Thanks those who shared this satire:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-work-for-an-evil-company-but-outside-work-im-actually-a-really-good-person

IMO, only paragraph missing was:

> “3 hours/week, my company lets me upstream code to their favorite MIT-licensed #FOSS project! That counts. Of course, in exchange, I have to post on y-combinator how bad #copyleft is & file a #GitHub ticket telling some #AGPLv3'd project to change licenses. Oh, & all the best patches with new features stay on our internal branch…but *I* fixed all typos & misspellings upstream!”

Cc: @aral @brunobord

Thanks those who shared this satire:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-work-for-an-evil-company-but-outside-work-im-actually-a-really-good-person

IMO, only paragraph missing was:

> “3 hours/week, my company lets me upstream code to their favorite MIT-licensed #FOSS project! That counts. Of course, in exchange, I have to post on y-combinator how bad #copyleft is & file a #GitHub ticket telling some #AGPLv3'd project to change licenses. Oh, & all the best patches with new features stay on our internal branch…but *I* fixed all typos & misspellings upstream!”

Cc: @aral @brunobord

Still, #LLM are voiding the #GPL (and #AGPL) reciprocity.

That's why years ago I wrote the #HackingLicense https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

It was designed with automated corporate #exploitation of #FreeSoftware in mind: it's goal is to balance #freedom and #communion, and it share with those that accept it much more than permissions, while being a stromger #copyleft and an explicit shrink-wrap contract.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with GPL, because GPL is much weaker.

The fundamental issue of Free Software, the one that let people create the #OpenSource narrative and permessive licenses to exploit programmer ideals and #freelabor, was that #RMS, as an American grown up during #ColdWar, was too fond of the freedom-vs-communism propaganda to understand how lack of rules means the rule of the rich.

The problem is not commercial use of free software but commercial exploitation of free labour, as @doctormo@floss.social correctly stated.

The Hacking License does not prohibit commercial use, but requires recipient to share their own #copyright with the users of any derivative or dependant work they create as a contractual binding.

It's modelled after the research of #ElinorOstrom about Commons governance and the #Hacker ethics based on the value of #curiosity.

@amszmidt@mastodon.social

The way #LLM are voiding classic #copyleft has been experimentally demonstrated years ago, when #GitHub #Copilot was caught distributing well known #AGPLv3 code with a permissive license and wrong author attribution.

Also, technically that incident demonstrated how Copilot's model itself is a derivative work of copylefted works: if a lossy compression of copyrighted material is still subject to authors' #copyright, encoding such compression as arrays of floats that can be executed by virtual processors with a dedicated architecture (so called "inference" engines) does't change its nature of derivative work. Similarly violating copyrights of millions of authors at once doesn't free you of such rights.
That's basically why #OpenAI and friends are so scared by current lack of sustainable business models for their #LLM: they need money to keep Judges away.
But anyway I still have to find a single person that debate with technical competence and in good faith the derivative nature of LLMs from the text corpora compressed in their models.

As for the Hacking License not being a Free Software license, it's debatable after a careful read since the only thing you cannot do with the software is to prevent others from enjoining the same freedom it grants you.

Yet I've never claimed it is Free Software because, sadly, I'm forced to move beyond Free Software by its own limit.

OTOH I'm proud that it's not an #OpenSource license as I'll never submit it to #OSI corrupted #gatekeepers.¹

As for #FLOSS, it's a term designed to confuse free software values with corporate propaganda while marginalizing hackers: its a leaking abstraction designed to fool developers and exploit their naive groupthinking. Having been fooled myself. Never again. 😉

____

¹ The way OSI tried to #openwash the #OSAID, with an over complicated process that doubled #Meta's lobbyists' votes to exclude training data from the requirements confirmed my opinion about them.

@doctormo@floss.social

@amszmidt@mastodon.social

The way #LLM are voiding classic #copyleft has been experimentally demonstrated years ago, when #GitHub #Copilot was caught distributing well known #AGPLv3 code with a permissive license and wrong author attribution.

Also, technically that incident demonstrated how Copilot's model itself is a derivative work of copylefted works: if a lossy compression of copyrighted material is still subject to authors' #copyright, encoding such compression as arrays of floats that can be executed by virtual processors with a dedicated architecture (so called "inference" engines) does't change its nature of derivative work. Similarly violating copyrights of millions of authors at once doesn't free you of such rights.
That's basically why #OpenAI and friends are so scared by current lack of sustainable business models for their #LLM: they need money to keep Judges away.
But anyway I still have to find a single person that debate with technical competence and in good faith the derivative nature of LLMs from the text corpora compressed in their models.

As for the Hacking License not being a Free Software license, it's debatable after a careful read since the only thing you cannot do with the software is to prevent others from enjoining the same freedom it grants you.

Yet I've never claimed it is Free Software because, sadly, I'm forced to move beyond Free Software by its own limit.

OTOH I'm proud that it's not an #OpenSource license as I'll never submit it to #OSI corrupted #gatekeepers.¹

As for #FLOSS, it's a term designed to confuse free software values with corporate propaganda while marginalizing hackers: its a leaking abstraction designed to fool developers and exploit their naive groupthinking. Having been fooled myself. Never again. 😉

____

¹ The way OSI tried to #openwash the #OSAID, with an over complicated process that doubled #Meta's lobbyists' votes to exclude training data from the requirements confirmed my opinion about them.

@doctormo@floss.social

Still, #LLM are voiding the #GPL (and #AGPL) reciprocity.

That's why years ago I wrote the #HackingLicense https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

It was designed with automated corporate #exploitation of #FreeSoftware in mind: it's goal is to balance #freedom and #communion, and it share with those that accept it much more than permissions, while being a stromger #copyleft and an explicit shrink-wrap contract.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with GPL, because GPL is much weaker.

The fundamental issue of Free Software, the one that let people create the #OpenSource narrative and permessive licenses to exploit programmer ideals and #freelabor, was that #RMS, as an American grown up during #ColdWar, was too fond of the freedom-vs-communism propaganda to understand how lack of rules means the rule of the rich.

The problem is not commercial use of free software but commercial exploitation of free labour, as @doctormo@floss.social correctly stated.

The Hacking License does not prohibit commercial use, but requires recipient to share their own #copyright with the users of any derivative or dependant work they create as a contractual binding.

It's modelled after the research of #ElinorOstrom about Commons governance and the #Hacker ethics based on the value of #curiosity.

Intanto, il #copyleft continua a rappresentare una forza etica essenziale per difendere il #software #libero e la condivisione digitale aperta. Negli Stati Uniti, cresce la preoccupazione per i router #TPLink, con possibili divieti per timori di spionaggio cinese dopo il caso #TikTok.

(2/2)

@informatica

https://bit.ly/47AAwBg

Intanto, il #copyleft continua a rappresentare una forza etica essenziale per difendere il #software #libero e la condivisione digitale aperta. Negli Stati Uniti, cresce la preoccupazione per i router #TPLink, con possibili divieti per timori di spionaggio cinese dopo il caso #TikTok.

(2/2)

@informatica

https://bit.ly/47AAwBg

For all of you techies and #opensource people out there. #copyleft #FOSS 🤓

https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-open-source-may-not-survive-the-rise-of-generative-ai/

For all of you techies and #opensource people out there. #copyleft #FOSS 🤓

https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-open-source-may-not-survive-the-rise-of-generative-ai/

Generally speaking, #copyleft codebases interact best with small-to-medium business ventures rather than advancing the interests of megacorps.

#Mastodon is an obvious example — which has a growing ecosystem of small businesses (like @mastohost) & nonprofit entities working in collaboration.

We see similar in the #GPL'd #Drupal community.

When megacorps get involved with copylefted projects, it's usually to exploit rather than engage — hence the widespread #GPLv2 violations on #Linux.
#AGPLv3

Generally speaking, #copyleft codebases interact best with small-to-medium business ventures rather than advancing the interests of megacorps.

#Mastodon is an obvious example — which has a growing ecosystem of small businesses (like @mastohost) & nonprofit entities working in collaboration.

We see similar in the #GPL'd #Drupal community.

When megacorps get involved with copylefted projects, it's usually to exploit rather than engage — hence the widespread #GPLv2 violations on #Linux.
#AGPLv3

@hamishcampbell @cascheranno

Under the current system, financial incentives enable more under-privileged to contribute and prevents maintainer burnout. FOSS hasn’t succeeded at solving these problems. I also don’t see the ethics in developing software for capitalist use for free. We need a new movement for software freedom that pushes Copyfarleft licenses instead of merely Copyleft licenses.

#FOSS #copyleft #FreeSoftware #OpenSource

@fdroidorg If we want #Android to be open, we need not permissive licensing, not #copyleft licensing, but a sense of “copyfarleft.”

From a bit ago but just listened to this and found some parts remarkably well-articulated and helpful so wanted to share here:

Software Freedom Conservancy: Cory Doctorow and Karen Sandler discuss Right to Repair

Episode webpage: https://videos.trom.tf/w/q1AAL629GYMFtN6nCy15WE

Media file: https://videos.trom.tf/static/streaming-playlists/hls/c270a682-2854-4961-8852-7c7b2c55b532/f7c33c47-3fe9-403c-aab0-686034faa4d6-480-fragmented.mp4

#FreeSoftware #copyleft #politics#OpenSource #FOSS

File under "not wunderbar":

In Germany a court decided that even smaller online platforms can be held responsible for infringing content uploaded by users, if they don't have some form of screening:
https://nrwe.justiz.nrw.de/lgs/koeln/lg_koeln/j2025/14_O_343_23_Urteil_20250724.html (German)

#ucg #copyright #copyleft

File under "not wunderbar":

In Germany a court decided that even smaller online platforms can be held responsible for infringing content uploaded by users, if they don't have some form of screening:
https://nrwe.justiz.nrw.de/lgs/koeln/lg_koeln/j2025/14_O_343_23_Urteil_20250724.html (German)

#ucg #copyright #copyleft

→ Paradoxe libriste et logiciel émancipateur (par @p4bl0)
https://p4bl0.net/post/2022/11/Paradoxe-libriste-et-logiciel-emancipateur

« Dans le milieu libriste, y compris parfois très à gauche, il semble que la possibilité de compromis s'arrête souvent brutalement sur la liberté d'utilisation du logiciel, sur laquelle il serait inadmissible de vouloir poser des conditions, comme le fait pourtant le copyleft sur la liberté de partage. »

#gauche#liberté #partage#Paradoxe #libriste #logiciel #copyleft #compromis#émancipateur

😲🤬 re: what's happened to @Codeberg today
The AI ballyhoo is a real DDoS against one of the few code hosting sites that has taken a stand against slurping #FOSS code into LLM training sets — in violation of #copyleft licenses.
This is what lawless & deregulation bring us. ∃ plenty of blame to go around, but #Microsoft & #GitHub deserve the bulk of it as they trailblazed the idea that FOSS code-hosting sites are lucrative targets.
https://giveupgithub.org
#GiveUpGitHub#FreeSoftware#OpenSource

😲🤬 re: what's happened to @Codeberg today
The AI ballyhoo is a real DDoS against one of the few code hosting sites that has taken a stand against slurping #FOSS code into LLM training sets — in violation of #copyleft licenses.
This is what lawless & deregulation bring us. ∃ plenty of blame to go around, but #Microsoft & #GitHub deserve the bulk of it as they trailblazed the idea that FOSS code-hosting sites are lucrative targets.
https://giveupgithub.org
#GiveUpGitHub#FreeSoftware#OpenSource