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It's increasingly hard to see how software freedom is present in cases when there's no realistic community access to source code. The barriers these days can come from complex codebases that no single mind can grasp or use of open-but-closed models.
As a consequence, OSI receives more complaints from community members about "open yet closed" than any other topic. Companies of all sizes who loudly tout their love for open source yet withhold source code from non-customers generate the most enquiries of this type. When approached, OSI contacts these companies on behalf of the community but the response is always that they are "within their rights" under the relevant open source licenses and can do what they please.
[...] Interestingly it's common that the companies involved obtained the source code they are monetising under an open source license, while they themselves own the copyrights to a tiny percentage of the code. They can be considered to have enclosed the commons, enjoying the full benefits of open source themselves — and celebrating it — but excluding others from collaboration on the same terms.
Source: Is Open Yet Closed Still OK?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday December 03 2017, @02:25PM (6 children)
That's old news. The problem today is hardware. Support RISC-V and other such projects.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 03 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)
Whatchoo talkin bout, Willis? I lurve me some RISC-V. I'll lurve it even more once I can get a competitively priced desktop system using it at 2/3-3/4 AMD's clock speeds. For embedded purposes, IDGAF as long as the data sheets don't suck too much balls and are only moderately false (you know what I'm talking about, embedded devs).
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 03 2017, @04:55PM
I be karma whoring on a Sunday like it's nothing. 👌👌👌👌👌👌🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯 😎🍺
https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/cpus/western-digital-announces-planned-risc-v-data-processing-products/1/ [bit-tech.net]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Sunday December 03 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
No, it's still current events, not old news.
I submit these examples:
GRSecurity forbids redistribution of the Linux Kernel itself(!) along with a minor patchset. That's "Open yet closed" and it's not OK.
The "Iron" browser claims to be "free and open source," but historically have not made source code available. Then they changed that to making some source code available, but no statement of what previous version it might be from (another way of saying "no you can't have the source code" of the current version). That's "Open yet closed" and it's not OK.
Rinse and repeat; I believe the problem is actually growing, not shrinking.
Problems in proprietary hardware are also current events, of course, and very important ones. But I think the "open yet closed" people are working to erode the base of freedom in culture, tradition, mindset, way of thinking that makes the very idea that free/libre hardware is important, possible. It's all of a piece, so to speak.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @06:36PM
When it comes to software, write a competitor that is sufficiently open.
The only time you cannot do this is when the hardware is locked down in some fashion; everything comes down to the hardware.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @08:25AM
His whole thing the past couple years has been telling people how 'open but closed' is acceptable according to his interpretation of the GPL.
Furthermore people have been flaunting it for up to 15 years now, and there was an accusation made a few months back on the green site that the FSF has tacitly endorsed this by commercially licensing FSF 'open source' code that they were donated all the copyrights on rather than ensuring that companies abusing the GPL released it, or if they insisted on not releasing it, paid out damages and ceased and desisted from future infringements by putting the products.
As a result of these and similiar issues, as well as the recent glut in MIT/BSD style licensed projects (see llvm/clang, musl, etc) even the Linux ecosystem allows a majority closed-source project to be built, which even if they release source code will not result in build projects which can assemble a complete replacement firmware image or application for products requiring it and which nominally are under the GPL.
Much like the security of the hardware in computers, the software front is under an attack which if lost will push us into the dark ages of proprietary software of a kind never before seen. Between this, the lack of hardware without signed firmware or untrustworthy management engines, telemetry returning OSes like Windows 10, and the decline in anonymity networks (go show me an anonymity network that hides you well enough to not track your traffic given either passive or active means..), combine to leave us wondering how long until we find the veneer of free will, anonymity, and liberty chipped off to reveal 1984, Rollerball (the original!), A Brave New World, or something even worse peeking through the cracks of our once held society.
(Score: 3, Funny) by NotSanguine on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:36PM
Hardware? We don't need no stinkin' hardware! It was always more trouble than it was worth.
Hardware is soooo 2004, and completely unnecessary.
We now live in a software defined world. Software defined hardware, software defined radios, software defined networking, software defined software, software defined donuts, software defined toilets and all the rest.
Need to take a dump? Spin a docker instance -- no hardware required!
These days it's VMs hosting containers all the way down in the cloud [xkcd.com].
Please add additional tropes in replies to this comment. Thank you for your software defined attention.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr