Notices by Jens Finkhäuser (jens@social.finkhaeuser.de)

@skinnylatte warm tea.

@mwl Not a troll question: what IS the point or purpose of MIT/BSD licenses?

I ask because as @lproven wrote, it seems like frustratingly offensive language aside, the point about copyleft is, well, why copyleft exists.

@mwl @lproven Ok.

So I'm really not trying to start an argument. But consider that in the sense of "a system is what a system does", the author seems to understand MIT/BSD licenses quite well.

Which is to say, it's perhaps less of a question of understanding, and more of a question of which effect carries more value (good or bad) for you.

@mwl @lproven No, the difference being whether widespread high quality software is more important to you, or guarantees (to the degree possible) that free access to software related human knowledge is preserved.

@conservancy nope. Fail.

The aim of gen AI is to move the means of production from devs to model owners. This undermines FOSS more thoroughly than any Embrace Extend Extinguish attempt to date.

@bkuhn Stalemate?

It's an arms race, and one side has the funding for it. Hint: it's not us.

So forgive me if I judge success differently. Much of what I see are compromises that set up the next battle in a weaker position.

I understand that back in the day when free software and open source started, the libertarian positions it holds were adopted.

We had privileged white boys complaining about having their privilege reduced. Yes, with enough vision to see liberation for everyone on the...

@bkuhn ... horizon. But not enough self-awareness to factor privilege into things.

Which is why the freedoms value individual choices much more highly than the common good. The logic is, quite literally, "I need liberties so I can help others", not "the rights of the unprivileged need to be strengthened".

It's missing the equivalent zero'th law of robotics. And fuck, it shows.

@bkuhn This isn't capitalism's fault. There is a lot of fault in capitalism, sure.

But this is the FLOSS movement's own failure. It's my failure as well. I used to believe that shit. Feels good to picture oneself as a Robin Hood character.

So quelle surprise, but there are libertarians out there who do not value the commons, and we've let them dominate the conversation. Thinking they were some of us. But they're robber barons, arguing for their liberties in order to rob.

So any position...

@bkuhn ... in 2026 that says, essentially, "we should let the robber barons retain their rights" has missed the train leaving the station.

Oh, thanks for also allowing in the recommendations that we can show them the door, so long as we don't hurt their feelings.

Well, I don't think that permission is required. Thank Cthulhu for that.

@bkuhn I swear, every time I see another old guard FOSS person take that position is another nail in the movement's coffin.

I'm already more than ready for the next thing. But it'd hurt some libertarians' feelings.

@smallcircles Well, that's a difficult one.

I have some aims and thoughts, but no clear path yet. And I think that's actually good, because if there's anyone here that points in one direction and everybody else follows, we're failing from the start.

It's funny how these topics come up.once in a while, and then they bundle up weirdly.

So for one thing, a few days ago we stumbled upon new terminology, which I kind of like. From coding guidelines to mystics around the world, we get...

@bkuhn

@smallcircles... told that names have power. I think it's because names are essentially pointers at arbitrarily complex mental models, and the power comes from succinctly transporting a complex idea.

So we, that is @onepict and @abucci and myself, were sort of half shitposting about FOSS and/or FLOSS. Anthony brought up LOSS as "Libertarian Open Source Software" as a much better name for showing the particular failure mode of the movement, which starts from individual liberties...

@bkuhn

@smallcircles... and essentially hopes for the best in how that might translate into wider society. Not individuals - I agree that they often try very hard. But core tenets along which to orient oneself.

LOSS perfectly references the parts that work, but also clearly states that an important part is lost along the way.

So we were spitballing about what to call the other thing, the thing that we should have. I suggested MOSS, which is an awkward acronym for...

@onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles... "Mutual(ly supportive) Open Source Software". Mostly it's because I wanted something green, soft, small, yet beautiful and full of life. The meaning.is.shoehorned into the word.

But it's pretty much what I want, too. I want to grow stuff, in its own time. I don't want to emulate startups based on extraction from the commons. I want people to feel good about it. I want to feel good about making it.

So it kinda caught on, for me at least, for a bit.

@onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles I want to focus on MOSS gardening.

I think this is also something where we've sort of lost our way. "We" definitely includes myself, and looking at various others out there, I'm not alone. I look at "small tech" folk, indie game.devs, etc. We want the joy of creation just as much as we want other folks to have joy. Happy little b+-trees, under skies dotted by fluffy home clouds.

Bob Ross channeling aside...

Another thread by @bagder was about what...

@onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles... to tell folk with some political authority about sustainability, and I felt obliged to point out that we have two faces to the problem "coin":

1. Maintainers require that "no warranty of any kind" is required, because - and here I cross streams - MOSS gardening is incompatible with pressure to do things in a certain way.
2. Projects which build on the commons need supply chain safety in the same way they'd get from commercial offerings.

@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles The two are incompatible, until you have mechanisms in place by which the activities that users demand of suppliers are sustainably funded.

But those activities don't have to all be performed by a project maintainer. Some, like support, can be done elsewhere.

They key issues here revolve around how easy or hard it is to pick and choose between activities and rewards. As a MOSS gardener, I want to pick up issues when I can, and a coffee in...

@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles recompense is fine. If I'm supposed to review an onslaught of dodgy LLM "security issues", it's a full time job, and not what I signed up for.

Politics is great at creating regulatory frameworks that favour the stronger lobby. Here we have industry on the consumer side, and individuals on the supply side. It's pretty clear that regulatory efforts focus on "how can industry get what they need?"

So, putting a realistic cost to that is one of the...
@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles... more effective arguments.

Meanwhile, if this means I cannot grow my MOSS garden any longer, well, we're all going to run out of commons pretty soon. So the flip side to this is to give gardeners all the incentives to turn their hobby into a job, with none of the downsides - until they decide they can take on some additional responsibility for additional incentive.

That is hard, because it requires trusting the gardeners instead of forcing...

@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn

@smallcircles... them.

So next there's the question of LLMs. I can tell you right now that if you bring your tractor to my backyard MOSS garden, I will tell you to fuck off.

Lastly, elephant in the room, is the wider human rights angle. Allowing commons gardeners to grow their MOSS is, after all, them taking advantage of some combination of their human rights.

But our libertarian LOSS philosophy also includes "for any use" clauses, and "any use" also...
@bagder @onepict @abucci @bkuhn