from the stepping-stones-to-sofware-freedom dept.
Bruce Perens is working on licensing for a new, post-Open Source era to take open source licensing past the apparent stalling point it has reached on its way towards software freedom. As he noted earlier, current licenses are not meeting that goal and businesses have either found loophole or just plain been allowed to ignore the licensing. A move more towards a contract is needed.
At the link below is the first draft of the Post-Open License. This is not yet the product of a qualified attorney, and you shouldn't apply it to your own work yet. There isn't context for this license yet, so some things won't make sense: for example the license is administered by an entity called the "POST-OPEN ADMINISTRATION" and I haven't figured out how to structure that organization so that people can trust it. There are probably also terms I can't get away with legally, this awaits work with a lawyer.
Because the license attempts to handle very many problems that have arisen with Open Source licensing, it's big. It's approaching the size of AGPL3, which I guess is a metric for a relatively modern license, since AGPL3 is now 17 years old
The draft license is quite long since it covers quite a few scenarios.
Previously:
(2023) What Comes After Open Source? Bruce Perens is Working on It
(2018) The Next 20 Years of Open Source Software Begins Today
Related Stories
Over at the Open Source Initiative, Simon Phipps writes about the past, present, and future of Open Source Software as it turns 20 this year. Thought of in a strategy session on how to make Free Software more palatable to certain business interests, the orignal idea was for it to be a stepping stone from proprietary to Free Software by focusing first on the advantages of the developmental model.
Thirty-five years ago when Richard Stallman decided that he could no longer tolerate proprietary software, and started the free software movement, software freedom was misunderstood and dismissed. Twenty years ago a group of free software advocates gathered in California and decided that software freedom needed to be brought to the business world. The result was a marketing program called "open source". That same month, February 1998, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded as a general educational and advocacy organization to raise awareness and adoption for the superiority of an open development process.
Of course, old-timers will remind us that originally software was source and binaries did not count. Up until the late 1970s or early 1980s, when you bought software, it was source.
Source : Happy Anniversary—The Next 20 Years of Open Source Begins Today
Related:
https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/
'Our licenses aren't working anymore,' says free software pioneer:
Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the Open Source movement, is ready for what comes next: the Post-Open Source movement.
"I've written papers about it, and I've tried to put together a prototype license," Perens explains in an interview with The Register. "Obviously, I need help from a lawyer. And then the next step is to go for grant money."
Perens says there are several pressing problems that the open source community needs to address.
"First of all, our licenses aren't working anymore," he said. "We've had enough time that businesses have found all of the loopholes and thus we need to do something new. The GPL is not acting the way the GPL should have done when one-third of all paid-for Linux systems are sold with a GPL circumvention. That's RHEL."
RHEL stands for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which in June, under IBM's ownership, stopped making its source code available as required under the GPL.
Software Engineer Nikita Prokopov delves into how programs have changed over recent years from doing our bidding to working against us, controlling us. This adverse change has been ushered in through requiring accounts, update processes, notifications, and on-boarding procedures.
This got so bad that when a program doesn't ask you to create an account, it feels refreshing.
"Okay, but accounts are still needed to sync stuff between machines."
Wrong. Syncthing is a secure, multi-machine distributed app and yet doesn't need an account.
"Okay, but you still need an account if you pay for a subscription?"
Mullvad VPN accepts payments and yet didn't ask me for my email.
These new, malevolent programs fight for attention rather than getting the job done while otherwise staying out of the way. Not only do they prioritize "engagement" over its opposite, "usability", they also tend to push (hostile) agendas along the way.
Previously:
(2025) What Happened to Running What You Wanted on Your Own Machine?
(2025) Passkeys Are Incompatible With Open-Source Software
(2024) Achieving Software Freedom in the Age of Platform Decay
(2024) Bruce Perens Solicits Comments on First Draft of a Post-Open License
Here are two related essays on software freedom in light of the current environment where platform decay has become the norm.
Lead developer of Linux-Libre, FSFLA board member, and previous FSF board member, Alexandre Oliva wrote a piece back in June about platform decay (also known colloquially as enshittification) and how to fight it through software freedom. It's from his May 5th, 2024 LibrePlanet presentation with the same title ( video and slides ). This weekend, developer Daniel Cantarín wrote a follow up addressing the nature of software freedom and the increasing communication, philosophical, and political barriers to actually achieving software freedom.
The two essays are essentially in agreement but raise different points and priorities.
Alexandre Oliva's essay includes the following:
[...] Software (static) enshittification
Back in the time when most users could choose which version of a program they wanted to run, upgrading software was not something that happened automagically. Installing a program involved getting a copy of its installable media, and if you wanted to install a newer version, you had to get a copy of the installable media for the newer version.
You could install them side by side, and if you found that the newer version was lacking some feature important to you, or it didn't serve you well, you could roll back to the older version.
This created a scenario in which the old and the new versions competed for users, so in order for the newer version to gain adoption, it had to be more attractive to users than the older one. It had to offer more interesting features, and if it dropped features or engaged in enshittification, it would need even more interesting features to make up.
This limits how much enshittification can be imposed on users in newer versions. It was much harder to pull feature from under users in that static arrangement.
Software (dynamic) enshittification
But now most users are mistreated with imposed updates, and since they are required to be online all the time, they are vulnerable all the time, and they can't go back to an earlier version that served them well. The following are the most enshittifiable arrangements to offer computing facilities to users. Most enshittifiable so far, Homer Simpson would presumably point out.
Apps that run on remotely-controlled telephones (TRApps) and that are typically automatically updated from exclusive app stores, and their counterparts that run on increasingly enshittified computers (CRApps) are cases in which the programs are installed on your own computer, but are controlled by someone else. They've come to be called apps, so that you'll think of them as appliances rather than as something you can and should be able to tinker with.
Web sites that, every time you visit them, install and demand to run Javascrapped programs on your computer, are a case in which, even if the program is technically Free Software, in this setting, someone else controls which version you get to run, and what that version does.
And then, there are the situations in which, instead of getting a copy of a program, you're offered a service that will do your computing for you, under somebody else's control, substituting software that could have been respectful of your freedom. [...]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stormreaver on Saturday March 09 2024, @10:10PM (2 children)
And what's going to stop these same companies from ignoring whatever Bruce and co. come up with next? The problem isn't the existing licenses, but rather the ability and will to prosecute violators. It won't matter one bit if the new approach is contract based, as the same lack of prosecution will persist.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 09 2024, @10:25PM
>the same lack of prosecution will persist.
Last I had any dealings with them, 10+ years ago now, the FFmpeg crew had a jolly time exposing unpermitted use of their software and threatening various legal actions against the perpetrators... did they ever make any significant headway beyond getting a few cable companies to acknowledge the use of FFmpeg in their set-top boxes?
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday March 09 2024, @11:55PM
There's an arbitration clause.
Copyrights doesn't cover AI training and generative output so if you train a model on non-permissive code and then prompt the model to produce a competing product, that product isn't be considered a derivative work by current laws as there's no human authorship. So, it's possible to "AI-wash" anything and make a few manual tweaks to the output to effectively gain authorship over just about anything out there if your AI is good enough. Worse still, the TRIPS agreement includes that "human authorship" wording so even if your own country extends its copyright protections to cover it, other countries will be able to disregard it entirely.
compiling...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by rpnx on Saturday March 09 2024, @10:15PM (3 children)
Post-Open sounds like an attempt to defeat the core values of open source and replace them with the progatzi values. (progatzi = progressive nazi)
The core of open source does not need to be better than proprietary software to be successful, it simply needs to continue getting better. The Post-Open license is very clearly non-free.
The reason why open source isn't working in some sense, is because of permissive (instead of copyleft) open source licenses allowing proprietary software to incorporate them. No corporation would use a post open license, just as they do not like using AGPLv3 licensed software.
I see no reason to support a "post-open" world. Open source is the goal, and permissive open source is a compromise between corporations and the open source community. Post-open betrays the values that underlay open source and it will be defeated in the end. Post-open is the enemy, in many ways, I see it as worse than typical proprietary software. At least proprietary software gives me the right to use it if I pay for it. Post-open software is about exclusion of big companies, and "power to the small" is never what open source was about. Open source is about freedom for everyone, including big companies.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday March 10 2024, @05:48AM (1 child)
I must admit I had a similar reaction to the name, but they may just be using it because it "sounds cool". Do you have any examples from the licence to show that it betrays the core values of open source?
(Score: 4, Informative) by rpnx on Monday March 11 2024, @03:05AM
I haven't read the whole license, but I read enough to know it's not compatible with open source. Giving power to an administration and also excluding based on revenue is not open.
(Score: 5, Funny) by kazzie on Sunday March 10 2024, @07:33AM
To me, "Post-Open License" sounds like permission for the mail carrier to steam open my letters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 09 2024, @10:21PM (3 children)
When I'm comparing options and one of the options does the job _and_ comes with a dead simple license like the MIT, I'll opt for short and sweet every time.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aafcac on Saturday March 09 2024, @11:49PM (2 children)
I definitely think the issue here is trying to retain control of something that's being given away. Ultimately, I don't know that it's possible to do that and more complicated software may just need to be paid software in the long term.
That being said, I don't know that super complicated software is such a good thing anyways. Complicated software is harder to secure and requires more effort to learn to use. A lot of the older open source software was intended to be mixed intelligently with other tools by the user.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 10 2024, @04:55AM
>and more complicated software may just need to be paid software in the long term.
Instead of complicated, I'd say niche... there are plenty of decent open source browsers, and Libre Office is pretty successful as such things go - both plenty complicated, maybe too complicated for their intended purposes, but that seems to be what the users want.
>A lot of the older open source software was intended to be mixed intelligently with other tools by the user.
In my "user case" I'm most often combining simple software packages, or components like https://github.com/nayuki/QR-Code-generator [github.com] into more complex / niche targeted software. The paychecks keep coming, so I guess what I do is valuable.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday March 10 2024, @04:16PM
It is a good point, in fact when you think about it more, it is the exact same problem that is seen with DRM and piracy. It is very hard to retain control of something once you have given a copy to someone else.
If nerds generally agree that DRM is futile because if something can be read it can be copied, then the exact same thing applies with source code. If it is shared, others can read it, if others can read it, they can copy it. Licences like the GPL etc... try to exert some control but unless you got the money to go after violators and spend a lot of time in legal battles, it is generally not possible to effectively retain control over something the other party has already got access to.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by chromas on Sunday March 10 2024, @08:18AM (1 child)
These licenses are getting out of hand. I'm not reading all that. I just wanna post my toys on the internet in case someone else finds it useful. Now I'll have to go find neural net to tell me which license has my favorite nuances I guess.
I asked Bing (GPT5, I think) What's the best open source loicense, and when I asked about WTFPL (the obviously correct option) it spewed out several paragraphs, then deleted them and told me to change the topic. Jesus wept.
In the mean time, all the best generative models take the big-name, organic all-natural free-range privacy-respecting models and then fine tune them privately on stuff that ignores the licenses and copyrights.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday March 11 2024, @04:28PM
I don't disagree, but . . .
I remember some years ago a NO LICENSE movement.
Fortunately it died out quickfully.
Some people wanted to release their software or other creative work with no license at all. Just don't even mention the subject other than to make it very easy to download and use.
There is a real problem with this.
If you don't EXPRESSLY give me a copyright license to use your work, I won't touch it with a ten foot pole. The corporate lawyers will forbid its use (which might be what you want!) The NO LICENSE people said they just wanted people to use their work without having to deal with legalese. I pointed out that without a license, I would be infringing their copyright which exists at the moment they created their work. But don't worry they would assure, I'm not going to sue you. They're just nice guys. They promise. But if they really promise and are such nice guys, they would put that promise in writing -- it's called a license.
Fortunately this nonsense didn't last long.
For some odd reason all scientific instruments searching for intelligent life are pointed away from Earth.