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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 19:43:36 JST Aral Balkan

   If the see the AGPL licenses on my free and open source work and you think “damn you, I can’t use this to enrich myself or my corporation without sharing back what I’ve built on top of what you’ve freely shared and thus contribute to cultivating a healthy commons where others might enjoy the same benefits from my work that I want to obtain from yours” (a) you really have long-winded thoughts and (b) well, you’d already see the flaw in your reasoning.

   #foss #licenses #freedom #copyleft #gpl

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 19:46:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     (Remember this whenever anyone complains about ‘the viral nature of GPL’ or sings praises for (neo)’liberal’ licenses like MIT and BSD that enable corporations to partake of the free labour of others and enclose the commons.)

     #foss #licenses #licensing #freedom #copyleft #agpl #gpl #mit #bsd #neoliberalLicenses #liberalLicenses

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:08:45 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • datarama

     @datarama Might does not make right.

   • Embed this notice
     datarama (datarama@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:08:46 JST datarama

     in reply to

     @aral This is 2024 - they're thinking "I'll just put it in the training set for my ML system, and then the license goes away".

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:53:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Haijo7

     @Haijo7 If you’re the only author of your game engine or if you can get releases from all authors, you can still license it to a platform while also releasing it under A/GPL since you own the copyright.

   • Embed this notice
     Haijo7 (haijo7@snac.haijo.eu)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:53:06 JST Haijo7

     in reply to
     I'm procrastinating on a video game engine. Some time ago I realized that what many game console manufacturers do is incredibly stupid.
     I want to be able to create a game and release the code under a GPL license, but the development kits for many game consoles are proprietary and require developers to sign a non disclosure agreement before they can use it.
     If I accept people's contributions I can only add these to releases on open platforms.
     Or I'd need to find some kind of workaround, like putting any code that interfaces with any game console API in a separate binary or library. It's easier just not to release a game on consoles at this point.
     
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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:57:19 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • trechnex

     @trechnex I’m not sure the community necessarily let corporations in. As per usual, they just let themselves in.

   • Embed this notice
     trechnex (trechnex@social.trechnex.com)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:57:34 JST trechnex

     in reply to

     @aral the community originally let corporations in because we all wanted full-time salaries. It worked! 🤷🏻♂️

     The faustian bargain we made though has come home to roost. Corporations exploit unpaid chumps who are asked to produce "portfolio side-projects" to "demonstrate passion" before they interview. Their work is so devalued that Microsoft is using it to train an algorithm that doesn't credit them at all. 🤦🏻♂️

     Perhaps a more equitable commons looks more like ethical source? https://ethicalsource.dev/what-we-believe/

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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 20:58:09 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • Haijo7
     @Haijo7 >but the development kits for many game consoles are proprietary and require developers to sign a non disclosure agreement before they can use it.
     That's a shame, but I believe another problem even for game consoles where there is no NDA required, the manufacturer will refuse to allow games to be distributed unless they're under a proprietary license and/or have DRM.
     
     >I'd need to find some kind of workaround, like putting any code that interfaces with any game console API in a separate binary or library.
     Trying to make a "GPL shim" almost always just ends in a chain of derivative works that all must be freedom respecting (the intention of the GPL family) and it doesn't make sense making it more complicated to use a GPL'd library by using something other than its standard interlace.
     
     A potential workaround is to add an exception to say the GPLv3-or-later allowing the proprietary system libraries to ruin things (while also letting the game be published), while also releasing the source code itself as GPLv3+, allowing people to compile the software themselves freely (i.e. on GNU/Linux or against homebrew libraries on a console).
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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:01:33 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     • Haijo7
     @Haijo7 I forgot to mention that you can't except other people's copyrights, so the same exception needs to be approved by each external copyright holder.
     
     This probably isn't a problem for a game up to a certain size which doesn't really need many, if any external libraries, but this is a problem for other kinds of software - although this problem only exists because of proprietary software.
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     Helio Loureiro 🇧🇷 (helioloureirobr@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Mar-2024 18:43:37 JST Helio Loureiro 🇧🇷

     in reply to

     @aral so GPL isn't neoliberal license? So Microsoft isn't using it, right? Neither IBM? And no company is make money from GPL, right? Like Amazon, right?

     When someone comes to you with non-sense about licenses and liberalism, just remind them about reality.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 11-Mar-2024 18:43:37 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Helio Loureiro 🇧🇷

     @helioloureiroBR Yes, corporations do abuse the GPL with the network loophole. That’s why the AGPL was created. And no, so those same corporations wouldn’t touch AGPL with a five foot pole. See https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl-policy/

     And yes, there is a world of difference between the neoliberal approach and the approach of the free software movement. And it only benefits corporate interests to deny it.

     I’ll leave you now so you can enjoy your reality.

   • Embed this notice
     Urzl (gooba42@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 18-Mar-2024 05:47:06 JST Urzl

     in reply to

     @aral Legal at work only just seems to have noticed that we're not allowed to steal OSS and so they're on a mission to purge all references to AGPL libraries.

     I'm in a team where we've never been much for outside libraries but have also never had active intrusion by way of security scans and Git repo monitoring. It's turning into a huge pain in the ass to prove we're essentially compliant by default.

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Mar-2024 17:10:57 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Frost, Wolffucker 🐺:therian:

     @IceWolf 👋🤓

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     Frost, Wolffucker 🐺:therian: (icewolf@masto.brightfur.net)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Mar-2024 17:10:58 JST Frost, Wolffucker 🐺:therian:

     in reply to

     @aral Uh, it's not just corporations. I don't like GPL because it means we can't use other people's code /in our open source stuff./

     Corporations ARE NOT the only reason to like permissive licenses.

     So yeah, no, I'm absolutely going to say "fuck the viral nature of GPL" just to spite you now.