why are today's CEO's better / worth more than
1980's, by 3-4x as much, when the average worker is not, even though
productivity of workers has skyrocketed since the 80's?

~~~
bccdee
As I understand it, most co-ops don't even enforce totally equal pay across
the board -- they just ensure that there are no extreme income discrepancies.
Rewarding workers who do a great job with a bonus makes sense even from an
egalitarian perspective.

------
drivingmenuts
First, you have to have software worth licensing, that is complicated enough
to be too much trouble to be re-written.

------
duncan_bayne
I'm about as pro-capitalist, laissez-faire, pro-free-market as it gets. I was
a literal card-carrying member of the LibertariaNZ party back in New Zealand.
The spirit of this license disgusts me at a fairly deep emotional level.

That said, I think that this specific concern raised by the license is very
real:

> ... If you want your code to empower students, artists, hobbyists,
> collectives, cooperatives and nonprofits to survive under capitalism while
> not contributing free labor to corporations.

I've seen a few cases where I think that open source authors and maintainers
are getting it in the shorts. Yes there's value - "Egoboo", learning, personal
promotion, etc. - but I don't think it's enough in many cases. For example:

* Free software that contributes to the growth and dominance of proprietary, for-profit ecosystems. E.g. I was recently back on Windows for the first time in a decade or so professionally, building an app I'd written in Common Lisp. Scoop (for package management on Windows) and Rosewell (which now supports Windows) made this super easy and pleasant. But ... why would you spend your time writing Free software to benefit such an ecosystem? Unless you're being paid for it, why not spend your time contributing to a Free ecosystem instead?

* Free software that is productised by cloud providers (e.g. [https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-hits-back-at-open-source-s...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-hits-back-at-open-source-software-critics/)).

* Companies like Google, who are happy to build upon a plethora of open source products to generate billion-dollar profits, but who then turn around and actively give the middle finger to the communities without which they wouldn't exist (e.g. [https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/03/googles_widevine_drm/](https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/03/googles_widevine_drm/)).

~~~
Kednicma
I think it's hilarious that you're disgusted. How awful _would_ it be if, when
you purchased a computer, you were entitled to all of the code that comes with
the computer, and full documentation and toolchains? How much worse would your
life really get?

Edit: Please, use your words and not your downvote. Your downvotes just mean
that you agree with me: Your disgust is an ironic expression of a crab
mentality where you regret that other people might be able to have nice things
due to us working together as a society.

~~~
duncan_bayne
I think you are attracting downvotes because you completely mistook my point.

I support Free software - financially, by evangelising it, by writing it, and
by using it.

My point was that I think some large companies are getting a lot more value
from their use of it than the authors and maintainers get from working on it.

(Edited to add: I agree wholeheartedly about downvoting vs. replying. I wish
more people would reply instead of, or perhaps as well as, downvoting).

~~~
Kednicma
You are almost to one of the big tenets of Marxism: Employers have it out for
employees; managers do not respect laborers. I think that what's missing from
your insight is that _every_ corporation, simply by dint of its legal
structure and societal appearance, has an unfair modicum of power which it
lords over the folks that actually do the work.

~~~
duncan_bayne
... which is why it's entirely reasonable for labour to unionise, to increase
their bargaining power with employers.

One of the fundamentals of Marxism with which I disagree, though - at such a
fundamental level that it drives an emotional response to the license we're
discussing - is that paid labour is necessarily exploitation. That is, I
consider the labour theory of value to be incorrect.

I'm reminded of the famous Reagan quote:

> How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin.
> And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and
> Lenin."

------
mmm_grayons
Ideological contents aside:

> does not exploit the labor of non-members

This is not good legal terminology and so makes it a bad license. People who
want to prevent monetization by a closed-source company are probably still
better off with the AGPL.

~~~
vmception
That statement is good enough legal terminology. What makes you say otherwise?
They just didn't define members, which are clearly - to me - the people with
membership interests in an Limited Company, along with the managing member. Or
shareholders in a Corporation.

I have no comment on the rest of the clauses so to anyone passing by, don't
base any response to me as if I have an opinion.

~~~
tzs
It doesn't define "exploit the labor of non-members". What interactions with a
non-member count as "exploiting" their labor?

~~~
kemotep
Does this requirement mean computer components that the software is written
and deployed on needs to be "conflict free", and manufactured by other anti-
capitalist firms? I don't know of anything that would meet that definition.

~~~
tzs
My _guess_ is that what it is trying to cover is having employees who are paid
an hourly wage or a salary only rather than being included in the profit
sharing.

If that is correct, there would be no restriction on them buying and using
supplies from other organizations that do exploit labor.

