audience already agrees that complicity in genocide is an acceptable tradeoff to software freedoms

I talked about that to show one possible counterbalance between liberty and usages which are probably not explicitly wanted by the authors.

Another common example of freedom/restrictions is someone wanting to have their software permissively licensed while also not allowing cloud vendors to resell access to it. That’s how you end up with licenses like Elastic’s.

Or, if you want another example of “free”, look at the distinction between the GPL and the BSD license as it applies to Sony and the Playstation. One of the reason Sony chose BSD for the basis of its gaming system is because the BSD license allows for commercial usage. In that sense it is MORE free than the GPL, which would not allow the type of usage Sony did with the Playstation without conferring more responsibility to Sony, for instance, releasing their source. Under BSD they have no obligation to do so, hence it is more free in that respect.

My whole point is a lot of people say “I want my software to be freely licensed” but they do not realize that they may be unintentionally opening the door to usages of the software that they do not want to see.

One should not pick a license that allows for unfettered usage of the software if you have certain ways you don’t want to see it used.

As a final parting example, look at Prusa and their printers. They release the firmware and designs as open source. They they later get angry when companies clone their designs. This is permissible under the license. This is making Prusa want to lock down their future designs to avoid that usage.

Anyone considering licensing of their own software should think very carefully about what usages they support or object to and license the software accordingly. If you release your software as BSD licensed and some company comes along and makes a billion dollars with it, you aren’t owned a cent under that agreement. If this makes you angry, don’t pick BSD.

Freedom comes with uncomfortable ramifications. This is inescapable. Freedom includes doing things that a given individual isn’t comfortable with. If you’re not happy with this trade-off, don’t use a license that allows “any” usage.

I can’t wait for the surge in cheap PCs available to buy and install Linux on. Please, Microsoft, lock down Windows more.

Meanwhile, poor Jellyfin just quietly doing the job.

That doesn’t undermine my point, that proves my point. Making something “FREE” (as in libre) comes with the consequence that people can use it for whatever they want. I assume you don’t agree with bombing Gaza, hence it is a perfect example of “freedom” leading to poor outcomes.

Simply grabbed it, and without contributing anything to the project did nothing except stripped the branding and then go sell it.

Unless this is specifically called out in the license, this is an activity allowed by many permissive open source licenses. If they knew that this type of activity was unwanted initially, then they didn’t choose the proper license.

Easy, because they want the social credibility of being open source, but also later, when the project gets big, they want to dictate exactly who uses it and how.

If you care about how your software is used to this degree – don’t open source it! Every open source package I have ever made has come with a permissive license, because I want people to be able to use it however they wish. That’s actual freedom. Unfortunately, a subset of “however they wish” can also be “used to bomb Gaza”, but that is the cost of liberty and freedom. You have to take the good with the bad.

Mozilla has tried so many things: I wonder if anyone there has considered releasing and maintaining a browser. They might have some luck against Chrome.

I wouldn’t trust that company to be their customer if I knew they operate like that

Hahaha, I suggest you never look behind the scenes at an F500 then. This would be one of the more sane things to happen in that environment.

They have always been open and clear about letting you build it and use it however you like.

I don’t disagree with the want to license software like this. The downside then is a subset of “letting you build and use it any way you like” includes registering N trial accounts every 30 days. If this isn’t actually spelled out as illegal under the license, some jerkbag will do it. I wish we didn’t live in this world, but we do.

Company sizes must be limited by law. No person shall own more than one company, no company shall employ more than 1000 people, any company with a net worth over 50 million has taxes go to 100% for any of the worth after those 50m.

Good luck with that one. Try to convince congress critters about this point of view while they take a second or two to look up from the pork barrel. I 100% agree this would be great, I just fail to see any possible way to get there.

Easy, just have two of your staff do alternate 24/7 shifts, renewing just in time. As long as this costs less than the price of licencing the proper way, still a “win”.

As a small aside “Open Source Free Trials?” If it’s open source, can’t they just disable the trial part? I think (as usual) some essential nuance got destroyed converting this article to a clickbait engaging exciting headline.

To anyone that isn’t aware of this: big companies don’t give a fuck about anything except stock price going up. They will crush dreams every quarter to do this. They don’t care.

If you don’t like how a company is using your software and you’re hoping they will have a conscience/heart… don’t! Fix your license to make this use case illegal/impossible if it really matters to you.

Or, consider if Open Source is even the right license here (although I think the headline is a bit confused here)…

If you want this “fixed”, tweak your license and/or send a cease and desist to that company and/or seek damages. Changing nothing and waiting for them to do the right thing, you’re going to be waiting infinitely, because they will never do the right thing. They will do the thing that gets them the most revenue with the least spending. That’s all you can count on.

Explain how to mesh that with “the stock price must go up each quarter, no matter what”

Great! With this source code out, I can finally complete the port to Linux. I call it WSL24L, aka “Windows Subsystem For Linux 2, For Linux”

I mean, what would that even look like? New “software communes” getting founded? I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I’m curious what that would actually look like on the ground.

“In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts that the company would make sales execution changes after the company delivered slower growth than expected in Azure cloud revenue that wasn’t tied to artificial intelligence. Performance in AI cloud growth outdid internal projections.”

Translation: “No one gives a shit about Azure, except for the people we could hoodwink with AI.”