A really good discussion from the outgoing FSF director:
https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2021/spring/thinking-clearly-about-corporations
For software to be considered free, its license must allow for
commercial use and redistribution. Yet, free software as a social
movement is to a large extent a struggle against for-profit corporate
control of our lives.
Instead of telling companies they are not welcome in free software, we
say they are welcome if they follow the ethical principles -- the Four
Freedoms. In our engagement with them, we see both positive and negative
impacts. We also see some parts of the community being overly solicitous
of corporate support, and other parts describing even seemingly positive
actions as necessarily part of a long con to eventually extinguish free
software.
We need to think clearly -- somewhere between these extremes -- about
corporate involvement, neither falling over ourselves to invite it, nor
being so endlessly suspicious that we miss out on valuable contributions
and ultimately fail to change the practices of a significant sector of
global society.
Clear thinking begins with seeing for-profit corporations for what they
are: for-profit organizations. They are not individuals. A company's
behaviors can change dramatically, not just from change in the
individuals they employ, but also from changes in leadership, ownership,
or business circumstances.
These are not hypothetical concerns. In free software, many eyes are now
on Red Hat, to see if its behavior toward free software will change as a
result of being bought by IBM. We saw Redis Labs switch some of its
software from a free license to a nonfree one which ironically prohibits
commercial re-use. We've seen Google in the past decide to withhold the
source code for Android. We've seen Microsoft switch from publicly
calling free software a cancer to saying "We are all in on open source."
Companies can commit valuable resources to actions that benefit the free
software movement. They can hire developers, sponsor events, fund
advocacy and education, and provide infrastructure. Individuals can
convince their employers to release code under a free license, and to
distribute it with their products. They can even persuade the company to
pursue certification under the FSF's Respects Your Freedom program
<https://ryf.fsf.org/>.
These contributions are meaningful. The challenge is, how do we realize
them while avoiding the ways corporations can hurt free software? We
need to avoid financial dependency, keep our standards high, and rely on
a solid legal framework rather than vague trust.
Avoiding financial dependency means making sure our operations as free
software projects and organizations won't be seriously harmed by a
corporation withdrawing its support due to a disagreement or an
ownership change. As an example, while we appreciate and make productive
use of all the direct corporate patron support we receive at the FSF, in
our last audited financial year, it was less than 3% of our total revenue.
To keep standards high, free software projects and organizations should
be conservative in what we offer in return for contributions. As with
any donation, specific public recognition and appreciation can make
sense. But selling conference keynotes, for example, takes the
interaction out of the realm of a donation and makes it a transaction.
Plus, when some events offer the moon in exchange for sponsorships, it
puts more pressure on other events to do so.
Relying on a solid legal framework means relying on copyleft, and on
explicit, enforceable statements about who holds relevant rights when a
contribution is made by the employee of a company. The GNU General
Public License (GPL) has enabled decades of constructive engagement,
because it requires companies to give back improvements they distribute,
under the same terms to everyone, and its terms don't change even with
new company leadership or after an acquisition. For certain GNU
packages, the FSF gets additional assurances, in the form of copyright
assignments and employer disclaimers, to help make sure we can
effectively uphold these license terms according to the Principles of
Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, and can protect all of the program's
users from patent or other ownership claims by contributors' employers.
We should stay watchful and firm on these points. Over the last year, I
have seen firsthand multiple cases of Google employees encouraging
projects to relax their license from the Affero General Public License
(AGPL), because of Google's wrong-headed policy forbidding any
involvement by employees with AGPL projects. If you receive pressure
like this from any company, stay strong and explain how copyleft is in
the best interest of all contributors to the project (also, tell us your
story at i...@fsf.org <mailto:i...@fsf.org>).
A person is capable of moral commitments outside of legal agreements,
but accountability for companies works differently. This position isn't
based on conspiracy, or on assumptions about corporate employees. It is
based on relating to for-profit companies as the kind of entity they
are. If we avoid dependency, keep our standards high, and ensure the
terms of our work together are copyleft, we can edge the corporate
sector ever closer to fully embracing free software, which will in turn
help us move all sectors of society in that direction, securing freedom
and autonomy for all.
/On a personal note, I'll be finishing my term as FSF's executive
director before the next issue of the Bulletin is published, so this
will be my last article. It's been an honor to appear here, to have had
this chance to contribute to important ongoing conversations in this
community. We'll be publishing details about the transition to a new
executive director on fsf.org. Please continue supporting the work of
the FSF's incredible staff, some highlights of which are described in
the rest of this issue -- and all the future issues to come!/
//
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