Bruce Perens proposes draft Post-Open Zero Cost License
Bruce Perens proposes draft Post-Open Zero Cost License
Software doyen hopes to achieve a third impossible thing
Fuck this bullshit. This problem was of your own making, Bruce, by pushing "Open Source" and permissive licensing over "Free Software" and copyleft.
It’s not really free software if I get to tell you what you have to do with it, now is it?
not entirely sure but this doesn't feel like something the fsf would like . most definetly it violates freedoms 0. because it discriminates against companies with over 5 M$ in income and against people living in Japan (see 2.14 , though I'm not sure its enough to qualify) , and possibly by restricting what you can do with the software , though I'm not sure on that one . it also violates freedoms 2. and 3. by requiring publicly releasing your changes (fsf requires that free software licenses allow for private modifications) and possibly by requiring contacting the licensor or the post-open administration though I'm unsure of if it does (entering into a post-open source zero-cost / paid contract seems to me to imply contacting either the licensor or the post-open administration) .
further reading :
He's talking about compensation to developers.
How would "Free Software" help with getting developers paid vs. "Open Source Software"?
First of all, that's not really the point. The goal of Free Software was always about trying to ensure users maintained sovereignty over their computers, so they couldn't be exploited by DRM and other forms of enshittification.
Second, while copyleft doesn't get developers paid directly, it does at least given them a fairer chance to compete on more equal footing with big tech companies that would otherwise embrace and (closed-source) extend if it were permissively-licensed.
He's already pointing out the problems himself:
The difference is that Spotify is a for-profit corporation. And they have to distribute profits to their stockholders before they pay the musicians. And as a result, the musicians complain that they're not getting very much at all.
Yea, so at Spotify the profits are distributed "equally" - meaning Taylor Swift with 1 billion listens per month gets 99.9999% of the profits, [[Obscure metal band]] with 100 listens gets $0.001. However, if I only listened to [[Obscure metal band]] and nothing else, shouldn't my entire $5.99/month go to [[Obscure metal band]]? And not be pooled with stuff I didn't listen to?
How would this work with a "Post-Open software administrative organization"? Ubuntu has 1 billion installs, my [[Obscure open source library]] is used by a couple of companies, and it's the only "Post-Open software" that those companies use - Do I get that 1 percent of their revenue? Or does administrative organization siphon it away, keep 0.1%, and send the other 0.9% to the top 10 "Post-Open Projects"..?
Companies would have to publish which "Post-Open software" software they're using, and to what extend. For example, if Ubuntu would be Post-Open-software, it uses loads of inner projects and libraries, which again use more and more libraries, some might being Post-Open software. You'd have to create a whole financial dependency tree per company to determine how to distribute their revenue fairly
The basic idea is companies making more than $5 million annually by using Post-Open software in a paid-for product would be required to pay 1 percent of their revenue back to this administrative organization, which would distribute the funds to the maintainers of the participating open source project(s). That would cover all Post-Open software used by the organization.
@[email protected] sounds a lot like your idea!
What stops companies from having a shell corporation use the code, and then that shell company rents "services" at a very low cost to a large corp?
I'm thinking something of the opposite if what Google does, where Alphabet (""located"" in Ireland) rents the Google logo to Google, allowing Google to say that their revenue is much less than it actually is.
EDIT: After some research, it seems that they stopped doing that: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/01/google-says-it-will-no-longer-use-double-irish-dutch-sandwich-tax-loophole
But a similar scheme being applied to this license does concern me.
I share the concern. However, just because things are hard doesn't mean they shouldn't be done. The current free-loading situation of mega-corps is disgusting and if that can be deterred, stifled, or hamstrung, I'm for it. The solution cannot be perfect because legal code is just like code: never perfect. There will always be a loophole somewhere, it just shouldn't be made extremely obvious and easy to find. The harder it is to circumvent, the better.
P.S Fuck Google regardless
It's surprising to me that there hasn't been a successful license like this yet. I imagine there are other people considering one too. It looks like he's made more progress than I did though.
My first imprsesion is that 1% of revenue seems low. In comparison
- Epic - 5%
- Apple - 30%
- Google - 30%
- Amazon - 15-45%
- Twitch - 30%
I noticed
Post-Open requires a central entity that receives and apportions payment, does enforcement, and operates the service entity (or three central entities, one for each purpose). Open Source developers are very independent, and have not had to deal with a central entity until now, even one that they own.
I think there needs to be very careful consideration when creating organizations to manage a royalty that would apply to the entire industry.
As an example, I imagine there are organizations that dislike Doctors without Borders because they serve communities within Russia or Iran. If there's political takeover on an industry license, it could exclude ever being paid for open source work when it touches sensitive topics.
There's also the risk of financial takeover. The moment the organization starts collecting billions of dollars from copyrighted works, there's extreme incentive for takeover from tech companies. It sounds insane to me to consider something like "developers should sign all their software over to Oracle and trust Oracle to distribute it back." Though, I'm not ready to rule out that an organization can't be successful.
It also creates the complicated question for who should be entitled to funding, and I think it could be tempting to make the case that certain charitable software projects should receive funding. This is in significant contrast to a company like Apple, which collects 30% and can spend it on anything Apple desires. I currently think developers should primarily be entitled to receive the royalty, and if they desire to allocate it to non-profits, that's their decision.
I still really have to think about it.
I like that he's well known. It seems like he is politically controversial. I tried some searches, and it seems like there are mixed opinions about him. I don't personally know the entire history. I think it would be good for a well known and trusted person to champion this type of license.
It also looks like he's open making changes to it. In the article it says he is searching for volunteers and legal funding.
I agree with your points. Centralizing the funds of all opensource using this license is simple, but dangerous. It could easily turn into another Mozilla and lose its way.
There probably isn't a perfect solution, but there are least 2 people on this planet thinking about it unimpeded by the OSI's opensource definition, which is good.
I think the 1% is so that a company didn't shy away from open source completely. I don't know how it will work for example if the company is using 5 of this license. Will they pay 5% or 1%? Probably 1%, but I didn't see it addressed in the article. Anyway, since the cost is small for a big company, but can be huge in number for an individual, I think it is fair.
Also, what if a contributor is acting on behalf of a company? Would the company receive the payment or the individual contributor? There is just so much to cover.