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Thoughts on Post-Open Source? (www.theregister.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What loophole? I think they're just blatantly violating it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Enshittification continues

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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

Love this.