Noisytoot

@zzt @losttourist @MrBerard what part of systemd verifies secure boot? systemd-boot isn't really part of systemd other than being maintained by the same people in the same repo, it's just a confusingly named bootloader

@dee @strongsand hopefully when they run their own registry they can reduce the prices

@tk @ariadne if you can figure out a way to replace it with your own software, the smart TV crap is the interesting part!

@domi it's too blurry to tell, it could just be windows 10

@dee for some reason Bridgy Fed had never worked for me (the only posts bridged were boosts of bridged posts and my follow of the Bridgy Fed account was permanently stuck in a follow-requested-but-not-accepted state) but you reminded me of it and I just tried refollowing it and now it works!

@volpeon IRC please

@cwg1231 @alexia

The minio thing is shitty, but also not at all the same as what the OQL is suggesting. Also, the AGPL seems like it forbids selling license exceptions.

Correct. in order to sell exceptions you need to use a separate license for that. It’s kind-of like dual-licensing except instead of the alternative terms being available to anyone, they’re only available to those who buy them. The FSF wrote an article about this. I am using the terms “selling exceptions” and “selling an alternative license” interchangeably.

If you are the only copyright holder you can easily do that (no license can forbid the copyright from also releasing their code under another license), but if there are any other copyright holders then they must agree too, or you need some sort of CLA which gives the maintainer extra rights.

It’s exactly the same if you use the OQL instead of the AGPL. If you release your software under any license and accept contributions without some sort of copyright assignment or CLA (meaning you are not the sole copyright holder and have equal rights to the code as any other user), you cannot sell exceptions to that license.

That’s the relevance of the minio thing - I wasn’t saying it was similar to the OQL, I was saying that it’s a danger of using a CLA, which is necessary in order to sell license exceptions (whether to the OQL or the AGPL, or any other license) unless you are the only copyright holder. I’m not sure if there’s a way to mitigate this with a more restricted CLA.

The point isn’t scaring off companies, I want my software to be used, but only to better the world. The point is that under the current state of capitalism, incorporating OSS into your supply chain should require compensating developers commensurate to the responsibility you’re placing on them.

If I understand your point correctly, what you want is for companies that use your software to pay you. There are two ways to achieve this:
Explicitly forbid them from using your software (using the OQL), and sell an alternative license.Scare them off from using your software without explicitly forbidding them (using the AGPL), and sell an alternative license.
They both achieve the same goal (companies will pay you for the alternative license), but the latter does so without making your software non-free. Perhaps the OQL is more effective at getting companies to pay (I’m not sure by how much), because some companies are fine with the AGPL, but using the AGPL and selling exceptions is a business model that people have successfully used.

@cwg1231 @alexia Open source developers need to make a living under capitalism, but if they do so by writing proprietary software then they’re not open source developers because their software isn’t open source (ignoring the fact that they could be developing other open source software, but the point is that non-commercial licenses are neither free nor open source, which is in fact explicitly stated on the OQL’s website). I’m not missing the point, I’m suggesting AGPL as a compromise that doesn’t make the software non-free but still puts off companies enough that they might buy a license.

The Minio thing is referring to the fact that it was recently put into maintenance only mode in favour of a proprietary fork called “Minio AIStor”. Minio apparently had a requirement that contributions be licensed under Apache-2.0 to project maintainers only, which is essentially equivalent to a CLA (it gives unequal rights to project maintainers and allows them to make a proprietary fork, as they did). AGPL would’ve prevented this if it wasn’t for that.

Personally, I have no idea what I will do to make a living when I finish full-time education. I don’t want to write proprietary software. My plan is to get elected as a politician, introduce UBI (and generally attempt to improve society), then when I’m done resign and write free software. This does seem quite difficult and likely to fail though.

@cwg1231 @alexia I assume you're suggesting using OQL + selling exceptions to it to companies in order to earn money? Since just using OQL and not doing that isn't going to help to earn any money.

Many people use the AGPL and sell exceptions, it's not necessary to use a non-free license for this. I don't particularly like this practice and would avoid contributing to such software because it requires a CLA of some sort which gives the maintainer more rights over the code than anyone else, which are often abused to go completely proprietary (most recently: minio), but it's better than proprietary software.

@alexia @cwg1231 Because not everyone is going to ignore the law, but anyone who's already ignoring the law (by violating human rights) is probably fine with ignoring copyright law too.

The GPL is useful despite the existence of some companies (like Allwinner) that continue to violate it, and it being reviewed by a lawyer is important because an overly broad clause could make everyone accidentally violate the license (which would make the license meaningless and equivalent to all-rights-reserved).

I think the clause of the OQL prohibiting materially supporting violators of human rights could plausibly be interpreted as prohibiting anyone who pays taxes from using the software, and this makes using any OQL-licensed software risky since the copyright holder could arbitrarily decide to sue you/tell you to stop using the software for this.

Another thing you could to to scare off companies from using your software without actually making it non-free is to require some sort of manifesto (similar to the GPL's preamble, or the Invariant Sections in various GNU manuals) to be distributed verbatim along with your software. Make it something that no company would want to distribute.

@alexia @cwg1231 Please don’t use a proprietary software license. Entities that ignore human rights law are likely to also ignore copyright law, restrictions on use in copyright licenses simply should not exist (I think the FSF article explains this well), and if everyone puts different use restrictions we’re going to end up with thousands of slightly different possibly-incompatible licenses.

Also, that specific license doesn’t seem to have been reviewed by a lawyer. I noticed several problems (I am not a lawyer):
It appears be written in such a way that would prohibit even distributing the software on a physical medium (like a CD) for the cost of the physical medium.“No entity that commits such abuses or materially supports entities that do may use the Work for any reason.” seems overly broad and like it would prevent anyone who pays taxes (to a government which commits human rights abuses) from using the Work.
If you want to scare off companies, just use the AGPL. It’s a free software license and companies seem to be scared of it (Google doesn’t allow use of any AGPL software apparently)