#Copyleft.Oh, @Suiseiseki, *of course* we should insist on #copyleft licenses like #AGPLv3 & copyedt-@next!
Problem I discovered years ago — to which I have dedicated the part of my work that isn't #FOSS fiscal sponsorship — is enforcement of & widespread lack of compliance with #copyleft licenses.
Big Tech just ignores the terms & gets away with ignoring users' & consumers' right to repair their software.
We *are* working hard on this problem: See #Vizio: https://sfc.ngo/vizio
Cc: @eruwero
Suggesting, as you did, that Big Tech is an ally in “right to repair” is classic cooption — same kind of cooption that led to Big Tech exploiting #FOSS,not complying with #copyleft & #GPL …even while spokespeople & lawyers for Big Tech lament that FOSS “isn't sustainable”.
r0ml once put it well as “free as in market, not free as in ride”. Problem is:Big Tech doesn't want a free & fair market for FOSS,so there is no way they want that for right to repair either.
Cc: @wwahammy @josh
#FOSSY25 licensing panel: I ask:“Why are your corporate clients refusing to give complete, corresponding source&just lie re:‘how hard it is to give us complete,corresponding source’? Budgets are moral documents & no CCS is merely a decision to defund #copyleft compliance?”
Kate Downing's disingenuous answer: compliance is too hard & only reason for noncompliance is confusion. Kate's good at capitalist rhetoric,but that's all it is. #Vizio alone to proves her wrong. https://sfc.ngo/vizio
#FOSSY
From: blenderdumbass . org
A large majority of people confuse privacy with data protection. And lately I'm noticing an uproar of ideologies that claim to be pro-freedom in one way or another, but which threaten freedom as a whole. I think there is a certain copyright mentality to them. Certain misunderstanding of ownership which makes fighting for freed...
Read or listen: https://blenderdumbass.org/articles/the_copyright_mentality
An employee of Cook/Jobs, @jensimmons, asks on a copylefted platform what she can do improve to #WebKit.
The answer is simple: Comply with the LGPLv2.1 —as your track record on that is abysmally poor. Participate with upstream projects rather than manipulating them so you can control them.
Employees of your company used to be forbidden from talking to FOSS communities. You've spent decades working against #copyleft. But you now follow Microsoft's plan to “embrace, extend, & extinguish” #FOSS.
Under v3, it's surely a violation,
@cwebber.
GPLv3 group is unique among #copyleft licenses in that “modify” is defined:
> ”To ‘modify’ a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission”
If you need copyright permission to add the REST API calls (which of course you do), then GPLv3§12 kicks in immediately if Chatgpt's license or ToS or TaC in *any* way contradict GPLv3's terms.
Bob's your uncle & you violate copyleft.
Cc: @suetanvil @jmax
The beauty of #libre licensing, specifically the #Copyleft subset, is that the world doesn't have to depend on the behaviour of one company - others can fork the code. Examples of that happening abound. Not so with proprietary. I'm also not a fan of 'weak' #libre licenses, e.g. BSD & MIT, etc. And I revile software patents (see https://softwarepatents.org.nz)
@screwlisp I'm familiar with neither anggtwu.net/#eev nor @eduardoochs I"m afraid.
@kentpitman
For what it's worth, I've made a career out of producing nothing but #libre (#Copyleft) software & providing related services... 31 years now. I'm against proprietary on principle: https://davelane.nz/proprietary
About #GPL .
If I buy a second-hand device with #Linux on it, who's responsible for giving me the sources?
It seems logical to me that the person I bought it from. But good luck getting sources from a private rando ( #sustainability #reuse ).
On the other hand, my #ISP sells me, say a #Huawei device. Is the ISP obliged to give me sources or can they say "it's not our problem" and send me to the manufacturer?
Do you know any #arabic , #spanish or #mandarin #translator who might be interested in translating https://storyseedlibrary.org/ , a #solarpunk #art and #writing site with lots of #Copyleft materials?
Sadly, there's no funding for the project, only bringing more human-made, intentional, optimistic #climate #futurism materials to new audiences!
#followfriday #followfridays
IMO these should ALWAYS be included and followed:
@FediTips
@FediFollows
Physical creations:
@operationpuppet - #puppet #creator, #owncaster , #peertuber
@potterybyosa - #beautiful #pottery
Digital creations:
@operationpuppet - #developer, #artist, #copyLEFT #advocate
@_elena - #filmmaker, #blogger, #selfhoster
@monospace - #Owncaster, #DevOps #trainer
The Case for Contextual Copyleft: Licensing Open Source Training Data and Generative AI
" The paper concludes that when implemented within a robust regulatory environment focused on responsible AI usage, the CCAI license provides a viable mechanism for preserving and adapting core FOSS principles to the evolving landscape of generative AI development."
It's not bitterness on your part,, @liw — it's having political memory.
Politicians (regular ones or unelected tech industry ones) *rely* on folks not seeing the long game that's afoot.
#Microsoft still has same goals re: #FOSS: end #copyleft in favor of exploitable non-copyleft — old-school embrace, extend, extinguish.
& now fanboys help them!: https://github.com/sirredbeard/microsoft-opensource … timeline starts in 2004 — ignoring early moves making seem like Microsoft just ignored FOSS until 2004.
Cc: @carnage4life
@carnage4life Good point & 
re: Brad Smith. His name is in the top five reasons why I stopped accepting "Brad" as my name circa 2001…I did not wanna share a name with the (then) General Counsel of $MSFT.
I think many don't realize that there is a *lawyer* (not a technologist) who has been President of Microsoft for years.
Brad Smith is also believed to be (we can't prove it — Microsoft state secrets) the mastermind behind the anti-#copyleft / anti-#GPL campaign of the early 2000s.
Cc: @liw
@phloggen suggested:
> Founding documents should automatically expire when there is no longer a ⅔ majority of…affected population who…voted to affirm it.
A fascinating suggestion. Now I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to apply this idea to #copyleft licenses like #GPL &/or copyleft-@next.
One difficulty in #FOSS governance accomplished through licensing is: many don't know they're governed by them &/or they benefit indirectly & silently from the rights therein.
Cc: @richardfontana
L'éditorial de linuxmao.org du mois de juillet 2025 est en ligne :
https://linuxmao.org/article471
#linuxmao #linuxaudio #mao #musiquelibre #art #artlibre #cc-by-sa #chanson #copyleft #creative-commons #culture-libre #gnu-linux #informatiquemusicale #logiciel libre #productionmusicale
An interesting thread from #copyleft-next mailing list this week:
A thread about improving readability of defined terms…
https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2025q3/000027.html
… has inspired some discussion about broader strategic approach to drafting a #copyleft license in 2025…
https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2025q3/000032.html
https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2025q3/000033.html
@bkuhn has coined the term “specious argument vector” … but who knows if it'll catch on?
Libre est Queer
Par Khrys @Khrys
Une autre lecture plaisante et rafraîchissante en ces temps de dérèglement climatique et de canicule semiocapitaliste
Pour moi, promouvoir les licences libres est une attitude queer. On ne rejette pas le système, on cherche à le hacker, le subvertir, l’adapter à nos besoins. C’est une stratégie de l’ici et maintenant, une lutte de l'intérieur du système. Car c’est tout de même assez tordu (queer) de résister aux licences capitalistes en inventant de nouvelles licences capitalistes, tout particulièrement celles qui sont contaminantes !
(*) in the late 1990s, I saw Henry Rollins do a spoken word live show at some dive venue in CIncinnati when I was in graduate school.
He opened the show by stating:
> “Hi, everyone. So, I want to let you know that my profession is now ’aging punk icon‘.”
I wonder if I should start opening my conference talks with
> Welcome. If this talk seems out of touch, you should know my profession is aging software freedom activist obsessed with #copyleft.
