What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it
www.theregister.com
'Our licenses aren't working anymore,' says free software pioneer

TLDR: Companies should be required to pay developers for any open source software they use.

He imagines a simple yearly compliance process that gets companies all the rights they need to use Post-Open software. And they’d fund developers who would be encouraged to write software that’s usable by the common person, as opposed to technical experts.

It’s an interesting concept, but I don’t really see any feasible means to get this to kick off.

What are your thoughts on it?

  • Lvxferre
    17•11 months ago

    I think that the RHEL example is out-of-place, since IBM (“Red Hat”) is clearly exploiting a loophole of the GNU Public License. Similar loopholes have been later addressed by e.g. the AGPL and the GPLv3*, so I expect this one to be addressed too.

    So perhaps, if the GPL is “not enough”, the solution might be more GPL.

    *note that the license used by the kernel is GPLv2. Cue to Android (for all intents and purposes non-free software) using the kernel, but not the rest.

      • Lvxferre
        4•11 months ago

        They’re still providing the code for people who buy the compiled software. And they are not restricting their ability to redistribute that code. So it’s still compliant with the GPL in the letter. However, if you redistribute it, they’ll refuse to service you further versions of the software.

        It’s clearly a loophole because they can argue “ackshyually, we didn’t restrict you, we just don’t want further businesses with you, see ya sucker”.

        • Atemu
          2•11 months ago

          Is there a court case about this already? Because that’s clearly not the intention of the GPL.

          • Lvxferre
            3•11 months ago

            I don’t think that there is one yet, otherwise it would get famous. Not sure though.

    • @TootSweetEnglish
      2•11 months ago

      So perhaps, if the GPL is “not enough”, the solution might be more GPL.

      Love this.