• 3 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 23rd, 2023

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  • 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.





  • 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.



  • 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.





  • A big part of the appeal with Plex is that you can run a server and friends can sign up for a FREE account and stream remotely. When you take this away, you’re going to just kneecap the whole offering. This is such an arrogant move from Plex: they are thinking that when this change goes live they will get a flood of subscriptions. The more likely outcome is they will get a few subscriptions and a lot more angry and frustrated people that walk away.


  • I keep a Jellyfin instance running as a hedge. Here’s the thing with Plex (and actually a lot of companies set up similarly): those “lifetime” memberships are a trap. Think about it: Plex gets your money ONCE but they have ongoing expenses. Sooner or later, they’ll have spent every single cent made by a lifetime membership unless they either get more folks OR squeeze everyone a bit more.

    Once they started adding their own shows and making strange UI decisions, I could sense the end was coming. A move like this brings it up fast. Jellyfin is not nearly as good as Plex in a lot of ways, but it’s really Open Source.

    Anyway, a lot of rambling, but in short: when there is a “lifetime” subscription, watch out!