4 ms·

Open Source Mythology

28 points by yreew 1y ago

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
Okay
nine_k 1y ago
The topic a not-entirely-open-source license the author has apparently created, and is defending. As an illustration: the author uses a Mao Zedong quotation as one of his points.
- nagaiaida 1y ago
  thank you for pointing this out! i probably would not have bothered to click through if i hadn't seen this comment, and i would have missed a well-articulated stance on an issue i think about every time i pick a license: whether or not freely sharing my work will have a net positive effect on the world. on contradiction is an apt choice of essay to look to here. i wasn't going to speak on twenty enemies because i haven't read it before, but after reading five pages or so i went back to a section that had stuck with me only to discover it was the same one the author had pulled as the first quotation. not exactly where i would have expected to stumble across this, but here we are. again, thank for you calling out that this was more than the milquetoast drivel i had assumed it to be from an uncharitable reading of the title alone.
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    Likewise - at first I was prepared for this to be another weird permutation of MIT/BSD or something but once I got further into the article I understood the author's point (and agreed!) about claiming (at least a symbolic) right of refusal to allow one's work to be used for ill. I don't know how enforceable that becomes, and I know that people the author refers to as dogmatists may be quick to point out the flaws (on some level it reminds me of pharmacists who refuse to dispense medications on personal grounds - eg, contraceptives or diabetic supplies to people they suspect of drug use). But I think the conversation is valuable - there is a moral/ethical dilemma for many of us who truly love computing, when faced with a job market that consists largely of For-Profit Corporations And Governments Doing Bad Things (obviously this is personal and relative).
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Mr Crockford has trolled the entire industry with the JSON license: https://www.json.org/license.html https://www.json.org/license.html It states that it can be used for good, but not for evil. The problem is, of course, in the lack of an established, clear-cut, whole-society consensus on what is good and what is evil, and also in the inability of humans to formally define even their own criteria for that. As with porn, "I can recognize it when I see it" is a bit shaky ground for legal matters. Speaking of the For-Profit Corporations, the profit is what pays the wages of those they employ, so, unless you agree to do programming (or any professional activity) entirely as a pastime,..
      - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        The revenue is what pays the wages. Wages are a business expense, not an optional benefit. I don’t like this response. It comes across as very “but you use a cell phone” to me. Yes, the world we live in is fueled by profit. It’s not a good thing to me.
  - mistrial9 1y ago
    > an apt choice of essay he said "apt" nyuck nyuck
Thev00d00 1y ago
Important note that this is window manager for _Windows_. The venn diagram for "people who give a shit about FOSS licences" and "people who daily drive Windows" is nearly two circles.
- dspillett 1y ago
  I think “people who daily drive Windows” is an invalid set for comparison here. I suspect there is a lot more overlap if you instead consider “people who give a shit about FOSS licences” in relation to “people who know what a tiling window manager is and want to use one, and daily drive Windows”.
- joseda-hg 1y ago
  I beg to differ, unless you also include the group "People who give a shit about FOSS licenses, but are forced by their job to use windows anyway"
- pantalaimon 1y ago
  Exactly, if you don't care about being included in a distribution's repository, you don't have to care about an OSI approved licence. Installing third party software is much easier on Windows.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
mijoharas 1y ago
I've skimmed the post, and I've clicked through to the license[0], but I'm not clear on what is meant by "firewall license"? Is it just that the license doesn't allow use by corporations, and that's why they say the target audience is: > Those who reject genocide-friendly software licensing Can someone help me grok it a little better? [0] https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi-license https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi-license
- skybrian 1y ago
  I also found that confusing. My guess as to what they mean is that if someone makes changes, they are not obligated to share them with the world? That is, they are against free and indiscriminate sharing, which would allow bad people to use their software. They link directly to this Q&A in the OSI FAQ: > Can I stop “evil people” from using my program? > No. The Open Source Definition specifies that Open Source licenses may not discriminate against persons or groups. Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too.
  - 3np 1y ago
    You can very much restrict software from being used in certain ways and for certain purposes and still be Open Source. Focus more on the "how" than the "who". Making the claim that OSI necessitates "genocide-friendly licenses" is not a constructive direction. OP could conceivably have come up with an alternative license preserving the freedoms without allowing the uses they disagree with. They chose the easier path, which is by itself fine. Painting the entire FLOSS community as genocide enablers and claiming there is no middle ground as long as the author is not in complete control of all redistribution and derivatives ("right to refuse") is unnecessary.
    - skybrian 1y ago
      Not that this is a good idea, but how do you suppose a window manager could be modified so that it's not useful for "bad" purposes? It seems difficult to do for general-purpose software.
Meneth 1y ago
The license says "you may not distribute the software or new works based on the software". Komorebi's readme says "Anyone is free to make their own fork of komorebi with changes intended either for personal use or for integration back upstream via pull requests." These texts seem to contradict each other, especially as there's no way to make a fork on GitHub without also distributing the software. If I put on my "totally-uncharitable" hat, it seems this author, and the author of the "PolyForm Strict License" on which it was based, are stupid, self-righteous and don't understand the basics of copyright licensing.

28 points by yreew 1y ago

Okay

The topic a not-entirely-open-source license the author has apparently created, and is defending. As an illustration: the author uses a Mao Zedong quotation as one of his points.

nagaiaida 1y ago
thank you for pointing this out! i probably would not have bothered to click through if i hadn't seen this comment, and i would have missed a well-articulated stance on an issue i think about every time i pick a license: whether or not freely sharing my work will have a net positive effect on the world. on contradiction is an apt choice of essay to look to here. i wasn't going to speak on twenty enemies because i haven't read it before, but after reading five pages or so i went back to a section that had stuck with me only to discover it was the same one the author had pulled as the first quotation. not exactly where i would have expected to stumble across this, but here we are. again, thank for you calling out that this was more than the milquetoast drivel i had assumed it to be from an uncharitable reading of the title alone.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  Likewise - at first I was prepared for this to be another weird permutation of MIT/BSD or something but once I got further into the article I understood the author's point (and agreed!) about claiming (at least a symbolic) right of refusal to allow one's work to be used for ill. I don't know how enforceable that becomes, and I know that people the author refers to as dogmatists may be quick to point out the flaws (on some level it reminds me of pharmacists who refuse to dispense medications on personal grounds - eg, contraceptives or diabetic supplies to people they suspect of drug use). But I think the conversation is valuable - there is a moral/ethical dilemma for many of us who truly love computing, when faced with a job market that consists largely of For-Profit Corporations And Governments Doing Bad Things (obviously this is personal and relative).
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Mr Crockford has trolled the entire industry with the JSON license: https://www.json.org/license.html https://www.json.org/license.html It states that it can be used for good, but not for evil. The problem is, of course, in the lack of an established, clear-cut, whole-society consensus on what is good and what is evil, and also in the inability of humans to formally define even their own criteria for that. As with porn, "I can recognize it when I see it" is a bit shaky ground for legal matters. Speaking of the For-Profit Corporations, the profit is what pays the wages of those they employ, so, unless you agree to do programming (or any professional activity) entirely as a pastime,..
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      The revenue is what pays the wages. Wages are a business expense, not an optional benefit. I don’t like this response. It comes across as very “but you use a cell phone” to me. Yes, the world we live in is fueled by profit. It’s not a good thing to me.
- mistrial9 1y ago
  > an apt choice of essay he said "apt" nyuck nyuck

Thev00d00 1y ago

Important note that this is window manager for _Windows_. The venn diagram for "people who give a shit about FOSS licences" and "people who daily drive Windows" is nearly two circles.

dspillett 1y ago
I think “people who daily drive Windows” is an invalid set for comparison here. I suspect there is a lot more overlap if you instead consider “people who give a shit about FOSS licences” in relation to “people who know what a tiling window manager is and want to use one, and daily drive Windows”.
joseda-hg 1y ago
I beg to differ, unless you also include the group "People who give a shit about FOSS licenses, but are forced by their job to use windows anyway"
pantalaimon 1y ago
Exactly, if you don't care about being included in a distribution's repository, you don't have to care about an OSI approved licence. Installing third party software is much easier on Windows.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

mijoharas 1y ago

I've skimmed the post, and I've clicked through to the license[0], but I'm not clear on what is meant by "firewall license"? Is it just that the license doesn't allow use by corporations, and that's why they say the target audience is: > Those who reject genocide-friendly software licensing Can someone help me grok it a little better? [0] https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi-license https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi-license

skybrian 1y ago
I also found that confusing. My guess as to what they mean is that if someone makes changes, they are not obligated to share them with the world? That is, they are against free and indiscriminate sharing, which would allow bad people to use their software. They link directly to this Q&A in the OSI FAQ: > Can I stop “evil people” from using my program? > No. The Open Source Definition specifies that Open Source licenses may not discriminate against persons or groups. Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too.
- 3np 1y ago
  You can very much restrict software from being used in certain ways and for certain purposes and still be Open Source. Focus more on the "how" than the "who". Making the claim that OSI necessitates "genocide-friendly licenses" is not a constructive direction. OP could conceivably have come up with an alternative license preserving the freedoms without allowing the uses they disagree with. They chose the easier path, which is by itself fine. Painting the entire FLOSS community as genocide enablers and claiming there is no middle ground as long as the author is not in complete control of all redistribution and derivatives ("right to refuse") is unnecessary.
  - skybrian 1y ago
    Not that this is a good idea, but how do you suppose a window manager could be modified so that it's not useful for "bad" purposes? It seems difficult to do for general-purpose software.

Meneth 1y ago

The license says "you may not distribute the software or new works based on the software". Komorebi's readme says "Anyone is free to make their own fork of komorebi with changes intended either for personal use or for integration back upstream via pull requests." These texts seem to contradict each other, especially as there's no way to make a fork on GitHub without also distributing the software. If I put on my "totally-uncharitable" hat, it seems this author, and the author of the "PolyForm Strict License" on which it was based, are stupid, self-righteous and don't understand the basics of copyright licensing.