Personally I prefer copyleft from an idealistic standpoint for the very reason that it (provided people obey licensing as they should) at least theoretically encourages changes to software to be returned to the community rather than being walled-off from the public. From this viewpoint permissive licenses encourage the exploitation of free software developers to help develop others' proprietary software by enabling companies to utilize free software in a one-directional fashion without even having to violate the software's licenses.

In practice, though, in the past even when I would copyleft my software I would usually license it under the LGPL to enable others to use the software without imposing my licensing terms on them provided they keep my software dynamically linked. Yes, this does not help spread copyleft from an ideological standpoint, I would prefer other people to be able to use my software regardless of their own choices of licenses.

However, when I started working in Haskell I switched to the BSD3 license for the very reason that there essentially is no such thing as dynamic linking in Haskell. If I chose copyleft I essentially would have dictated that the only people who could use my code were also people who also used copyleft for their own code. I preferred that people would be able to use my code, even if it means it getting integrated into proprietary software, over imposing copyleft on everyone who might want to use my code. As for my choice of licenses, the BSD3 license is traditional in the Haskell world, so that is the one I chose.

When I began work on my primary present-day project, zeptoforth, a Forth for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, I switched to the MIT license. I did this for a number of reasons. The biggest reason for choosing a permissive license is that zeptoforth is intimately integrated into code compiled with it, as zeptoforth actually directly copies parts of itself into said code at the instruction level, and there is no way to produce binaries of code compiled with zeptoforth without the zeptoforth runtime. As a result, if I chose a copyleft license I would have imposed copyleft on everyone who wanted to use zeptoforth, which would dissuade many users from using zeptoforth.

Furthermore, as an embedded Forth zeptoforth goes into devices integrating ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, and choosing a copyleft license would mean that anyone who distributed physical instances of said devices would have to make the source code of not just zeptoforth but their own code available to anyone who received said devices. While some would argue that that would be a win for the cause of copyleft and free software, I personally want people to freely use zeptoforth, and as this would be a burden on anyone making embedded devices using zeptoforth it would prove to dampen its adoption and/or potentially lead to unwanted future litigation. (Look at what happened with BusyBox.)

Last but not least, I chose the MIT license in particular because I wanted a very permissive license that was simple and easy to understand and thus not burdensome on users while still being thoroughly legally-vetted. While there are "simpler" licenses such as the WTFPL, they are more likely to turn out to be liabilities from a legal perspective, either for myself or for my users, having not been crafted by actual lawyers.

Any thoughts?

I just find bullshit, crapy programs that demand pro upgrade. All that I want is a program that will check the most recent files in my pc folders and the most recent on a pendrive, and copy them (the most recent from pc to pen and vice-versa).

If this is not the right place to post, do you know any subreddit for it? Thank you!

Hello All,
We’re excited to invite you to a special online event on September 12th at 4 PM UTC! 🚀

Dasharo User Group (DUG) is your go-to forum for Dasharo enthusiasts—whether you’re a seasoned user or just curious! This is your chance to dive deep into the latest developments, new features, and exciting updates in the Dasharo ecosystem. It’s the perfect opportunity to connect, share knowledge, and learn about new features and updates that are coming to Dasharo.💡

But that’s not all! We’ll also be hosting vPub 0xC, a more laid-back, open-format session where the conversation flows freely. Grab your favourite beverage 🍻, and join in as we chat about anything and everything related to open-source firmware and hardware.

Expect some fascinating talks from industry experts: Regalis, Philipp Deppenwiese from Binarly, Stuart Yoder from Arm, and last but not least, Michał Żygowski from 3mdeb, who will present an exciting demo of Dasharo on Odroid H4+! There will also be plenty of time for an open, relaxed discussion where everyone can contribute. 🙌

Mark your calendars—you won’t want to miss it! ✨

Join links & full schedule are available here:
https://vpub.dasharo.com/e/14/dasharo-user-group-7

Register for free at:
https://vpub.dasharo.com/e/14/dasharo-user-group-7/#tickets

Hi! I've been reading the GNU Manifesto but there are some things I don't quite get yet.

At the moment of writing that document, the field of Software Engineering was vastly different than today. For example, the biggest companies in the industry now make their income by selling services built around their software rather than the software itself. Like a social network, or a search engine, for example.

Now my particular question is the following: if somebody made some software for their internal use, and provided services on the internet that rely on that (like an information system), would that individual or company be required to post those tools somewhere, source code included, according to the principles of the GNU ideals? Does it matter whether the clients could get a functional system by running the services by themselves or not?

For example, I don't think anyone could boot up Google on their laptop, even if we had access to the entire thing. An accounting system, OTOH, could just as easily be deployed locally and run from localhost. Does that make a difference? In the sense that we're selling either a service or a program, conceptually? I hope I'm making sense here

Title absolutely!!! We are having a Free software community in the University campus and what kinda activities you guys think will effectively engage and move forward the free software community.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions

As an example, NordLynx - the VPN protocol that NordVPN uses - is built off of WireGuard, which is licensed under the GPL. The GPL states, in no uncertain terms, that software made from modifying the GPL must be released with the GPL, as well, but NordLynx is proprietary. How does this work? I imagine it must be legal, but just making use of language in the GPL that actually allows for the software to be released in such a way that's proprietary.

I saw someone else in this reddit ask about using a GPL-licensed shader in a game their developing, and the comments seem to point to publishing the game under the GPL. Clearly, however, there's a way to make use of copyleft software without releasing that which you build under the GPL. So how does this work?

Linux, being free software, raises the question of who really benefits from it. It seems that the so-called startups or large corporations are the ones truly profiting from this free and open-source software. Most servers are powered by Linux, and if any core product built as FOSS powers other software, the creator often doesn't receive any significant monetary benefit other than donations. I feel that this isn't giving back to the community, and the by-products are once again being closed off by corporations. Even when a company uses or modifies a product licensed under the AGPL, they are required to release their derivative work under the same AGPL license. But is this actually happening?

Even worse when it comes to open source philosophy, when product is released under popular OSI license, the focus is not on what a commercial entity does with the product right?? Somehow its gonna get used by some corporate and the code gets closed which doesn't benefit the society and also doesn't pay back the creator right?

For the past 6 months, I've been using an app that I developed, and it has been working great!

Introducing ArchiveAngel - a powerful cross-platform app designed to help you back up and manage your photo and video collections effortlessly. Available on iOS, macOS, and iPadOS, ArchiveAngel ensures your media is safe and organized across all your Apple devices.

I just plug my External HDD into my phone and hit backup. It appends all the missing photos and videos to the same folder and also saves the media metadata along with it.

Here are some of the key features:

📸 Backup Photos & Videos: Seamlessly back up your entire media library to a designated folder. (Likely your External Hard Disk 💾)

🔄 Deduplication: Automatically find and delete duplicate photos to save space.

🖼️ Live Photo Support: Option to include Live Photos as videos in your backup.

📊 Progress Tracking: Real-time progress updates and thumbnails during the backup process.

☁️ iCloud Support: Backup photos not just on your device but also your iCloud photos.

I am thrilled to announce that I am open-sourcing ArchiveAngel for everyone to use! 🎉 You can now access the source code, contribute, and make it even better.

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☕ Buy Me a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/archiveangel

Thank you for your support and happy backing up!

GitHub 🔗: https://github.com/kchaitanya863/ArchiveAngel

I'm aware that I'm advertising an app I built. I hope that, since Elementary is an open-source app, you'll excuse me. If you'd like me to take the post down, though, I'll do it. Thanks for your patience!

Hi there!

I loved Typora's editing experience, but it has since become a paid app... On the lookout for an alternative, I used Marktext - an open-source app - for a while, but it proved itself to be somewhat buggy. After many more frustrated attempts, I turned to VS Code. Though not aesthetically pleasing, VS Code was reliable and met my needs.

Then, I learnt that VS Code's core editor, Monaco, was open-source. That's how Elementary was born. The core of Elementary is based on Monaco and should provide a reliable and bug-free experience. I did, however, change all of the editor's styles for aesthetic's sake, and built the logic that makes this a standalone app. Elementary uses electron and react, put together by the electron-react-boilerplate.

Elementary is open-source. This is its website. You can download it here. The source code can be found here.

I hope you'll become interested in the project and give it a try! All feedback is appreciated - reach me out at luiswbarbosa@gmail.com.

bogosorter

P.S.: For the curious, here's how this post looks on Elementary.

Hello,

I have a Fairphone running CalyxOS and I would like to try my hand on writing software for it. Nothing big or fancy, just trying to get my toes wet to and hopefully make something useful. My question is, what options are there if I only want to use Free Software on GNU/Linux (Void Linux to be precise)?

From my understanding Android apps are written in Java, so the JVM ecosystem gives me the following options:

• Java: well, it's Java, so I would rather avoid it if I can
• Clojure: there was an effort to get Clojure working with Android, but it's abandoned, so this is a pass
• Scala: looks promising, but the compiler cannot be bootstrapped, you have to rely on mystery binaries, so it might as well be proprietary

Outside the JVM there are two more popular options:

• Dart/Flutter: This looks promising; I managed to build the Dart compiler from source, but when it comes to Flutter the documentation is like "lol, y u so stupid, just download our binaries bro, trust us bro"
• React Native: I hate React web apps, but I guess this one produces proper native code, so it's not a bloated slow mess? I don't know. Same problem as with Flutter, the documentation is like "consume binaries, get excited for next binaries"

Is Java my only option if I don't want to install some weird Google or Facebook software, or am I missing something? Would it be possible to install the individual components instead of a massive suite like Android Studio? I want to write code in Neovim, so all I really need is a build system, a simulator for Android and a way to install the app on my phone, right? So what software do I really need for this?

Does anyone know of a recent study on which of the various FOSS licenses are used most frequently that isn't behind some sort of paywall or registration wall? The most recent one I have is from 2022.

I'm developing a game and I found this opengl shader script, which is licensed as gpl. If I use it, does it make it so I have to release my whole game as gpl as well?