macOS No Longer Ships with Emacs
— Bozhidar Batsov

｢ The answer to the first question turned out to be Apple being opposed to using anything licensed under GPL v3, and so it happens that Emacs 22.1 was the last Emacs version licensed under GPL v2 ｣

https://batsov.com/articles/2025/01/12/macos-no-longer-ships-with-emacs/

You can find us on #GitHub obviously, as well:

https://github.com/LibreQoE/LibreQoS

Oh, and #LibreQoS is #GPLv2.

#QualityOfExperience #OpenSource #QoE #FLOSS #bufferbloat #latency #jitter #ISP #WISP #FISP #QoS #broadband #QualityOfService #FWA #InternetServiceProvider #fiber RFC8290 #FQ_CoDel #sch_CAKE #FQCoDel #schCAKE #WiFi #speedtest

FreeCAD Version 1.0 Released - #FreeCAD is an open-source parametric 3D #CAD (Computer-Aided Design) modeling tool. It's primarily used for designing and engineering products in various fields such as mechanical engineering, product design, and architecture.

This release marks FreeCAD's readiness for extensive real-world applications, reflecting the dedicated efforts of its community.

https://blog.freecad.org/2024/11/19/freecad-version-1-0-released/

TIL: @tuxedocomputers released #Linux #kernel drivers for their machines under the #GPLv3, which makes it impossible for competitors and distros to ship them pre-compiled, as that license is incompatible with the #LinuxKernel's #GPLv2 only license.

They did this purposely, allegedly to "keep control of the upstream pacing" – and want to re-license the code while upstreaming.

https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard/issues/61

https://gitlab.com/tuxedocomputers/development/packages/tuxedo-drivers/-/issues/137

https://gitlab.com/tuxedocomputers/development/packages/tuxedo-drivers/-/issues/138

https://gitlab.com/tuxedocomputers/development/packages/tuxedo-drivers#regarding-upstreaming-of-tuxedo-drivers

That you copied GPLv2-licensed software is not a defense to an infringement claim in China (or Germany) https://www.ifross.org/?q=node/1676 #copyleft #GPL #GPLv2

"A Promise Without a Remedy: The Supposed Incompatibility of the #GPLv2 and #Apachev2 Licenses"

An old legal issue in #freeSoftware #FOSS revisited. Kudos to Pam @pchestek for challenging the status quo. This makes a compelling argument.

https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/chtlj/vol40/iss3/2/

New blog post: https://hexaheximal.com/blog/mediatek-and-the-gpl

@landley

Welp i thought way too much about #opensource #licensing today and came to a really cursed conclusion
#GPLv2 only is a lie. It isn't real as it refers to FSF as the authoritative place of it's definition and #FSF to this day does not distribute a GPLv2 only license.
Even worse using a GPLv2-only license is actually a copyright against the FSF which holds copyright over the #GPL license and allows unmodified distribution only.
Am I missing any details of this insanity?

Have the open source and open data communities, including organizations like the @eff, @creativecommons, or the @fsf, given any thought yet to updating various #FOSS and other licenses to address the current #SaaS problem of code or data that isn't necessarily being "redistributed," allowing these companies to dodge the obligation to contribute changes back upstream? How about the privatization and unauthorized commercialization of material licensed under the #GPLv3 and #FDL, #CreativeCommons licenses, and other open-license content that is often scooped up regardless of licensing into #AI #datasets that are then put behind #paywalls?

To me, this seems very similar to the #Tivoization problem that led to the evolution of #GPLv2 to #GPLv3. It seems wrong that #OpenAI or #GitHub_Copilot can profit by putting licensed code, writing, or other data into a walled garden where even the original contributors that they rely on are charged for access.

I'm not anti-business. If these companies were at least making the data sets freely available, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with making value-added profit off of properly-licensed data, although examples like CC-BY-NC 4.0 are a notable exception that should also be considered. Companies like Canonical, Red Hat, IBM, and others have been making money legally off of open source software for decades.

Just because the label "AI" is slapped on something doesn't mean that companies should be allowed to ignore copyrights or licensing terms. If they want to do that, and licensing or requiring free access to open-content data can't prevent this land-grab, perhaps its time we collectively revisit the whole framework around #intellectualproperty that currently allows corporations like #Disney and uncountable #PatentTrolls to create ever-expanding assertions of property rights that prevent almost any material from entering the public domain within a single human lifetime.

We wonder if anyone is up for the challenge of figuring out how to repurpose the new NPU chips for simulating DNA structures and other interlinked bioinformatics simulation tasks instead of "AI" LLMs...

This is wildly ambitious of me, but who wants to join me in creating a #FOSS alternative to discord? I believe that we can break the cycle of enshittification by being #OpenSource . This is a massive undertaking, though, and I can't do it alone.

Please boost to spread the word, and reply if you're interested in joining.