Re: [libreplanet-discuss] ethical edtech edit-a-thon

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

Em 11/03/2019 20:18, Erin Glass escreveu:
> I'm writing to let you know about the 'Ethical Ed Tech
> <https://ethicaledtech.info/wiki/Meta:Welcome_to_Ethical_EdTech>' wiki and
> edit-a-thon on April 3 that may be of interest to the free software
> community.

Nice initiative indeed. Awesome! :D

As for the definitions of free/libre software and the other one, open
source, I think that the graph and explanation in [1] and [2] provide
insights on when those differ. The page in [2] does a wonderful job on
explaining in abstract what I'll say in this message, Besides, in the
field of *strategies* or *tactics* as to how to foster or advance
software freedom, the two groups also differ strongly, as can be seen in
various works such as [3][4][5][6]. Particularly, [6] explains why you
might see some people debating or advocating for stronger and auto
upgradable copyleft licenses such as AGPL-3.0-or-later for every kind of
work.

Technically, free/libre software activists and open source proponents
can work together in a given project, but they'll mostly disagree in
regards to which aspects to priorize in the balance between freedom of
the software for the very-end-user vs. other characteristic (e.g.: ease
of use, graphical friendliness, speed, adoption by other people).

In practice, Open Source Initiative's definition of open source seems to
enable works with digital handcuffs to fit in nicely to that category.
These handcuffs are ways that the copyright holders found to go beyond
the copyright law so as to take some already-given freedoms of the
software away from the very-end-user, measure also known for being
para-copyright[7]. Thus, the non-compliants can take a GPL-2.0-only work
and make derivated works that are distributed as cryptographically
signed execuables in smartphones/tablets and even in the engine control
units that decide how a car will develop/work while being driven, in
devices or vehicles that do signature checks to see if the cryptographic
keys and the binary/executable match.

This is such a problem that there are people in the free/libre software
movement advocating for the use of strong and auto upgradable copyleft
licenses (the AGPL-3.0-or-later comes to mind).

Trademarks (simply put: the registered logos and friendly names that
appear everywhere) are also accepted in the free/libre software movement
as long as the trademark *policies* don't take away the essential
freedoms of the software. Patents (which describe how to do something in
detail) are also accepted to some extent, with the advantage that the
GPL-3.0-or-later and AGPL-3.0-or-later provide better legal provisions
in favor of both the original copyright holders and the very-end-users[8].


[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-open-overlap.html
[3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
[4]
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/when-free-software-isnt-practically-superior.html
[5] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html
[6] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html
[7] https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech10.html#x13-790009.5
[8]
https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech10.html#x13-930009.14
[9] https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech10.html#x13-830009.9

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