| ▲ | Arcuru 19 hours ago |
| Personally I really like the normalization of these "Permissively" licensed models that only restrict companies with massive revenues from using them for free. If you want to use something, and your company makes $240,000,000 in annual revenue, you should probably pay for it. |
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| ▲ | badsectoracula 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| These are not permissively licensed though, the terms "permissive license" has connotations that pretty much everyone who is into FLOSS understands (same with "open source"). I do not mind having a license like that, my gripe is with using the terms "permissive" and "open source" like that because such use dilutes them. I cannot think of any reason to do that aside from trying to dilute the term (especially when some laws, like the EU AI Act, are less restrictive when it comes to open source AIs specifically). |
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| ▲ | kouteiheika 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I do not mind having a license like that, my gripe is with using the terms "permissive" and "open source" like that because such use dilutes them. I cannot think of any reason to do that aside from trying to dilute the term (especially when some laws, like the EU AI Act, are less restrictive when it comes to open source AIs specifically). Good. In this case, let it be diluted! These extra "restrictions" don't affect normal people at all, and won't even affect any small/medium businesses. I couldn't care less that the term is "diluted" and that makes it harder for those poor, poor megacorporations. They swim in money already, they can deal with it. We can discuss the exact threshold, but as long as these "restrictions" are so extreme that they only affect huge megacorporations, this is still "permissive" in my book. I will gladly die on this hill. | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Good. In this case, let it be diluted! These extra "restrictions" don't affect normal people at all, Yes, they do, and the only reason for using the term “open source” for things whose licensing terms flagrantly defy the Open Source definition is to falsely sell the idea that using the code carries the benefits that are tied to the combination of features that are in the definition and which are lost with only a subset of those features. The freedom to use the software in commercial services is particularly important to end-users that are not interested in running their own services as a guarantee against lock-in and of whatever longevity they are able to pay to have provided even if the original creator later has interests that conflict with offering the software as a commercial service. If this deception wasn't important, there would be no incentive not to use the more honest “source available for limited uses” description. | |
| ▲ | JoshTriplett 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I couldn't care less that the term is "diluted" and that makes it harder It also makes life harder for individuals and small companies, because this is not Open Source. It's incompatible with Open Source, it can't be reused in other Open Source projects. Terms have meanings. This is not Open Source, and it will never be Open Source. | | |
| ▲ | kouteiheika 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It also makes life harder for individuals and small companies, because this is not Open Source. It's incompatible with Open Source, it can't be reused in other Open Source projects. I'm amazed at the social engineering that the megacorps have done with the whole Open Source (TM) thing. They engineered a whole generation of engineers to advocate not in their own self-interest, nor for the interest of the little people, but instead for the interest of the megacorps. As soon as there is even the tiniest of restrictions, one which doesn't affect anyone besides a bunch of richiest corporations in the world, a bunch of people immediately come out of the woodwork, shout "but it's not open source!" and start bullying everyone else to change their language. Because if you even so much as inconvenience a megacorporation even a little bit it's not Open Source (TM) anymore. If we're talking about ideals then this is something I find unsettling and dystopian. I hard disagree with your "It also makes life harder for individuals and small companies" statement. It's the opposite. It gives them a competitive advantage vs megacorps, however small it may be. |
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| ▲ | whimsicalism 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| That's fine, but I don't think you should call it open source or call it MIT or even 'modified MIT.' Call it Mistral license or something along those lines |
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| ▲ | joseda-hg 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's probably better, but Modified MIT is pretty descriptive, I read it as "mostly MIT, but with caveats for extreme cases" which is about right, if you already know what the MIT license entails Whatever name they come up with for a new license will be less useful, because I'll have to figure out that this is what that is | |
| ▲ | fastball 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world. Wishing it meant "very permissively licensed" to everyone is a lost cause. And honestly it wasn't a good hill to begin with: if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license". The source code is out in the open, so it is "open source". This is why the purists have lost ground to practical usage. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. As someone who was born and raised on FOSS, and still mostly employed to work on FOSS, I disagree. Open source is what it is today because it's built by people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals even if it means less money, less industry recognition, lots of unglorious work and lots of other negatives. It's not purist to believe that what built open source so far should remain open source, and not wanting to dilute that ecosystem with things that aren't open source, yet call themselves open source. | | |
| ▲ | kouteiheika 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Open source is what it is today because it's built by people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals even if it means less money, less industry recognition, lots of unglorious work and lots of other negatives. With all due respect, don't you see the irony in saying "people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals", and then arguing that attaching "restrictions" which only affect the richest megacorporations in the world somehow makes the license not permissive anymore? What ideals are those exactly? So that megacorporations have the right to use the software without restrictions? And why should we care about that? | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | > What ideals are those exactly? Anyone can use the code for whatever purpose they want, in any way they want. I've never been a "rich megacorporation", but I have gone from having zero money to having enough money, and I still think the very same thing about the code I myself release as I did from the beginning, it should be free to be used by anyone, for any purpose. |
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| ▲ | fastball 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You should stand up for your ideals, but dying on the hill of what you call your ideals is actually getting in the way of that. Because instead of making the point "this license isn't as permissive as it could/should be" (easy to understand), instead the point being made is "this isn't real open source", which comes across to most people as just some weird gate-keeping / No True Scotsman kinda thing. | | |
| ▲ | JoshTriplett 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "No True Scotsman" is about specifically about changing the rules to exclude a new example you don't want to permit. The rules haven't changed, and the attempts to violate the requirements aren't new. Proprietary licenses continue to be proprietary. Open Source continues to not allow restrictions on commercial use. | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | no, “No True Scotsman” is just about people not categories like open source | | |
| ▲ | fastball 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Good job missing the point. Though given the stance you are taking in this conversation, I'm not surprised you want to quibble over that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | ultimately you have to imbue words with meaning, otherwise it is impossible to have a discussion. what i said about no true scotsman was false, i was just trying to prove a point. | | |
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| ▲ | JoshTriplett 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And back in the day, people incorrectly called it "public domain". That was wrong too. > if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license". If you want to build something proprietary, call it something else. "Open Source" is taken. | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world well we don't really want to open that can of worms though, do we? I don't agree with ceding technical terms to the rest of the world. I'm increasingly told we need to stop calling cancer detection AI "AI" or "ML" because it is not the 'bad AI' and confuses people. I guess I'm okay with being intransigent. | | |
| ▲ | fastball 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you are happy that time is being spent quibbling over definitions instead of actually focusing on the ideal, I'm not sure you care about the ideals as much as you say you do. Who gives a shit what we call "cancer AI", what matters is the result. |
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| ▲ | jsnell 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't think you get access to source in this case. The release is a binary blob. |
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| ▲ | jrm4 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're presently illustrating exactly why Stallman et al were such sticklers about "Free Software." "Open Source" is nebulous. It reasonably works here, for better or worse. | | |
| ▲ | stonemetal12 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >"Open Source" is nebulous No it isn't it is well defined. The only people who find it "nebulous" are people who want the benefits without upholding the obligations. https://opensource.org/definition-annotated | |
| ▲ | whimsicalism 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Free software to me means GPL and associates, so if that is what Stallman was trying to be a stickler for - it worked. Open source has a well understood meaning, including licenses like MIT and Apache - but not including MIT but only if you make less than $500million dollars, MIT unless you were born on a wednesday, etc. | | |
| ▲ | whimblepop 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | MIT and Apache are free software licenses in Stallman's sense, and the FSF has always been clear about it. |
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