“It” is the state of the outdoors

JP is an atheist

He won’t readily admit to that either. He somehow sits in the void between atheists and theists.

I think that’s a really accurate characterization. He has mastered the art of speaking without communicating.

audience already agrees that complicity in genocide is an acceptable tradeoff to software freedoms

I talked about that to show one possible counterbalance between liberty and usages which are probably not explicitly wanted by the authors.

Another common example of freedom/restrictions is someone wanting to have their software permissively licensed while also not allowing cloud vendors to resell access to it. That’s how you end up with licenses like Elastic’s.

Or, if you want another example of “free”, look at the distinction between the GPL and the BSD license as it applies to Sony and the Playstation. One of the reason Sony chose BSD for the basis of its gaming system is because the BSD license allows for commercial usage. In that sense it is MORE free than the GPL, which would not allow the type of usage Sony did with the Playstation without conferring more responsibility to Sony, for instance, releasing their source. Under BSD they have no obligation to do so, hence it is more free in that respect.

My whole point is a lot of people say “I want my software to be freely licensed” but they do not realize that they may be unintentionally opening the door to usages of the software that they do not want to see.

One should not pick a license that allows for unfettered usage of the software if you have certain ways you don’t want to see it used.

As a final parting example, look at Prusa and their printers. They release the firmware and designs as open source. They they later get angry when companies clone their designs. This is permissible under the license. This is making Prusa want to lock down their future designs to avoid that usage.

Anyone considering licensing of their own software should think very carefully about what usages they support or object to and license the software accordingly. If you release your software as BSD licensed and some company comes along and makes a billion dollars with it, you aren’t owned a cent under that agreement. If this makes you angry, don’t pick BSD.

Freedom comes with uncomfortable ramifications. This is inescapable. Freedom includes doing things that a given individual isn’t comfortable with. If you’re not happy with this trade-off, don’t use a license that allows “any” usage.

Well, at least no one would possibly have anything to say about Israel…

Closed source browsers are rare today, and even those are built on the open source browser cores.

Any browser that’s not Chrome is rare today. I’m not sure pointing at Chrome as a well-managed open source project is a good idea. Although one can view the source, Google controls the codebase and development process with an iron hand. Any feature that is a good idea technically, but will hurt Google is a no-go to have merged.

I can’t wait for the surge in cheap PCs available to buy and install Linux on. Please, Microsoft, lock down Windows more.

Meanwhile, poor Jellyfin just quietly doing the job.

That doesn’t undermine my point, that proves my point. Making something “FREE” (as in libre) comes with the consequence that people can use it for whatever they want. I assume you don’t agree with bombing Gaza, hence it is a perfect example of “freedom” leading to poor outcomes.

Yes. Open standards always win, given time. No one keeps paying for a closed standard, once the open (free!) one is just as good.

Like Gimp? Oh, wait that didn’t take over. Well, at least Libreoffice is the standard office suite today, oh wait, that didn’t take over. Well, Linux is the most used operating system at least. Whoops, except Android counts as that and it’s increasingly locked down.

Simply grabbed it, and without contributing anything to the project did nothing except stripped the branding and then go sell it.

Unless this is specifically called out in the license, this is an activity allowed by many permissive open source licenses. If they knew that this type of activity was unwanted initially, then they didn’t choose the proper license.

Easy, because they want the social credibility of being open source, but also later, when the project gets big, they want to dictate exactly who uses it and how.

If you care about how your software is used to this degree – don’t open source it! Every open source package I have ever made has come with a permissive license, because I want people to be able to use it however they wish. That’s actual freedom. Unfortunately, a subset of “however they wish” can also be “used to bomb Gaza”, but that is the cost of liberty and freedom. You have to take the good with the bad.

Is there anything, ever, that’s trended towards more open?

Democrat/Republican is all a smoke show. They both agree that Israel deserves our money. You’re not allowed to question it. You’re not allowed to boycott them. Even bringing it up is anti-Semitic activity.

If you want to know who the real bosses are, look at who it’s illegal to criticize.

A big part of the appeal with Plex is that you can run a server and friends can sign up for a FREE account and stream remotely. When you take this away, you’re going to just kneecap the whole offering. This is such an arrogant move from Plex: they are thinking that when this change goes live they will get a flood of subscriptions. The more likely outcome is they will get a few subscriptions and a lot more angry and frustrated people that walk away.

I keep a Jellyfin instance running as a hedge. Here’s the thing with Plex (and actually a lot of companies set up similarly): those “lifetime” memberships are a trap. Think about it: Plex gets your money ONCE but they have ongoing expenses. Sooner or later, they’ll have spent every single cent made by a lifetime membership unless they either get more folks OR squeeze everyone a bit more.

Once they started adding their own shows and making strange UI decisions, I could sense the end was coming. A move like this brings it up fast. Jellyfin is not nearly as good as Plex in a lot of ways, but it’s really Open Source.

Anyway, a lot of rambling, but in short: when there is a “lifetime” subscription, watch out!