11.29.20
Free Software Under Tyranny of Codes of Conduct as the Western Equivalent of Blasphemy Law (Corporations as the New Religion/Sponsors as Deities)
“What really worries me is that the courts might choose a muddled half-measure—by approving an interpretation of “indecent” that permits the doctor program or a statement of the decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that any child can browse through in the public library. Over the years, as the Internet replaces the public library, some of our freedom of speech will be lost.”
What if we let the intolerant determine what is and isn’t tolerant, then govern everybody’s speech? Reference: Code of conduct as per Wikipedia.
Summary: The free speech crisis in Free software communities has enabled expulsion of opinionated people whose opinions truly matter; in their place we now have companies that bomb people, sometimes even kidnapping children and sterilising women because nothing says “Ethics” like naked fascism and corporate domination everywhere
ALMOST everybody knows that earlier this year the OSI banned its co-founder only weeks after its other co-founder had resigned in protest. Nowadays the OSI is run by proprietary folks and most of its budget feeds proprietary GitHub (Microsoft monopoly). OSI is a disgrace and its uses speech policing as a pretext for ousting people who stand in this agenda’s way. Not entirely surprising or unprecedented. People who routinely break the law and work closely with ICE (kidnapping children and sterilising women) claim to be ‘protecting’ us from immoral voices. Yeah, right…
“Even RMS (when I last spoke to him about it) generally agreed, he just wanted a comprehensive resource explaining what had happened to OSI.”Many out there will agree that the OSI in 2020 is defunct. Even RMS (when I last spoke to him about it) generally agreed, he just wanted a comprehensive resource explaining what had happened to OSI.
“I started evaluating licenses,” one reader told us this weekend, “when I was curious what had happened around the time Perens left. More after Fair license info.”
She decided to start by asking around about the “Fair License”, having remembered it as a weird one (and still getting approved by OSI). She has been involved in Free software since the days I was just a pupil in school. “First,” she said, “I contacted James William Pye, the author of the Fair License.”
The findings were somewhat revealing. “Both links on the OSI site to the license itself were broken.”
From the page:
<Copyright Information>
Usage of the works is permitted provided that this instrument is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the works is notified of this instrument.
DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.
Versions
2015, Fair License: http://fairlicense.org/ [dodgy Web site, definitely not what's intended to be there]
2004, Fair License: http://rhid.com/fair (this URL no longer works)
“License was approved around 2004,” she recalled, sharing the following E-mail response from James William Pye:
Do you know of any projects currently using the license?
I don’t think there are, and it probably shouldn’t be used unmodified. It should likely provide an explicit list of permissions to enhance clarity.
Did you have many projects in the past using the license?
No.
The website link does not seem to associate with the license (lots of domino images). Is the license hosted anywhere?
I thought someone took stewardship of it a number of years ago, but I don’t know what happened to it.
Any assistance is greatly appreciated. If you have time to discuss more, I am interested in anything more you may want to share.
No problem.
“This thread is only the first I opened,” she continued. “Very interesting!”
From her notes:
# License – [License-review] For approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 4)
## information
- review list
- authors: bruce perens, josh simmons, bradley kuhn
- date: jan 2 2020## Noteworthy:
### 1. Perens states
“Well, it seems to me that the organization is rather enthusiastically
headed toward accepting a license that isn’t freedom respecting. Fine, do
it without me, please.”### 2. Perens states
>> Don’t waste your time, Bradley. They were told not to listen to you,
>> either.
>>### 3. Kuhn makes a shameless plug for SFC (the MS backed/sponsor for SFC Copyleft conf)
>>> Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
>>> https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
Here’s the main E-mail of interest:
Josh,
Well, it seems to me that the organization is rather enthusiastically
headed toward accepting a license that isn’t freedom respecting. Fine, do
it without me, please. I asked Patrick to cancel my membership, and I would
have unsubscribed from OSI lists, including this one, if your server was
working. I own an interest in 10 Open Source companies and manage a 50
Million dollar portfolio investing in them. That will keep me involved
enough.Thanks
Bruce
On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 9:18 PM Joshua R. Simmons <
josh.simmons at opensource.org> wrote:> That’s out of line, Bruce. I’m not sure where this FUD is coming from, but
> it’s inappropriate.
>
> Regardless of my own views, I quite value Bradley’s contribution, as well
> as Van’s engaging the process and responding to criticism in good faith.
>
> I’ve been following the discussions closely and, frankly, it seems a
> decent model of critical civil discourse. Let’s keep it that way.
>
> (Apologies for the re-send, had to square away some issues with my mailing
> list membership.)
>
> Josh Simmons, VP at Open Source Initiative (Tax ID 91-2037395)
> @joshsimmons <http://twitter.com/joshsimmons> | josh at opensource.org | 1-707-600-6098
> | bluesomewhere on Freenode
> ad astra per aspera
>
> On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 8:53 PM Bruce Perens via License-review <
> license-review at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>
>> Don’t waste your time, Bradley. They were told not to listen to you,
>> either.
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 6:29 PM Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I can’t find an example when OSI approved a novel copyleft license that
>>> hadn’t yet been used in practice and therefore had no track record of use
>>> for any FOSS project. It was once somewhat common for OSI to approve
>>> licenses that were used by only one entity, and most of those licenses
>>> were
>>> never used beyond the one project, and even most of those entities have
>>> deprecated those by now. (OSI also made a decision to cease considering
>>> such single-use licenses.) Rapid acceptance of a novel licenses, so far
>>> unused in practice, causes confusion in the FOSS community.
>>>
>>> Folks have shouted down Bruce as he wonders how Van’s license will be
>>> used
>>> in practice. I think Bruce has made a useful point on this thread: as a
>>> general matter, it’s relevant that we consider how the license impacts
>>> users’ *and* software publishers’ software freedoms in *practice*, not
>>> merely *in theory*.
>>>
>>> In that regard, I’d like to know if the project that plans to use this
>>> license will be inbound=outbound (i.e., is the entity that’s promulgating
>>> this new license willing to bound themselves by the license terms)? Van,
>>> could you tell us, on behalf of your client (who appears to be the only
>>> potential licensor interested in this license), what their contribution
>>> plans are regarding this license? Are they planning to accept
>>> contributions
>>> under this license, and thus be bound by it for their FOSS projects?
>>> If not, why not?
>>> –
>>>
>>> Bradley M. Kuhn – he/him
>>>
>>> Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
>>> https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
Asked whether we could share her findings, “Definitely!” was the reply. As we’ll show in our next post, there’s a more extensive gameplay here (as the saying goes, “follow the money”) and money flows in a number of interesting directions. Consider who’s heading the OSI right now (there’s also a leadership vacuum, so a top-level OSI position was advertised earlier this month).
These people don’t care about Free software and they don’t care about free speech, either. They equate speech they dislike with all sorts of horrible things which merit expulsion. They are, by their own definition, “ethical”; thus, anyone who does not agree with them is “unethical”… █
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