I’m a very much pro free software person and I used to think that GPL is basically the only possible option when it comes to benefits for free software (and not commercial use), but I’ve recently realised this question is actually much more ambiguous.

I think there are two sides to this issue:

  • GPL forces all contributions to stay open-source which prevents commercialisation* of FOSS projects, but also causes possible interference of corporate software design philosophy and all kinds of commercial decisions, if contributions come from companies.
  • MIT-like permissive licenses, on the other hand, easily allow for making proprietary forks, which, however, separates commercial work from the rest of the project, therefore making the project more likely to stay free both of corporate influence and in general.

So it boils down to the fact, that in my opinion what makes free software free is not only the way it’s distributed but also the whole philosophy behind it: centralisation vs. decentralisation, passive consumer vs. co-developper role of the user etc. And this is where things start to be a bit controversial.

What do you think?

*UPD: wrong word. I mean close-sourcing and turning into a profitable product instead of something that fulfils your needs

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
    6·
    14 hours ago

    GPL forces all contributions to stay open-source […]

    I am somewhat tripping here over the word “force”.

    Do you want to say that non-commercial software developers should give away the fruits of their work for free, in general?

    But companies not?

    Do they have a kind of right to that? What would that right be based on?

    To make a picture: Let’s say we have a farmer who goes to the farmers market and sells his stuff. Does his offer to sell his vegetables violate anyone’s rights? Or freedoms? Is there any right to go and take his stuff away without paying?

    Now, let’s say the farmer realizes that there are poor people which are starving, and because he is from a culture in which sharing has a very high value and people help each other all the time, he decides that people can take some of his vegetables for free.

    And then he observes that there are companies which take all his free stuff and sell it again to poor people. And he thinks “wait a minute”, and writes a contract stipulating that anyone who takes his free stuff, agrees to not sell it to other persons, but to only give it for free, too. Anyone who takes his free stuff must sign that contract first.

    Does existence of this contract make others unfree? Or forces them to do something ? In exactly the same sense in which you were using the word “force” above?

    And still, we are only scratching the surface of the issue, since the GPL is not at all about the rights of software authors - it is a contract which uses these rights - but actually it is about the rights of the software users.

    • myszka@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      11 hours ago

      I totally get what you’re saying, and that’s a fair point. But I think I just have a different notion of freedom. To me, freedom is about the mode of production. I think people would be actually free if the very act of creating something were fulfilling on its own because of its creative manner. In that case you wouldn’t need anything in exhange, and distributing your work for free wouldn’t be a sacrifice, so there would be no problem if somebody decided to sell it. Now I know the areas where you can achieve anything serious that way are very, very limited yet, but still they exist, and I think in order for them to grow, it would be helpful to separate them from other, less creative areas of production.

      So back to your analogy, allowing companies to sell your free vegetables doesn’t make sense, because farming is a tedious work, that is not fully fulfilling on its own. But allowing others to sing a song you wrote to just express your feelings - even at a paid concert with a big audience - isn’t that big of a problem. You might want money from that because you need money in general but not because writing a song was a sacrifice you want to compensate. Songs aren’t comparable to software, but with software you would also benefit if companies didn’t participate at all in its development and didn’t bring it to usual passive consumers because it would preserve its DIY manner.

      • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
        1·
        9 hours ago

        To me, freedom is about the mode of production. I think people would be actually free if the very act of creating something were fulfilling on its own because of its creative manner. In that case you wouldn’t need anything in exhange, and distributing your work for free wouldn’t be a sacrifice, so there would be no problem if somebody decided to sell it.

        I think exactly here is the crucial difference to the GPL and the rights it is concerned about: The GPL is concerned with the rights of the users. The reason for this is that closed-source and non-free software turns into a means of control that affects the sphere and rights of the users. A few examples:

        • email services which scan your private messages for advertising - or controlling you in a police state
        • operating systems which upload most of your data to the vendor’s cloud, including passwords
        • applications and whole operating systems which are carefully designed to be very distracting, for example because this allows to use advertising or maximizes time spent with a service
        • printer drivers which only allow to buy expensive ink cartridges made by the printers vendor and waste ink on top of that
        • scanner drivers which stop to work after an OS upgrade, so that you have to buy a new scanner because the company will not give you any software update for the driver
        • printers which print tiny yellow dots on each page to identify stealthly who was printing it
        • web apps that are choke-full with dark patterns that manipulate you into allowing things you don’t want.
        • trains that stop working if they are maintained by another company than the one that produced their software
        • digital hearing aids which are locked to the chain that sold it so their owners can’t let maintain and repair them elsewhere
        • phone apps that track your location and send it to companies and state organizations

        these problems are what the GPL and copyleft licenses address, and the reason why systems like Linux are much more user-friendly.

        Oh, and in respect to the artists: Yes, many do art because they need to do that. And this is all the time blatantly exploited by companies. And companies try to exploit open source developers in the same way.