lmao good luck with using an AI to try to rewrite the entire linux kernel. Doubly so good luck doing so without accidentally recycling a bunch of GPL code in the process.
The Linux kernel isn’t that complex. It’s mainly device drivers. Linus wrote the first version himself as a hobby, for crying out loud. AIs will be creating custom kernels within five years, from scratch, as customized as you wish. Probably based on BSD, or other liberally licensed code, for legal reasons.
This piece was more interesting than I went in expecting it to be. But it hinges I think on a disputable claim, that the GPL's value is based on a network effect, so that the GPL gets dramatically less useful (and thus attractive to newer projects) as the base of mainstream GPL software shrinks. I'm not sure I understand why that would be the case.
The AI rewrite of the Linux kernel also seems farfetched. I don't think it really belongs in the title of this post.
That's funny, because the "network effect" of the GPL was always extremely obvious to me as part of the point. The idea being that the more that GPL software forms a cohesive ecosystem, the less financially viable it becomes to operate outside of that ecosystem. It's viral, right? And software builds on software, we're about 15 layers deep at this point. The hope is that eventually, so much software is GPL that you effectively have two choices when writing something new: 1) join the GPL borg, or 2) boil the ocean reimplementing the entire stack from scratch.
Unfortunately, free software was successful enough that the latest generation takes it for granted, and has forgotten why radical software politics is necessary. They do not understand, if they even think to ask, why so many nerds ran GNU/Linux even when it was objectively kind of terrible - why so many people were motivated to pour time into a half-broken thing. I hope by the time they do understand, it will not be too late.
My controversial opinion: the problem with the GPL is that it isn't viral enough. It was written by nerds with a good understanding of computers, and poor understanding of people. As such, it focuses too much on technicalities like what it means "link" programs together, in an attempt to rigorously specify definitions that permit running proprietary programs on free operating systems, and vice versa.
But it doesn't work. Every time your Android phone downloads a firmware update, by rights that should be a GPL violation, as it's a single giant executable that mixes together GPL and proprietary code, deliberately made in such a way that separating them out after the fact is impossible - in fact, the program is explicitly designed to fail to run if you so much as tamper with a single bit (signed images). It is hard to imagine something further from Stallman's vision - hard to imagine something less respectful of user freedom. And yet this is permitted on technicalities, because this functionally unmodifiable binary blob happens to be structured in a particular way that computer nerds recognize as a type of database called a "filesystem", and the GPL parts are neatly organized into database entries called "files". And they all agree that that's okay, whereas if you mix the code in a different type of database called a "link table", well that's bad and wrong.
I've always wondered how many proponents of open source software also support the concept of copyrights in general. On one hand I see lot of people in these communities support the right to do whatever you want with the things you own, but on the other hand copyright licenses.
I've always liked the MIT license because it is closer to copyleft than GPL variants. I get having to use a license so that people who use the software are legally protected, and attribution can be nice too, so while I don't agree with the legitimacy of software licensing as a whole, in practical terms the MIT is a good and safe license that doesn't impose lots of restrictions on its users.
WTFPL and unlicense are better in my opinion, but lawyers might not like them. if you don't like the idea of lawyers running the world though, they're great. Public domain is the way. Even then, I despise the idea of even acknowledging "Public Domain" as a concept.
But back to my original question, are most people using these licenses because they actually believe in their legitimacy? I always assumed it was to facilitate nonsensical copyright laws.
From wikipedia:
"""
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, freedoms refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, and scientific discoveries. Similar approaches have been applied to certain patents.
"""
Ugh..yeah. Then I don't get it OP, I hope copyleft does indeed die. Either you have a commercial agreement or a contract with a person or you don't. The idea of publishing some work (software, book,etc..) and then by default and without any contractual agreement, dictating what a person does with that work that you published publicly is ridiculous. I know it is the law, but that doesn't make it right. What you put out there to the public, you have no right to control. Either close source your software and require a proper contractual agreement to use it, or make it actually free and actually open. It isn't free if you're going to tell me what to do with it later on, that's a deceptively hidden cost, it isn't really free.
Wouldn't it be in the true spirit of open source and the Linux kernel if absolutley anyone can do whatever they want with the kernel's source code?
The thing that irritates me is that if they want money, let them charge for it. No problem with that. You can charge for your work. But to make it "free" and then demand that the law enforces control over the software after someone has adapted it feels like such a crooked way of doing things. I would prefer to pay for it, so that I too can get some guarantees of the software being viable in return as well.
It sounds to me like 1) You don't truly own copyleft software 2) You don't get any warranty, or expectation of viability 3) certainly, there is no expectation of support of any kind 4) It is marketed as 'free' (deceptively)
if people make modifications to the software and keep that private later on, let them. it's free, it's theirs now, they can do what they want. If they value it though, it is in their interest to keep the upstream project viable, so sensible users will contribute back. Especially considering how globalized software dev has been, you can't even practically enforce something as weak as copyleft outside of the EU, Canada, Japan, and maybe (long shot) in the US.
> It isn't free if you're going to tell me what to do with it later on, that's a deceptively hidden cost, it isn't really free.
You are confusing two different definitions of the word free. And overall you seem to operate from a place of very little understanding of why protection of authorship, copyright, licensing of works etc exists. Please go and research some more. I hope you learn something. You will not be taken seriously by anyone if you continue like this.
> if people make modifications to the software and keep that private later on, let them.
This is perfectly legal under the GPL. What's not legal is redistributing that software you modified but not giving _your_ users the same rights to modification that you yourself got.
Nothing in the GPL requires you to release or distribute personal modified versions of GPL software.
If by "keep that private later on" you mean "plagiarize GPL code to add to a proprietary program and distribute it," yeah that's not allowed- but unless you're a fan of pilfering the commons for personal profit, this is an unmitigated good feature of the license.
As an aside, copyleft is on the exact same legal foundation as the EULAs you seem to respect. It is extremely confusing that you think copyleft is bad but EULAs which provide significantly more restrictions are good.
Gross. Not sure about y'all but seeing an obviously AI-generated image at the top of the article is an instant nope/close tab for me. Not going to flag but these articles should be DOA.
Even GPL never seems to be great idea to me. But at least it considers a core problem of any knowledge sharing seriously. Can you just steal other people’s work? I would rather trust GPL folks than this guy.
GPL licenses are already only a small minority of the total OSS world. But the GPL will die because AI can write equivalent software easily, and it’s more customized to boot. And for that reason OSS will also wither away; there’s little reason to upstream AI changes. Code is cheap and the FSF is a dinosaur.
This article ignores the other side of the coin. You can argue that AI makes "clean room" re-implementation so cheap that copyleft is doomed. But then it follows that re-implementing proprietary software as free software would also become "free". So mb AI will kill copyleft, but then it would also kill the need for copyleft in the first place.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 39.7 ms ] threadThe AI rewrite of the Linux kernel also seems farfetched. I don't think it really belongs in the title of this post.
Unfortunately, free software was successful enough that the latest generation takes it for granted, and has forgotten why radical software politics is necessary. They do not understand, if they even think to ask, why so many nerds ran GNU/Linux even when it was objectively kind of terrible - why so many people were motivated to pour time into a half-broken thing. I hope by the time they do understand, it will not be too late.
My controversial opinion: the problem with the GPL is that it isn't viral enough. It was written by nerds with a good understanding of computers, and poor understanding of people. As such, it focuses too much on technicalities like what it means "link" programs together, in an attempt to rigorously specify definitions that permit running proprietary programs on free operating systems, and vice versa.
But it doesn't work. Every time your Android phone downloads a firmware update, by rights that should be a GPL violation, as it's a single giant executable that mixes together GPL and proprietary code, deliberately made in such a way that separating them out after the fact is impossible - in fact, the program is explicitly designed to fail to run if you so much as tamper with a single bit (signed images). It is hard to imagine something further from Stallman's vision - hard to imagine something less respectful of user freedom. And yet this is permitted on technicalities, because this functionally unmodifiable binary blob happens to be structured in a particular way that computer nerds recognize as a type of database called a "filesystem", and the GPL parts are neatly organized into database entries called "files". And they all agree that that's okay, whereas if you mix the code in a different type of database called a "link table", well that's bad and wrong.
Why would you even rewrite it rather than finishing out Redox or Genode OS, which are built on better principles? This is silly.
I've always liked the MIT license because it is closer to copyleft than GPL variants. I get having to use a license so that people who use the software are legally protected, and attribution can be nice too, so while I don't agree with the legitimacy of software licensing as a whole, in practical terms the MIT is a good and safe license that doesn't impose lots of restrictions on its users.
WTFPL and unlicense are better in my opinion, but lawyers might not like them. if you don't like the idea of lawyers running the world though, they're great. Public domain is the way. Even then, I despise the idea of even acknowledging "Public Domain" as a concept.
But back to my original question, are most people using these licenses because they actually believe in their legitimacy? I always assumed it was to facilitate nonsensical copyright laws.
From wikipedia:
""" Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, freedoms refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, and scientific discoveries. Similar approaches have been applied to certain patents.
"""
Ugh..yeah. Then I don't get it OP, I hope copyleft does indeed die. Either you have a commercial agreement or a contract with a person or you don't. The idea of publishing some work (software, book,etc..) and then by default and without any contractual agreement, dictating what a person does with that work that you published publicly is ridiculous. I know it is the law, but that doesn't make it right. What you put out there to the public, you have no right to control. Either close source your software and require a proper contractual agreement to use it, or make it actually free and actually open. It isn't free if you're going to tell me what to do with it later on, that's a deceptively hidden cost, it isn't really free.
Wouldn't it be in the true spirit of open source and the Linux kernel if absolutley anyone can do whatever they want with the kernel's source code?
The thing that irritates me is that if they want money, let them charge for it. No problem with that. You can charge for your work. But to make it "free" and then demand that the law enforces control over the software after someone has adapted it feels like such a crooked way of doing things. I would prefer to pay for it, so that I too can get some guarantees of the software being viable in return as well.
It sounds to me like 1) You don't truly own copyleft software 2) You don't get any warranty, or expectation of viability 3) certainly, there is no expectation of support of any kind 4) It is marketed as 'free' (deceptively)
if people make modifications to the software and keep that private later on, let them. it's free, it's theirs now, they can do what they want. If they value it though, it is in their interest to keep the upstream project viable, so sensible users will contribute back. Especially considering how globalized software dev has been, you can't even practically enforce something as weak as copyleft outside of the EU, Canada, Japan, and maybe (long shot) in the US.
You are confusing two different definitions of the word free. And overall you seem to operate from a place of very little understanding of why protection of authorship, copyright, licensing of works etc exists. Please go and research some more. I hope you learn something. You will not be taken seriously by anyone if you continue like this.
> if people make modifications to the software and keep that private later on, let them.
This is perfectly legal under the GPL. What's not legal is redistributing that software you modified but not giving _your_ users the same rights to modification that you yourself got.
Nothing in the GPL requires you to release or distribute personal modified versions of GPL software.
If by "keep that private later on" you mean "plagiarize GPL code to add to a proprietary program and distribute it," yeah that's not allowed- but unless you're a fan of pilfering the commons for personal profit, this is an unmitigated good feature of the license.
As an aside, copyleft is on the exact same legal foundation as the EULAs you seem to respect. It is extremely confusing that you think copyleft is bad but EULAs which provide significantly more restrictions are good.