10 hours ago
Don’t think my opinion has changed much since the last time this was posted on HN…
8 hours ago
Since the comment you linked to blatantly violates guidelines but is too old to moderate, I'm flagging this one instead.
11 hours ago
The GPL isn't strict enough now that everyone has a copyright laundering machine at their disposal.
I've been experimenting with adding a "translation" clause in accordance with the GPL paragraph 7, where if by means of automatically translating the project to a different language (by transpiling or machine learning) the license is retained, but not necessarily the copyright.
So far I'm not happy with the results by Claude and ChatGPT. Probably I should talk to a lawyer.
The GPLv3 was largely invented to prevent tivoization, we need GPLv4 now to prevent copyright laundering.
8 hours ago
If copyright isn't retained you have absolutely no rights relating to copyright. You can't make someone do something by writing a line in a contract they don't have to follow.
8 hours ago
Fair point. Probably I should assert copyright on the translated work. In any case it ought to be part of the GPL. The current text is rather ambiguous.
5 hours ago
I'm not a lawyer but I'd guess it has no legal effect. Either you hold a copyright in the translated work and telling someone of this fact doesn't change anything, or you don't and telling someone that you do is a silly lie.
However, it might stop some people from doing it anyway.
GPL allows you to attach additional permission notices and require them to be carried downstream. This is often used to carry MIT license notices when MIT software is used inside GPL, but you could also put something about how AI violates copyright if it's a "reasonable legal notice"...
11 hours ago
What’s wrong with MIT?
10 hours ago
Usually it's paired with an Apache license to prevent patent lawsuits but the problem was that anyone could make a proprietary fork and then actively steal your labor. For example Apple yoinking the BSD packet filter and wrapping their own proprietary license around enhancements.
With LLMs can we even legally license software because some projects like OpenBSD claim there is no international law yet for code not written by humans.
11 hours ago
This important topic comes up regularly on HN. I think the current consensus here is that we should all be writing software for free for our capitalist overlords, but I'm not sure if it's still the case.
The cuckoldry analogy is very apt.
11 hours ago
This is simply rude and wrong in its claims that (all) people (such as me) using BSD and Apache licences are doing so out of ignorance, rather than because we know and want the effects that they have.
This childish inflammatory bile rather hurts the standing of GPL and friends, which do have appropriate applications too.
Nuance would have been a fine thing.
11 hours ago
What effects do you want? There is a section at the end of the post about appropriate uses of cuck licenses. Namely, when the software has network effects so that sharing it widely is more important than making sure it only has free versions.
11 hours ago
I very much want my (open sourced) code to be used by anyone who wants to use it, in any context, including commercial, and with Apache I also want the patent protection effects.
Using such an inflammatory term to refer to someone's non-preferred style of licence is unhelpful to reasonable debate.
11 hours ago
Why do you want that?
The term "cuckold" isn't inflammatory. Some people enjoy watching their partners have sex with others - and they're aware that they do. If a developer enjoys aiding Google and Amazon without getting paid or even recognized, they have the right to do so. But if they're tricked into it, that's a problem.
10 hours ago
It's my (open source) code and I want to make it widely available, ie as open as reasonably possible, including cases such as my past small start-ups with no budget and not able to release everything open source. Why do I have to justify or explain that "why"?
9 hours ago
I'm just wondering why you want that as it can shed more light on the debate.
9 hours ago
I just gave an example: not all potential users of code can either use GPL-ish code or are profit-driven megacorps such as Google; false dichotomies are false. There are many small or intermediate organisations (and individuals) who would like to use open source code with the fewest legal and admin complications possible. I supported a similar cohort with an early multimedia site with simple free licensing.
9 hours ago
So your singular aim is to maximize users?
8 hours ago
Availability to use, without adding other complications, is a key aim. I'm trying to maximise to other people whatever value there is in the work that I've done.
8 hours ago
Do you believe that everyone being locked into a proprietary Amazon version of your code delivers more value than either: Amazon releases the source code to their version, or: lock-in hasn't occurred yet but people are free to add those same features in a free version?
Isn't there ultimately more value in Amazon releasing the source code for its update than in Amazon not releasing that?
8 hours ago
You seem to be asserting some simple zero-sum exclusionary game here that does not exist. I am entirely content if Amazon or Google extracts some value - that in no way inhibits anyone else doing so in reality. But to me the far more important case - a messy long tail - is smaller organisations such as the small telco that used a few lines of my code to help avoid early smart-ish picture phones on their network blowing each other up with malformed JPEGs. Said telco could not have released the exchange's software suite under GPL if I'd had that 8 lines of my Java under GPL rather than Apache.
5 hours ago
Are you content with Amazon using its rights to prevent others from using theirs? They've done embrace-extend-extinguish to MIT software before, making everyone reliant on a proprietary version of the software.
Amazon easily has the market power to make their version of your software the default one. Other software will be written so it only works with the Amazon version, and that version will be proprietary and run only on their servers. I'm not really seeing how this increases freedom. They almost did this with both Redis and ElasticSearch. They did something similar to MySQL and Postgres, obsoleting them both with Amazon Aurora, but that hasn't run to its conclusion yet.
10 hours ago
> The term "cuckold" isn't inflammatory.
You cannot detach it from the a) contemporary usage of the term and b) the original post uses "cuck" very intentionally to evoke said contemporary usage.
9 hours ago
It's okay to be a cuck and own it. It's only embarrassing to be a cuck when you're trying not to be a cuck. And of course also to the extent that telling anyone your fetish is automatically embarrassing.