Corporations and the AGPL

[anon6474366]

Am I not allowed to point of observations about your demeanour/writing style?

Not according to the community guidelines, no.

I’m merely observing what I and others who have liked my posts are interpreting your posts to be. Notice that you don’t have likes on your posts on this thread. This is why I’m encouraging introspection

No, you are posting comments that are (at best) derogatory about me and not adding to the conversation by criticizing the content my comments. You are still doing that here. I find it very tiresome and I think it’s pretty unreliable to take no ‘likes’ as an indication of dissensus or invalidate comments. SOme people just don’t have the time for this type of discussion but take it with them and leave no trace. I suggest you do not use likes as a measure of popularity or popularity as a measure of legitimacy but if you do, we are going to have a very hard time trying to work through this topic in a useful way. If you want to offer vague and ambiguous unsolicited, remote counselling advice to complete strangers on the internet I am sure you will get some takers, it’s a very popular thing to do and lots of people appreciate it but I tend to think it would be better for us both if you simply enaged with the substance of my comments, as per the community guidelines.

I think what you may be failing to grasp

Here you go again. This implies I have some form of cognitive impairment. You do that by MISQUOTING ME.

I said:

I expect communities like this one to at least understand that crucial difference

I did NOT say: “I expect more from this community.”

My comment was that I expect communities like this one to AT LEAST understand the difference between restricting a company and letting them decide if they want to participate or not. I said this because I suspect people here to be better than average educated and so I would not try to patronize them by suggesting that letting big companies decide if they want to use the AGPL is the same as havinga clause in the AGPL that literally restricts them. You understand that difference, and I think most people here would, so my comment is criticizing the comment creating an equivalence between the two.

when responding to an individual, it is actually quite insulting and condescending to the individual you’re responding to.

I’ll resist my impulse to explain how ironic what you say is here because you are likely to be intelligent enough to see it for yourself. I am asking you offer me the same courtesy.

Further, telling people to “be cool” at the end of every post isn’t actually helping with civil discussion.

I am not telling anyone to be cool. I said ‘let’s be cool’ which is ‘I’ll be cool if you are’.

Why do you feel the need to engage in discussion by preempting it with a statement suggesting others will not “be cool”?

Because people are prepared to contravene the community guidelines when engaging in this discussion. It’s an informal reminder that policing a person’s tone or making comments like you are doing here that implicate a person’s intentions, motivations or character are ‘not cool’ and yet people still feel inclined to comment in the way you are doing here. It’s not cool, in the sense that it breaks the community guidelines.

I would only speculate that you’ve had trouble with others in the past because of the way you’re engaging currently on this community.

Yes. Please do speculate. That’s fine. Just leave it to people you actually know because although speculation is fine posting that kind of speculation is against the guidelines too. More importantly, I think it is very creepy. You are taking far too much interest in me and not engaging with the material. I am not saying you are creepy, I don’t know you and have no interest in getting to know you of course but I am saying that personally I find the content of your posts creepy which is something I am fine about dealing with.

I didn’t read the rest of your comment because it was they are WAY too personal and have nothing to do with the conversation.

Regardless; to the issue at hand;

Phew! Finally… please repost what you have to say about the post and I will read it. I have not responded here because it’s been combined with too much judgement about me, which is all against the community guidelines so I will flag it.

If you would like to engage with the content of this conversation then please repost your remarks and to be sure I read it all please leave any subjecive speculations about me out of it.

TVM

[chris (Chris Croome)]

I’d rather not have to spend time moderating threads on this site.

@anon6474366 you were asked a week ago to post a link to your license, is this something you are prepared to do?

[amcewen (Adrian McEwen)]

I license my work under a variety of licences depending on circumstance, and have of late been tending more towards AGPL. Mostly because it, AIUI, closes a loophole with the GPL in how big tech could take from the commons without contributing back.

I have also been collecting links to other, more restrictive, licences but I haven’t used any of them yet. Sometimes because they don’t apply to my circumstances, sometimes because I’m not a lawyer and don’t know if they’d stand up to any scrutiny… However, I’d be interested to hear of more to add to the list and/or if anyone decides to use any of them.

[BillySmith]

It might be worth talking with Andrew Katz.

He’s always happy to give legal advice to anyone operating in the FLOSS sector.

[liam (Liam MacLeod)]

… … So, to post or not to post, an actual answer would be awesome

[SolarDesalination]

@anon6474366

Until then I think posting a link to the licensing regime I like would be a bit like designing a web interface before we learned how to code?

It might depend on the individual. Some, like me, see a product/service/thing and immediately assess the structural-functional use of it, which leads to discussion around its purpose and efficacy. Others require collaborative consensus building, everyone is different.

@anon6474366

I would rather stick to the argument, which is whether (A)GPL-like/copyleft licenses ARE pro-business or anti-capitalist. If we can reach a consensus on that substantive point then it may well be worth everyone’s time getting together to work out next steps.

They’re both or neither. AGPL/CopyLeft attempts to put/make software (and improvements on that software) a common public good. Permissive licenses, in my opinion, are naive attempts to create a public good that leads to exploitation. Permissively licensed software projects are like non-profits, most start and fail based on their founders or passionate people working on them, they’re also prone to exploitation by big donors. GPL otoh is like a co-operative, it restricts the ability for external control and exploitation because everyone who uses the license has to donate back to the code (much like how a co-operative cannot sell shares externally.) That analogy needs to be fleshed out more but I hope people get the gist. Regardless, both can be used in a capitalist or anti-capitalist environment.
I would argue that public/common goods are essentially aligned with the idea of socialism, in that everyone has equal access to the good and is not required to pay for it to access it. GPL in my opinion, tries to ensure this is embedded legally in the license. MIT/BSD/Apache OTOH, rely on good will (or in the case of some BSD licenses, reputational/social power.) But capitalism has use for public/common goods as well, which is (one of many) reasons that corporations donate to charity, etc. I’m a bit of a cynic and see GPL as more effective in building the free software movement for the same reason that for-profit capitalist enterprises see it as dangerous because of it’s overt attempt at creating that free software improvement requirement.

[SolarDesalination]

Let me try something here with your quote. I’ve bolded my changes.

@anon6474366

Open Source licenses promise unrestricted access to the goods scientists, artists, engineers and other freelancer’s produce. It sounds too good to be true because all the labour given freely is also available to Big Tech, (ironically, as a matter of principle!). It is no coincidence that Big Tech is relying on these communities to penetrate even further into health, media, government administrations, education and environmental sectors at a time when serious consideration is needed about how to stop them from interfering. No matter which side you are cheering on, the copyright owners or the Open Source crowd, Big Tech is pulling all the strings behind the scenes in this pantomime.

Further, to your missive beyond that; it’s to be candid, insulting to this community. You’ve repeatedly stated “this community isn’t ready”. As some sort of goading comment to inspire reaction. Certainly I could report that comment for being against community guidelines.

Regardless; you’re correct. This community is not “ready” to hear your arguments because having read that post I realize now that your argument is flawed. Essentially your first statement; that structural-functionalist use is contextual contradicts with your third statement; that there is no point in introducing a licensing regime to this group because it doesn’t agree with the same principles as you. Will you only share the license with us if we believe the exact same thing as you? It’s illogical to require someone to have the same beliefs as someone else before they can share a public commons good. That would be totalitarianism I suppose (though even then I don’t think Totalitarians would require complete subjugation.)

I would imagine many on this forum believe that co-operatives are a way to stop large scale worker exploitation if this business/employment model is more commonly adopted. I would also speculate that most agree that copyleft is agnostic to whether that occurs or not. So I really don’t think anyone agrees with the principle you’re suggesting. I find your arguments to be a bit muddled and with a lot of goal-post moving, so I think this might be why you’re seeing the previous comments differently than the rest of us. (I’m sorry you can’t comprehend my analogies.) What I disagree with, is that because copyleft is agnostic it means it’s not a useful tool for co-operatives. GPL creates a common good, and therefore can be used by other co-operatives. Your arguments approach is militant and adversarial, it is actively against big tech by being exclusionary rather than passive to its existence.

Anyways, you’re correct, there is no need to have your further engagement from my perspective because I already understand your hypothesis and it’s unrealistic with regards to the reality of today. ie. it doesn’t really make sense (maybe in some sort of static world where technology and economies don’t advance).

Personally I think using GPL to create a public good that is self-reinforcing through required contributions back is great. It doesn’t matter to me which entity uses it because it’s a public good. Governments are starting to use GPL, partly due to the good work of the Public Money, Public Code initiative. If a big tech corporation refuses to use it because it creates a requirement to contribute back to the public (and potentially their competitors), then that’s their loss. If a co-operative creates a GPL software, and then a government invests in it’s growth/progress, that not only benefits the co-operative but also the general public. We should be pushing that, as opposed to trying to make something co-operative only to spite big-tech. This would also make it unusable for governments - which, aside from corporate regulatory-capture, usually serve the interests of the people (assuming they have a noble constitution.)

I’m glad you have said it’s not constructive for you to engage further. I hope you’re able to find peace with your position - you certainly haven’t convinced me with your tactic of “your not ready”. And I can only assume you’re shy about your vaporware license. I wish you good health. Let’s be cool.

[chris (Chris Croome)]

@SolarDesalination

I’ve thought about the intersection of open source software and co-operatives and capitalism myself many times

Same here, I’ve just re-read a couple of articles from almost 20 years ago, Raoul Victor’s Free Software and Market Relations and Stefan Merten and Stefan Meretz’s Germ form theory: Peer production in a historical perspective and I think it could be argued that within the sphere of software, at least, we are now in, or on the cusp of entering, stage 4:

At this point of development, the former subsidiary germ form becomes the dominant form of development. The new principles prevail because they are an improvement in respect to the important dimensions of the entire development process. At this stage the typical novel character of the germ form comes to an end. Now, it is its principles that determine further development. These new principles replace the obsolete and no longer functional principles of the old form, either step by step or abruptly. Now the new form becomes self-evident and ubiquitous.

As Raoul observed:

It took centuries for the germs of capitalist relations, in the 11th and 12th centuries, to become the socially dominant mode of production. Barring the self-destruction of humanity (unfortunately, possible) by some sort of skidding out of control of capitalist barbarity, the generalization of the principles of free software to the whole of productive social processes (elimination of market exchange, production as a function of the good of the community, cooperation, and sharing) could take much less time. That depends on the speed and the intensity of an objective material historical process, but also on the consciousness that people have of the existent conflict and the necessity of “fighting it out.”

[SolarDesalination]

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of David North’s New Institutional Economics theory of technological change that states that there is institutional resistance to an idea until technological disruption slowly eats away at that resistance and leads to a rapid acceleration of adoption. (I['m not doing it justice in a sentence).

It could be that those quotes, applied to the concept of open-source software, means we’re still at the early stages of its ubiquity as the norm in doing business. How cool would it be if open source got rid of intellectual property rights like Cory Doctorow espouses.

[mjray]

@chris

I can’t speak for @nick or @mjray (although I don’t think they have been “hoodwinked” either), but I don’t believe that I was convinced by the re-branding of Free Software as Open Source at the time, but we are talking above events of 20 years ago!

I think I was, completely, but it was a very very long time ago and my memory of that time is patchy for various reasons.

I am deeply suspicious of the AGPL and think it needs two extra permissions to be granted to be free and co-op:

• Developers need publish their modifications only (not the whole application source code with all unusual libraries) as long as the app links back to our source code repository.
• The running application need not check if the source code is currently on-line (so long as it is usually and can be requested).