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[Video] Facebook Against Free Software Rules

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 03, 2023

Video download link | md5sum 5d633f2af73e50caefaa43f0e88c2d8f
OSI and Openwashing Double Standards
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Preview for OSI and Openwashing Double Standards

TODAY'S VIDEO focuses mostly on the OSI and what the "Open Source" label has truly come to mean. This relates to the latest openwashing endeavours by Meta/Facebook (see latest Daily Links).

"Meta’s AI Research Head Wants Open Source Licensing to Change," as this summary puts it. Or as a reader explains it, "Meta" aka Facebook is casting aspersions against Free and Open Source Software licensing and trying to get the OSI to knuckle under and call proprietary as open.

Facebook has actually been doing it for a while and the OSI repeatedly pushed back because, unlike Microsoft, Facebook bribery/ies must increase. The OSI is happy to promote proprietary junk like GitHub as long as Microsoft bribes the OSI and buys its staff (under the guise of "ClearlyDefined").

Beware some Facebook-leaning spin like

"Open Source Definition for AI Models Need a Change" by "SOURAV RUDRA" (Microsoft and proprietary software apologist in a site called "It's FOSS"). The headline is misleading. The body is a bunch buzzwords-filled nonsense and old canards by openwashing firms are parroted: "Regardless of what happens, it is clear that open-source standards will have to evolve to accommodate new and emerging tech, while not being just limited to AI."

This is pure nonsense.

As one person put it in a comment: "It's almost as if the main goal of half these licenses is to force proprietary vendors to contribute to the commons instead of just extracting value from it! What a crazy concept!"

Microsoft has been doing this for over 15 years and what happened there at the OSI (approval of Microsoft licences and Mac Asay inviting Microsoft over after he had gone for a job interview at Microsoft) was documented here at the time.

The OSI is hopeless; but the problem goes well beyond and predates Facebook.

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