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Preston Maness ☭

@aral @onepict @NGIZero >Furthermore, funding for a stayup must come with a strict specification of the character of the technology it will build. Goods built using public funds must be public goods. Free Software Foundation Europe is currently raising awareness along these lines with their “public money, public code” campaign. However we must go beyond “open source” to stipulate that technology created by stayups must be not only public but also impossible to enclose. For software and hardware, this means using licenses that are copyleft. A copyleft license ensures that if you build on public technology, you must share alike. Share-alike licenses are essential so that our efforts do not become a euphemism for privatisation and to avoid a tragedy of the commons. Corporations with deep pockets must not be able to take what we create with public funds, invest their own millions on top, and not share back the value they’ve added.

☝️All of this. I really wish the FSF stateside would adopt a similar campaign to its European sister organization. (Edit: with a requirement for copyleft, sharealike licensing; as Aral notes, the FSFE doesn't currently push for that important and crucial detail)

2 comments
Aral Balkan

@aspensmonster @onepict @NGIZero And, just to stress, “open source” doesn’t cut the mustard. If the openness is not protected via “share alike” licensing (AGPL, etc.) then we’re talking about privatisation, where code created from the commons can be enclosed by corporations. The FSF in Europe doesn’t currently make this distinction (and has its own issues, just like the US one does in other areas).

Alexandre Oliva
the distinction you're making is not between free software and open source, but between copyleft and non-copyleft. free software tends to prefer copyleft because it aligns better with our values and goals of emancipating users, whereas open source often prefers non-copyleft because it's poorly disguised exploitation of developers, but both sharealike and non-sharealike licensing qualify as free software and as open source. the assumption that free software requires copyleft is a common misconception. please don't spread or reinforce it. defending the freedoms (like copyleft does) is not necessary to respect them, and the criterion is respect, not defense.
the distinction you're making is not between free software and open source, but between copyleft and non-copyleft. free software tends to prefer copyleft because it aligns better with our values and goals of emancipating users, whereas open source often prefers non-copyleft because it's poorly disguised exploitation of developers, but both sharealike and non-sharealike licensing qualify as free software and as open source. the assumption that free software requires copyleft is a common misconception....
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