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Software Freedom Conservancy Asks For Supporters
paroneayea writes: Software Freedom Conservancy is asking people to join as supporters to save both their basic work and GPL enforcement. Conservancy is the steward of projects like Samba, Wine, BusyBox, QEMU, Inkscape, Selenium, and many more. Conservancy also does much work around GPL enforcement and needs 2,500 members to join in order to save copyleft compliance work. They list some of the past year's successes, too, including fighting for and successfully earning "an exemption from the Library of Congress in the DMCA review process to legally permit circumvention of encryption on Smart TVs, ensuring that you are free to hack on the devices that you legally own."
For those who actually want to know, its name came from 1984 and Big Brother. It serves as a reminder that with great power comes great responsibility. 20 years ago when created, Vern Paxson was not thinking about or anticipating fraternity culture connotations.
So I guess this means you don't use any proprietary software at all, given the onerous terms in those click-thru agreements? Liar.
The right for somebody to create closed-source derivatives is something that should be protected. Not protecting it is merely the act of taking away freedom.
Your saying your not free unless you have the right to deprive others of freedom...
The same arguments where used to justify slavery.
Where are the modern day philanthropists when we need them? There are a ton of AOSP forks and modifications, but all specific to devices. It seems like you're advocating for a Free Hardware movement (including firmware/microcode in that), which is great, but it costs even more money than free software. We need a few 0.1%ers to step up to the your cause.
Perhaps they are trying to be too nice, perhaps they shouldnâ(TM)t be trying to make friends of the corporations that choose to violate the communities principles.
Seems like they are going to make a choice between enforcing the GPL in a friendly way or not at all.
I respect their efforts very much, but i would rather see them become more militant, take as much money as they can get from the wilfully ignorant, and not be afraid of making enemies.
Freedom is about having control of your own actions, Power is about having control of others.
Permissive licences like BSD permit you to deny freedom to other other people, to have power over them.
Copyleft are called restrictive because it forbids you from having power over other people, it requires you to pass on the freedoms you where granted.
BSD doesnt force you to take power from other people, just like slavery didnt force people to buy slaves. But it happened.
I don't want to support, or otherwise be involved with, GPL enforcement. It sounds to me like it's the creator of a piece of software dictating exactly what I can and can't do with it.
Wrong, the GPL only refers to the distribution of the software, and here the only requirement is that you pass on all the freedoms that were given to you when you received the software. For what you actually use the software this is completely up to you, in fact restricting the use of the software (e.g. "non-commercial only" or "no military use") is incompatible with the GPL.
The right for somebody to create closed-source derivatives is something that should be protected. Not protecting it is merely the act of taking away freedom.
Here you contradict yourself, because by distributing a closed-source derivative of some free software is taking away the freedom to create a derivative from your modified version.
"Get educated so you can have some respect" - Anonymous Coward
To comprehend what i said you need understand the difference between "permit" and "force".
If this organization is just involved in enforcing GPL copyleft on the GPL packages like Samba, WINE, et al, I'm fine w/ them. However, if they are involved in horning in on projects that are not GPL, I agree w/ you.
That's not what he said. He said that he wants to use software anyway he likes - including mixing it w/ proprietary packages when and where needed. He can do that w/ BSD, but not w/ GPL.
Permissive licences like BSD permit you to deny freedom to other other people, to have power over them.
Copyleft are called restrictive because it forbids you from having power over other people, it requires you to pass on the freedoms you where granted.
BSD does nothing of the sort. It allows the user to do whatever they like w/ packages, such as distribute them w/ a mixture of open source and closed source binaries. Like if some of the binaries in a package have patents that the open sourced BSD licensed source package doesn't have, the BSD license allows a combination of it being passed on to other people. So if you take such a combination package and pass it to me, you are not passing to me any freedoms other than the ones that you received. I can still tinker w/ the open sourced part of it, while keeping the closed source parts as they are. And I can pass on the modified or unmodified version on down the line, w/ the same freedoms - and 'lack thereof' - that I had received. It doesn't make me a slavery enabling agent.
In more practical terms, however, this is not about the great religion of St iGNUcius. It's about the fact that some open source packages require closed source packages that are patent protected in order to be useful, and under the BSD banner, they are allowed so that they provide the full functionality that the user needs. Under the FSF, it's more important for the user to have a useless piece of junk that he is at liberty to fully modify, regardless of whether it serves his purpose or not. That's why you don't have those endless debates over NVIDIA's or AMD's GPU drivers in BSD the way you do in Linux. BSD provides them in the way they are provided for by the vendors in question.
Totally bogus argument. We are talking about the GPL pretending it's a software that promotes freedom, when it is more restrictive than other licenses, such as the BSD license. The entities who directly benefit from the software freedom conservancy should be the ones paying for it. Or they can just change their license to BSD and continue to give the source away ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Wrong. If I create a closed-source derivative of bsd-licensed software, I am NOT taking an freedom away from others. They are free to use it or not, same as people are free to not use GPL'd software if they don't want to abide by the terms of the GPL.
The BSD license allows code to propagate without putting restrictions on the person passing it on to others, unlike the GPL.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Steam the largest gaming platform? Only if you don't count Windows, XBox, Playstation, Wii, etc ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
If you create a closed-source derivative of bsd-licenced software AND DISTRIBUTE IT, the derivative is not as free as the original.
Users of the derivative are being deprived of freedoms that existed in the original.
They dont have the ability to modify the original parts of the derivative once its binary only.
And be honest with yourself, if you create a closed source derivative of BSD licensed software would you be doing it mostly for the benefit of yourself or for others ?
Absolute freedom is a fantasy, absolute freedom permits people to take away other peoples freedom (to have power over them), once that happens freedom is no longer absolute.
If you create a closed-source derivative of bsd-licenced software AND DISTRIBUTE IT, the derivative is not as free as the original. Users of the derivative are being deprived of freedoms that existed in the original. They dont have the ability to modify the original parts of the derivative once its binary only.
And be honest with yourself, if you create a closed source derivative of BSD licensed software would you be doing it mostly for the benefit of yourself or for others ?
Absolute freedom is a fantasy, absolute freedom permits people to take away other peoples freedom (to have power over them), once that happens freedom is no longer absolute.
The distributed binary is just as free as the original binary. And they DO have the EXACT SAME freedom I have - to develop their own derivative from the same source I used. Not my problem if they don't have the talent - they can always hire someone else to do it. What they don't have is the right to tell me what I have to do.
If I create a closed-source bsd-licensed derivative, OR my own completely original or derivative BSD-licensed code, that is MY choice. The people who have hired me to work on software, either as an employee or as a contractor, didn't give out the source code, and that is why they could afford to pay me. Same with almost everyone who works in the software biz. Open source is not a obligatory, nor is it desirable in many cases (like when you want to eat).
However, closed source does NOT limit other people's freedoms - they are, as I pointed out, free to use the same original source to make their own derivative. And they're free to release the source or not when they distribute binaries, as they wish, unlike the GPL.
There is nothing preventing users of the derivative to develop their own version using their own skills to create their own derivative from the same source I use, so users have the same freedoms I have. If they don't have the skills, sucks to be them but I don't owe it to them to give them my source. They have other options, such as paying someone else to develop their own derivative.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
BSD does nothing of the sort. It allows the user to do whatever they like w/ packages ... It doesn't make me a slavery enabling agent.
No it doesnt automatically make you a slavery enabling agent, but it does permit you to be slavery enabling agent.
You said it yourself, BSD allows users to do whatever they like.
The distributed binary is just as free as the original binary.
No its not, the original binary with full source code could be modified if it has the full source code available, the secretly modified distributed version does not.
closed source does NOT limit other people's freedoms - they are, as I pointed out, free to use the same original source to make their own derivative
By the same arguments;
Slavery does NOT limit other peoples freedom - slaves might eventually become free man and become slave owners themselves.
so users have the same freedoms I have. If they don't have the skills, sucks to be them but I don't owe it to them to give them my source
If two people are living in a cage, one knows how to escape the other doest, do they have the same freedoms ?
What part of "the original binary" didn't you understand? Your comparisons to slavery are so over the line that they don't merit consideration (bad troll!)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It is not a troll.
BSD is about maximising individuals freedom at the expense of others, copyleft is about maximising collective freedom. There is an obvious analogy to slavery.
If you cant see it, dont blame me.
So you would enslave me to free others? Troll, troll, troll.
As I pointed out, the bsd code that a derivative is based on is available to everyone. No reason why someone who wants to release a GPL'd version derived from that same source code. Any other argument is freetarded.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.