Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
Solomon, you are the main person in the project now -- not only developer-wise, but you also host the infrastructure. You apparently have muc hexperience in the open source field. So if it would only depend on me then I'd say: Do like you think is best. Your explanations have a solid ground. Thank you for your involvement!
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Saturday, October 3, 2020 5:44 PM, Solomon Peachy via rockbox-dev wrote: > But all that aside, this got me thinking; the SFC also accepts "member > projects" to operate under their umbrella, providing services including > handling donations (which become tax-deductible!), holding assets, legal > support, and copyright enforcement. [4] I think the key question to be answered here is whether the cost of membership (specifically having to donate 10% of our donations) is outweighed by the direct benefit of services (and perhaps the indirect publicity benefits of association with the SFC, etc.). My guess as to the answer is a very strong "yes." If anything, tax-deductible donations and more publicity would probably incentivize more donations, so I think the cost is pretty much negligible from a financial standpoint. (And besides, we apparently only bring in about USD $75/month so a 10% cut of that is hardly a fortune). As far as benefits go, association with a larger legal entity would do a lot to reinforce project longevity, especially since we're no longer under the Haxx umbrella as we had been for many years. We'd also gain access to some useful legal services should another Tetr--err, "falling block game" or "PluginJewels" incident ever arise again -- so all in all, I'm fully supportive of this idea. -- Franklin
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Sun, Oct 04, 2020 at 03:00:50PM +0100, Sam Kuper via rockbox-dev wrote: > - limited personal liability protection for project leaders; > - legal advice; I'd like to point out that this is a very real concern. What sorts of legal issues could Rockbox face? Here's what comes to mind. It's probably nowhere near comprehensive: * DMCA anti-circumvention violations (we sorta "jailbreak" player hardware) * Patent infringement (lots of litigous codec folks out there!) * GPDR-related insanity * Companies that think reverse engineering is just a fancy term that means "you stole our secret intellectual property" * Copyright infringement from mis-contributed source code * Takedown requests for forum, wiki, or other hosted content * Someone objecting to nominally-legal content posted on the wiki or forums * Anything involving [mis]use of donated funds * Professional trolls and other meanies Keep in mind that there is no "Rockbox" legal entity, so "Rockbox" actually means means individual developers/contributors -- and as the one who's currently hosting the infrastructure and is perhaps the highest-profile current developer (I do talk a lot, heh..) if a legal axe is swung at Rockbox, I'm going to be the first one hit. Even if it's a completely baseless accusation, fighting it is certain to prove ruinously expensive. This isn't to say that being a member project of the SFC (or whomever) will make these risks magically go away, but if something bad does transpire, at least we'd have someone in our corner of the ring. - Solomon -- Solomon Peachypizza at shaftnet dot org (email) @pizza:shaftnet dot org (matrix) High Springs, FL speachy (freenode) signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Sun, Oct 04, 2020 at 02:51:01PM +0200, Al Le via rockbox-dev wrote:
>> Out of interest, what don't you like about them?
>
> For me, they are sort of like of snitch.
I guess that this is referring to license enforcement. I'll address
that below.
But note that the SFC (as Solomon mentioned) can perform other
beneficial administrative work on behalf of member projects:[0]
- collecting donations and performing book-keeping;
- other fundraising assistance;
- limited personal liability protection for project leaders;
- legal advice;
etc.
AFAIK, the SFC won't do anything on behalf of a member project without
the member project's consent. The SFC exists to *help* Free Software
projects, not hurt them!
So, even if you aren't sure about license enforcement, maybe you can
appreciate that SFC membership could still be beneficial to Rockbox?
> Observing of licence infringement is needed if a company's business is
> creating an open source software and selling licenses for it. I think,
> such companies do that themselves.
>
> Rockbox is not of this sort.
>
> The best appreciation sign for a piece of software (or anything) is
> if's being stealt. (V. Nabokov, changed by me)
If the Rockbox developers' intentions were for people to be able to
"steal" Rockbox (e.g. incorporate it into their software without
following license terms), then they could have chosen to release it as
"public domain" software (or equivalent: CC-0, WTFPL, etc.).
But that isn't the case; instead, Rockbox is under the GPL. This
provides advantages that "public domain" releases do not offer. It
means that if someone makes improvements to Rockbox and distributes
those improvements in binary form (e.g. as firmware in an MP3 player
device), then they also have to share the source code. This in turn
means that those improvements can be incorporated into the main Rockbox
codebase that we all use. It's fair: just as the third party (e.g. a
hardware manufacturer) benefits from the existing work done by the
Rockbox community, so the Rockbox community benefits from any additional
work done by the third party. Win-win. *That* is "the best
appreciation". It is respectful and ethical. (Rockbox does this with
software that it incorporates, btw.[2])
But if someone takes the Rockbox codebase and uses it without respecting
the license, that is not "the best appreciation"; it is selfish and
unethical. It is exploiting others' work without giving credit. It is
literally disrespectful of the express wishes of the development
community (as stated in the license). It also happens to be unlawful.
Sam
P.S. A good example showing why enforcing Free Software licenses is not
"snitching" but good practice ("win-win", as I said above) is the WRT54G
story.[3] If Linux developers had not enforced the GPL there, then
Linksys would have continued ripping off their customers and the Linux
community, and humanity would have had to wait much longer for powerful
and customisable Linux-based Free Software home/office router firmware
to become available.
Now the benefits have come full circle. After the GPL enforcement
forced Linksys to publish their modifications and associated source
code, Free Software developers incorporated Linksys's work into projects
like OpenWRT and DD-WRT and made further improvements. After *that*
happened, Linksys (and other hardware companies like Buffalo) realised
they could make money and improve their customers' satisfaction by
selling routers with DD-WRT pre-installed or by helping DD-WRT
developers to support their hardware.[4] Win-win! :)
[0] https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
[2] https://git.rockbox.org/cgit/rockbox.git/tree/docs/LICENSES
[3]
https://web.archive.org/web/20051208105928/http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3562391
https://lkml.org/lkml/2003/6/7/164
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/03/07/06/2121234/linksys-releases-gpled-code-for-wrt54g
[4]
https://web.archive.org/web/20090114212329/http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=121822=#121822
https://web.archive.org/web/20190317212904/https://www.zdnet.com/article/dd-wrt-linux-firmware-comes-to-linksys-routers/
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Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Sun, Oct 04, 2020 at 02:51:01PM +0200, Al Le via rockbox-dev wrote: > For me, they are sort of like of snitch. This is only a portion of what they do. (FWIW, I agree with it though) > Observing of licence infringement is needed if a company's business is > creating an open source software and selling licenses for it. I think, > such companies do that themselves. > > Rockbox is not of this sort. Correct, but it is heavily reliant on hardware made by folks that are actively violating the licenses to the software they include, by virtue of not releasing their source code. > The best appreciation sign for a piece of software (or anything) is if's > being stealt. (V. Nabokov, changed by me) Strong GPL enforcement makes Rockbox a lot more sustainable in the long run. Not because folks are violating Rockbox's license (tbh, I wish we actually had that problem; to your point it would mean we're being shipped in new DAPs!) But more down to earth, with that source code, I wouldn't have had to spend several days trying to work around some "quirks" in the audio driver on a couple of hosted targets -- I could have just fixed the issue in the kernel and moved on immediately. Or better yet, I could use that kernel source as a sort of software-based schematic to _greatly_ ease the process of making rockbox run natively on that hardware. Reverse engineering hardware was always Rockbox's achilles heel -- It generally means that by the time we get a new port working reasonably well, it's already obsolete and off the market, forcing users to rely on decade-old devices on the secondhand market. If rockbox is going to survive in the long term, we have to make the process of porting to new hardware much faster. Without reasonably modern hardware, we're not going to gain the userbase (and thus higher profile) we need. So, while strong enforcement of the Linux licence makes Rockbox more sustainable in the long run, we wouldn't need to be a member of the SFC for this, and it's not why I proposed applying to join them. It's the "other" aspects of their mission; to provide a long-term stable financial and legal umbrella to operate under. It's also an inroad to a great deal of additional exposure in the nonprofit space. For example, perhaps they could help us get grants (and/or developers) tasked with further improve our accessibility features? Or maybe they could help us out with legal advice and contracts if we were to try and commission our own hardware? More pessimistically, what happens if I start acting against (What other developers consider to be) Rockbox's interests? Or if a tornado drops a house on me? These are all questions of long-term sustainability, and I think the likes of the SFC would be of great help in helping us answer and implement them. ...ANYway. Back to the bit mines. - Solomon -- Solomon Peachypizza at shaftnet dot org (email) @pizza:shaftnet dot org (matrix) High Springs, FL speachy (freenode) signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
> Out of interest, what don't you like about them? For me, they are sort of like of snitch. Observing of licence infringement is needed if a company's business is creating an open source software and selling licenses for it. I think, such companies do that themselves. Rockbox is not of this sort. The best appreciation sign for a piece of software (or anything) is if's being stealt. (V. Nabokov, changed by me)
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Sunday 04 October 2020 at 13:40:19, Al Le via rockbox-dev wrote: > Personally, I don't like such kind of organizations. This is a general > attitude of mine. Out of interest, what don't you like about them? Antony. -- "It is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws." - Douglas Noel Adams Please reply to the list; please *don't* CC me.
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
Personally, I don't like such kind of organizations. This is a general attitude of mine. I've heard of SFC from Solompon's mail for the first time. But I've not being an active project member for a long time now, so my opinion should not count.
Re: Rockbox joining the Software Freedom Conservancy?
On Sat, Oct 03, 2020 at 05:44:51PM -0400, Solomon Peachy via rockbox-dev wrote: > [..] this got me thinking; the SFC also accepts "member projects" to > operate under their umbrella, providing services including handling > donations (which become tax-deductible!), holding assets, legal > support, and copyright enforcement. [4] > > [I'd welcome the SFC relieving Rockbox devs of these administrative > burdens.] > > Rockbox appears to be a good fit for operating under the SFC's aegis, > as we're explicitly GPL'd, and our accessibility framework in > particular indisputably places a lot of our efforts into the public > interest. > > I should point out that copyright assignment is *not* required, so in > my view if enough of the [semi-]active developers here think this is > worth pursuing, I'll reach out to the SFC and start the process. > Personally, I think this is will be an overwhelmingly net positive, > but it's not someting I think I should unilaterally do. > > Comments? Great idea. I wholeheartedly agree! > [4] https://sfconservancy.org/projects/services/ -- A: When it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: When is top-posting a bad thing? () ASCII ribbon campaign. Please avoid HTML emails & proprietary /\ file formats. (Why? See e.g. https://v.gd/jrmGbS ). Thank you.
