copyleft-next January 2020

copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org

7 participants
3 discussions

Re: Free licensing of surveillance software
by Fischers Fritz 15 Jan '20

15 Jan '20

To anyone who believes to have understood my inquiry, could you reply simply to say that you understand, even if you are unaware of any initiative as I describe? If so, I guess there is no such initiative. Of not, maybe I will continue trying to explain. Cordially, Fritz

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Re: Free licensing of surveillance software
by fischersfritz＠sent.at 15 Jan '20

15 Jan '20

Aaron Wolf writes: > Are you picturing a case of something like telemetry software that is > benign and useful enough given transparency and acceptance by anyone who > is getting measured I am not particularly interested in any of benign software, telemetry software, nor surveillance software. I would the users of software to have control over all of their software, regardless of how the software is categorized. * If the software usage is realized through execution of a binary, GPL and AGPL protect the freedom of users. * If the software usage is realized through communication with network server software, AGPL protects the freedom of users. * If the software usage is realized through being surveilled by methods other than binaries or network servers (for example, through computer-assisted interrogations or surveillance cameras), would it be possible to require additionally that the people being surveilled (often called "useds" than users) have the same freedoms? That is, they would be allowed to run their own installations of the surveillance software, to study the source code, to share the software, and modify the software. And this is in addition to the protecting the rights of those conducting the surveillance, likely by the same methods as used in GPL and AGPL. Perhaps it will be informative for me to elaborate on my example. Suppose that I write a Gtk button widget. It is special because of its special feature for changing shape among different animals depending on a parameter. Jinny writes a surveillance camera software in Gtk, and then Pauly uses the surveillance camera software to spy on Julian. * If I license my Gtk button widget under GPL (any version) or AGPL, then Jinny is obliged to license the rest of the camera software under a compatible license and to provide the source code to Pauly. Pauly is not obliged to provide any source code to Julian. * Can I license my Gtk button widget in such a way that Pauly would be obliged to provide the source code to Julian? Here is another example. I put a camera inside my house so that I can see who is in the house when my family is not home. Kim robs the house, and the camera records him robbing the house. Is there a software license that gives Kim the right to obtain the source code to the camera software? He could obtain the source code by following the instructions that I had posted on the wall next to the camera. I believe that my curiousity is fundamentally whether surveillance can be defined such that surveillance software would count as a user product delivered to both the people conducting surveillance and to the people subject to surveillance. I avail itself of this opportunity to renew to you the assurances of my highest consideration. Fritz Those joining from copyleft-next may find Aaron and my previous messages in the libreplanet-discuss archives. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2020-01/msg00002.html

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"deflation of proprietary relicensing" clause seems buggy; discussion on how to fix it.
by Bradley M. Kuhn 08 Jan '20

08 Jan '20

So, the current draft says this: > If I distribute a Covered Work under a Proprietary License, then the > licenses I grant You under section 1 are no longer subject to the > conditions in sections 2 and 3. "Proprietary License" means a license > which (i) is not royalty-free, (ii) does not permit distribution, (iii) > does not permit preparation of derivative works, (iv) limits the number of > licensed users or copies, and/or (iv) contains field-of-use restrictions. I've often called this one of the most interesting, novel, and ingenious features that Fontana has promulgated in copyleft-next. Admittedly, as some of you probably recall from various ancient HBR cures, I lobbied Fontana pretty hard 5-7 years ago for a solution to proprietary relicensing, so I suppose he felt pressure to come up with something. I am glad my persistent complaining brought a great copyleft clause into existence. ;) Anyway, I have been studying this clause lately and I think it has a bug. Here's the loophole scenario I can think of: * Proprietary Relicensing Vendor ("Vendor") sets up a usual proprietary relicensing "prep system" (i.e., CLAs giving them full powers to relicense etc), and makes their outbound license copyleft-next. * Optional, but "helpful" to Vendor's cause: Vendor also takes technological measures in the software that make it difficult to get to a full CCS situation (i.e., the stuff is hard to build, or whatever). * Vendor finds Downstream in violation of copyleft-next, and Downstream cannot comply within 30 days, either because Vendor "set them up", or just mundane confusion about copyleft compliance. And, here's the key part: * Vendor offers Downstream not a *Proprietary* License, but a permissive FOSS license for a fee (say, 2-Clause-BSD). * Optional: Vendor demands an NDA about the whole situation and negotiation. The user base is effectively "divided and conquered", since at that point the Downstream has a business relationship with Vendor and (possibly) also can't afford to violate the NDA by telling anyone. Without the NDA, of course, Downstream would have the right to distribute under the 2-Clause-BSD -- but why would they? They just paid a lot of money to get that, and they just give it to their competition? There are few business who would care about software freedom enough to do that. I think *maybe* this problem (if real) could be remedied with a deflation of proprietary relicensing clause that reads something more like this: If I distribute a Covered Work under any license (except pursuant to 6(a-c)) other than this License, then the licenses I grant You under section 1 are no longer subject to the conditions in sections 2 and 3. I'd like to discuss whether: (0) the problem I described is real (I obviously think it is, otherwise I wouldn't be posting it :), but I'm open-minded about this) (1) whether my approach to solve it is on the right track at all, and (2) if anyone else has a different approach to address these problems. My specific concerns regarding (1) is that I have this sinking feeling that some of the "escape hatches" away from pure copyleft (i.e., "only under this License and nothing else") that 6(a-c) currently provide might *also* be used for some form of proprietary relicensing tomfoolery as well. I am also not clear whether (a) my clause still functions coherently if you yank the "except pursuant to 6(a-c)", and/or (b) whether the mere existence of 6(a-c) means there will always be some way for tomfoolery no matter how we chose to deflate proprietary relicensing. [ BTW, in researching and thinking about what became this email (and a blog post I'll be putting up soon generally about proprietary relicensing), I realized "nullification of copyleft" is a problematic phrase for this license feature, so as you see I've been calling it "deflation of proprietary relicensing" -- sort of imagining copyleft as a balloon that gets deflated if upstream tries to proprietary relicense. I'm getting used to the term, but if others have better ideas, let's discuss that too. License adoption is obviously also about marketing, so we need good phrases to get attention for coypleft-next. Minor HBR Cure related to this: I talked with Fontana last week on IRC about what terminology might work better and we couldn't really come up with anything that I thought was compelling. I came up with "deflation" as a word choice a few days later on my own. ] Ok, enough of a core-dump. I've obviously been thinking about this on my own for a number of weeks so I now really would love to read what all of you think. -- Bradley M. Kuhn - he/him Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/

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copyleft-next January 2020