I am thinking why write this after all of this time about the case mentioned.
Also after the ElasticSearch or MongoDB case as example.
I guess that is very late as point of discussion and now he is retiring from
FSF.
What the FSFE can do about the topic of "Licensing Free Software for commercial use
and redistribution" and what is the point?
I think that is something very big and involve anyone in the world but there
isn't so much from OSI or other foundation about that topic.
PS: Anyway I think that John is right on his points but I don't see any
solution or action.
Daniele Scasciafratte - OpenSource MultiVersal Guy
daniele.tech <https://daniele.tech> - @Mte90Net <https://twitter.com/Mte90net> - GitHub
<https://github.com/Mte90> - Italian Linux Society council member <http://www.ils.org/> -
Mozillian <https://people.mozilla.org/p/Mte90>
Mozilla Reps, Mozilla TechSpeakers, WordPress Core Contributor
<https://profiles.wordpress.org/mte90>, FSFE member <https://fsfe.org/>,
LibreItalia member <http://www.libreitalia.it/soci/>, Wikimedia Italia member
<https://www.wikimedia.it/> and LUG Rieti founder <http://lugrieti.linux.it/>.
Il 02/07/21 09:19, Carsten Agger ha scritto:
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).
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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