commit 7ba6be90a4707f44d4aa6a01e9ee9888a138a054
parent 1e3d565fe513eb6f8d1f503c0030aef64044cdac
Author: Jake Bauer <jbauer@paritybit.ca>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2023 23:25:27 -0400
Add new wiki page about software licenses
Diffstat:
4 files changed, 148 insertions(+), 47 deletions(-)
diff --git a/content/garden/index.md b/content/garden/index.md
@@ -122,7 +122,6 @@ I have categorized my opinions to make them easier to find:
* [Computing Hardware](computing-hardware)
* [Operating Systems](operating-systems)
-* [Software Licensing](software-licensing)
* [Video Games](video-games)
* [Miscellaneous Opinions](miscellaneous)
* [Issues with Systemd](issues-with-systemd)
@@ -137,6 +136,7 @@ I have categorized my opinions to make them easier to find:
* [Bad Assumptions Made By User/Profile Systems](user-profile-systems-bad-assumptions)
* Programming languages: [C](c), [Clojure](clojure), [Haskell](haskell), [Raku](raku), [LaTeX](latex), [uxn](uxn)
* Tools: [git](git), [Vim](vim), [plan9](plan9), [Make](make)
+* Other: [Licenses](software-licenses)
### 🖥️ System Administration
diff --git a/content/garden/software-licenses.md b/content/garden/software-licenses.md
@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@
+Title: Software Licenses
+Summary: Software Licenses
+
+# [%title]
+
+<p class="note">I am not a lawyer. None of this is legal advice.</p>
+
+Licenses which are simple, easy to understand for everyone, and don't place
+undue burden on developers or users should be prefered over ones that make
+heavy use of hard-to-understand legalese and complicated clauses. Licenses that
+I like fall into two categories: public domain equivalents and permissive:
+
+## Public Domain Equivalents
+
+These licenses are designed to make it easy to dedicate a work to the public
+domain. Some, like the [Unlicense](https://unlicense.org/), are short and sweet
+whereas others, like the
+[CC0](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/), are long
+and full of lawyer-speak. The CC0 is long particularly because it's designed to
+work without any additional interpretation required in jurisdictions that don't
+allow a person to disclaim all of their rights (such as their [moral
+rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)). The Unlicense, on the
+other hand, requires interpretation of the intent of the licensor in those
+jurisdictions, though this almost [guaranteed to be
+a non-issue](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__133.html), and is
+typically [not worth worrying about](https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html). The
+CC0 is also additionally useful outside of software projects, whereas the
+Unlicense is tailored towards software projects.
+
+Other software-specific, public domain equivalent licenses that don't expressly
+put a work into the public domain but which are still easy to understand and
+have the same effect include the [MIT-0](https://opensource.org/license/mit-0/)
+and the [0BSD](https://opensource.org/license/0bsd/) (also known as BSD
+0-Clause). These are functionally equivalent to their permissive counterparts
+but with the attribution requirements removed.
+
+Note that the OSI refuses to approve public-domain licenses (though they have
+approved both the 0BSD/MIT-0, since they do not attempt to put a work into the
+public domain directly).
+
+## Permissive Licenses
+
+These are licenses that typically allow one to do whatever they wish with
+a piece of software, provided that they provide attribution. Some licenses,
+such as the [BSD 3-Clause](https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause/),
+contain additional measures, though they are typically not onerous (in the case
+of the BSD 3-Clause, you're not allowed to use the names of the copyright
+holders in promotional material for derivatives of the software, for
+example).
+
+One of the most common permissive licenses is the
+[MIT/Expat](https://opensource.org/license/mit/) license which, along with its
+counterparts the [BSD 2-Clause](https://opensource.org/license/bsd-2-clause/)
+and the [ISC](https://opensource.org/license/isc-license-txt/) licenses, is
+very permissive. They all let you do whatever you want with the software
+provided that you include the original copyright notice and license text in any
+copy of the source (i.e. credit the authors). They are all functionally
+equivalent.
+
+[CC-BY](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) is the Creative Commons
+equivalent for non-software works, though it is quite verbose and challenging
+to read, as expected.
+
+The ISC license is my preferred license since it's functionally equivalent to
+the MIT and BSD licenses, but written much more clearly. It's also shorter
+because it takes advantage of the fact that nearly every country has signed the
+[Berne Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention) to strip out
+unnecessary language.
+
+### A Calm and Collected Rant About the ISC License "Controversy"
+
+<p class="note">This section is somewhat inflammatory, but it's so frustrating
+to witness so much incompetence I think it's only appropriate that you read my
+unfiltered thoughts.<p>
+
+The ISC license states:
+
+```
+Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
+purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, [...]
+```
+
+Some people mistakenly hold the belief that the word "and" here is problematic,
+because some morons at the University of Washington [tried to interpret
+it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client)#Licensing_and_clones) as
+meaning that you can modify the software, or you can distribute it, but you
+can't distribute a modified copy of the software. It would seem to me that UW
+needs to increase funding for its English department because, last time
+I checked, "and" did not mean "exclusive or". To illustrate how utterly idiotic
+this is: if we take their interpretation at face value, they are also arguing
+that you could modify the software but not use your own modified version. It's
+absolutely absurd and I'm extremely disappointed that people in the FOSS
+community let UW walk all over them with this (apparently they [threatened to
+sue the FSF](https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/11/msg00138.html), and
+the fact that they backed down really highlights their uselessness).
+
+In response to input from the FSF and in a nonsensical attempt to avoid this
+situation from happening in the future, the ISC decided that changing "and" to
+"and/or" would fix this issue. I highly doubt that they actually spoke to
+a real lawyer when [making this
+change](https://groups.google.com/g/comp.protocols.dns.bind/c/D8VLXloVfxc/m/4yweyAjRCecJ),
+given that the use of "and/or" is considered somewhat [problematic in legal
+contexts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And/or#Legal_criticism) and, in plain
+English, saying "I permit you to do X, Y, and Z" carries the same meaning as "I
+permit you to do X, Y, and/or Z". You could always do one, some, or all of them.
+
+GNU and the FSF, in their infinite lack of wisdom, still think that this is
+problematic language and discourage the use of this license. They say nothing
+about the BSD-0 license even though it has the exact same language. It's best
+to ignore them, since they clearly don't know what they're talking about.
+
+Also, this controversy happened literally over 20 years ago with no further
+issues or outcries, even though it took an additional 10 years for the ISC to
+change the language of the license. So really this is all meaningless and dumb
+and stupid and there's nothing wrong with the license.
+
+<figure>
+<img src="/img/angy.png" alt="An angy cat.">
+</figure>
+
+## Copyleft Licenses
+
+I strongly dislike copyleft licenses.
+
+They utterly fail at their stated goal, instead reinforcing copyright as a tool
+to get one's way and protect one's "intellectual property". This results in
+much more hassle for developers with no true real-world gain compared to
+anti-copyright or permissive licenses. Read [A Critique of Free
+Software](/a-critique-of-free-software) and [Free Software is an Abject
+Failure](/blog/free-software-is-an-abject-failure) for more on this topic and
+my stance.
+
+## "Ethical" Licenses
+
+These are licenses that attempt to control how one can use software without any
+real basis in law or reality. They say things like "this must not be used by
+corporations that manufacture machines for the purpose of war" or "this
+software may not be used for evil." An example is the customizable [Hippocratic
+License](https://firstdonoharm.dev/).
+
+They are, practically, just proprietary source-available licenses that don't
+achieve anything actually meaningful. The issues they purport to address are
+societal issues that are not fixable with a software license. It's also pretty
+easy for a corporation to just ignore the license, similar to how many use the
+GPL, but with even less backing for individual devs to fight lawsuits against
+license violators (if they even bother with that).
+
diff --git a/content/garden/software-licensing.md b/content/garden/software-licensing.md
@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-Title: Software Licensing Opinions
-Summary: Software Licensing Opinions
-
-# [%title]
-
-[← Back](./)
-
-
-## Copycentre/Anti-Copyright Licenses
-
-**POSITIVE** (Last Updated: 2022-05-03)
-
-Licenses which are simple, easy to understand for everyone, and don't place
-undue burden on developers or users. My preferred licenses are: the Unlicense,
-CC0, the ISC/MIT/BSD-2-clause Licenses, and CC-BY.
-
-## Copyleft Licenses
-
-**NEGATIVE** (Last Updated: 2022-05-03)
-
-They utterly fail at their stated goal, instead reinforcing copyright as a tool
-to get one's way and protect one's "intellectual property". This results in much
-more hassle for developers with no true real-world gain compared to
-anti-copyright or copycentre licenses. Read [A Critique of Free
-Software](/a-critique-of-free-software) and [Free Software is an Abject
-Failure](/blog/free-software-is-an-abject-failure) for more on this topic.
-
-## "Ethical" Licenses
-
-**NEGATIVE** (Last Updated: 2022-05-03)
-
-Licenses that attempt to control how one can use software without any real basis
-in law or reality. They are, practically, just proprietary source-available
-licenses that don't achieve anything meaningful.
-
-## FSF/OSI
-
-**NEGATIVE** (Last Updated: 2022-05-03)
-
-Organizations that place themselves in the position of deciding what is and
-isn't an "approved license". Not only are they run by people famous for
-bikeshedding and doing next to nothing actually useful for the industry
-(remember the FSF sending a hard drive to Microsoft telling them to put the
-Windows 7 source code on it?), they can't even make consistent decisions about
-the licenses they approve (e.g. the SSPL is just a stronger AGPL, but they both
-call it "non-free").
diff --git a/static/img/angy.png b/static/img/angy.png
Binary files differ.
