Considering the Future of Copyleft

Bradley M. Kuhn

Saturday 13 September 2014

Talking Politics and Faith

My mother told me:
- never discuss religion or politics in polite company.
- but I was quite a rebellious kid.
Fact is, anything worthwhile is mired in politics.
- because reasonable, rational actors simply disagree on politics.
Open Source and Free Software is a treacherous political system.
- … not often noticed because nearly all our politics are played by proxy.

A Recitation of Faith

I believe everyone should have the right to copy, share, modify and redistribute all software.
- i.e., I believe in universal software freedom.
I believe that a license can and should be used to defend software freedom (to the maximum extent allowed by law).
- i.e., I believe in strong copyleft.
I believe each developer has the right to decide what Free Software license they choose.
These are moral beliefs, admittedly not facts of truth.
- but the societal permission to make software proprietary is a moral belief on the other side.

Should Copyleft Exist?

I’m not objecting to the debate: Should we have copyleft?
But I’m somewhat sick of defending the idea of copyleft.

The Truce We Once Had

Microsoft “Shared Source” anti-copyleft campaign.
OSCON 2001: The Great Debate.
A Tim O’Reilly Meme-Control Production.
Brian Behlendorf (then) President of Apache Software Foundation stood up for copyleft.
Would ASF do that today?

Back When It Was a Cause …

In high school, I got beat up for being in the environmental club.
We put old cardboard boxes in the classrooms, and collected them every Friday.
I doubt there are many schools that don’t recycle their paper now.
- on the surface, that’s progress.

The Politics of Cooption

I just moved out of a cow-orking facility, called Green Desk.
- marketing: cow-orking that’s good for the environment.
They didn’t even recycle the paper there: just bins to pretend.
- It’s not the first office I’ve worked in like this.
- Usually, I’m the only one who cares.
- most say: eh, “what are you going to do?”

The Politics of Cooption

Once an idea becomes accepted as the “right thing to do”
- … lip service works better than getting it right.
Take the exploitable parts and leaving the rest.
- Ultimately, this is what Open Source is.

Fundamental Assumption Remains

Generally speaking, everyone assumes:
- proprietary software is more lucrative than Free Software.
The veracity of this claim is immaterial.
- only the perception that it’s true matters.
Companies therefore try to keep as much proprietary as they can.

Non-Copyleft Is Easier

If your priority is revenue, proprietary software is a better option.
- or, at least, keep your options open: it’s just good business.
Usual Open Source arguments still apply:
- upstream code when it behooves you …
- … don’t when it doesn’t.

OSCON, 12 years later

Tom Preston-Werner
- Co-founder of GitHub
- The “open source almost everything” guy.
Claims at OSCON 2013:
- “The GPL is a license of restrictions; I don’t like restrictions. just use MIT” [sic]
- So, is he saying Git’s license (GPLv2) is too restrictive & made it impossible to start a business around it?
- Was he announcing GitHub would end support for Git and switch to SVN?
His position is transparently self-serving, yet it’s widely accepted.

Apache Software Foundation Today

If there going to say this …
- … why are we being nice to them politically?

This is not just a theoretical concern. As aggressively as the BSA protects the interests of its commercial members, [GPL enforcers] protect the GPL license in high-profile lawsuits against large corporations. … FSF … writes about their expansion of “active license enforcement”. So the cost of compliance with copyleft code can be even greater than the use of proprietary software, since an organization risks being forced to make the source code for their proprietary product public and available for anyone to use, free of charge.

The Apache Advantage

However, not all open source licenses are copyleft license [sic]. Not all of them have that viral quality that radically increases the risk for an organization. A subset of open source licenses, generally called “permissive” licenses, are much more friendly for corporate use.

— Apache Software Foundation, Compliance Costs and the Apache License

Divide And Conquer

Microsoft wasn’t powerful enough to kill copyleft.
But a thousand uncoordinated start-ups & other business interests can.
This isn’t a conspiracy.
It’s a spontaneous alignment of independent self-interest.

Those Who Forget the Past…

Why is GNU/Linux preferred overwhelming for servers over the BSDs?
- BSDs have great code:
- a few infrastructure pieces are essential: TCP/IP, ssh
Apple sends just enough back to BSDs in resources to keep the core they need.
- adoption vs. software freedom argument, all over again.
This will happen with LLVM too.
- … but GCC will lose a lot of adoption before the pain begins.

This Game Is Over

Free Software played to stalemate with proprietary software on the operating system.
- We got everything from kernel to application API inside the VM servers.
- They got everything else.
Fortunately(?), the software got better overall.
- … but that’s not nearly enough for universal software freedom.

Old Days: xdm, Solaris and NIS+

I once chased a bug from xdm, down through NIS+ to the Solaris kernel
Sun told me my company was “too small” to get it fixed.
It’s one of the experienced that turned me into a Free Software zealot.
Who does this happen to anymore?
- (almost) no one!
- Why?

Chasing the Bug Down the Stack

Meanwhile: even proprietary software got better.
All software got more complex.
The layers of proprietarization got thinner.

The Two New Games

application delivery to the browser.
the “embedded” device, including mobile here.

So, raise your hands:

How many of you run LibreJS and/or NoScript browser plugins?
How many of you use Chromium or Chrome?

The Blurry Line of Javascript

Instantaneous installation of applications that looks like a page hit.
The blurring line of source to object code.
- so subtle that few see it.
- Of course, RMS saw this way back when he wrote GPLv2: “preferred form of the work for making modifications to it”.

JavaScript is an assembly language. JavaScript + HTML is like a .NET assembly. The browser can execute it, but no human should care what’s there.

— Erik Meijer of Microsoft, on 5 July 2011.

Today’s Developers: Children of Web

You never have all the source …
… but you’re often fed a JSON API.
Javascript developers don’t consider idea they’d have “all the source” on hand.
& they didn’t have a copyleft license anyway …
- b/c GPL is the ISC license of web applications.
These are also people who found the startups that hate copyleft.
- These employers let you upstream a bit, after all.
- it’s not clear to employees why they’d need copyleft.

As the Web grows up

They’ll reinvent the wheel more.
- Like all of us old Unix hackers did.
Once you do that enough, you pine for copyleft.
Cooption will hopefully stop working.
But that may take a generation, meanwhile …

Reboostrapping

Slowly, the cooption leaves the only essential GPL’d program as Linux.
Copyleft works only when we have code that companies can’t live without.
- And if GPL isn’t treated like GPL, it doesn’t work either.
The cooption pushes from this side too.

Logically Consistent Copyleft?

GEORGE: Look, uh … I think maybe you better not mention getting your wings around here.
CLARENCE: Why? Don’t they believe in angels?
GEORGE I… yeah, they believe in them…
CLARENCE: Ohhh … Why should they be surprised when they see one?

Logically Consistent Copyleft?

It’s fundamentally hypocrisy to say you support copyleft but oppose GPL enforcement.
- Yet, this is the most common position by for-profit companies …
- … even those that are seemingly pro-copyleft.

If It’s Just a Symbol

If GPL is just merely a symbol with no real authority.
- why bother?
- We might as well all be using the Apache license.
An unenforced copyleft is the functional equivalent to a non-copyleft license.

Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.

— Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being

There’s More To The Embedded Game

Even if we fully uphold Linux’s copyleft, that doesn’t win freedom for embedded devices.
The application space on mobile is just like Microsoft Windows.
- It’s marked the return of the boutique application software company.
- Writing a single, special-purpose, proprietary app is profitable again.
- Fighting these entranced for-profit interests is a new ground war.
How do we guess which mobile applications have a long tail?
- I wish I could give a formula for that. ☹

Recommendations

We’ll have to reestablished the copyleft of Linux and its value.
- Enforcement is the only way to do it.
- I’ve got that one covered.
But, We’ll need to code, code, code useful copylefted stuff.
- Please write copylefted Android & Web Apps!
Old school copyleft hackers: go learn Node.js.
- or whatever the kids are into.
- code on your own time.
- And tell your employer you want to keep your copyrights, &
- copyleft your stuff: with Affero GPL.

More Info / Talk License

URLs / Social Networking / Email:
- Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy
- A Book I helped write: Copyleft and the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial is available.
- Me: faif.us & ebb.org/bkuhn
- Slides: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks & gitorious.org/bkuhn/talks (source)
- DONATE: https://sfconservancy.org/donate/

Some images included herein are ©’ed by others. I believe my use of those images is fair use under USA © law. However, I suggest you remove such images if you redistribute these slides under CC-By-SA 4.0.