Misinformation & FUD continues re: so-called #TiVoization. *Many people* still misunderstand issues re: #GPLv2 vs. #GPLv3 on installation & device lock-down.

TL;DR:
* TiVo's #GPL violation didn't relate to lockdown.
* To comply w/ GPLv2, #TiVo *allowed* installation of modified Linux, but proprietary TiVo app stopped working if you did.
* GPLv2 & LGPLv2.1 *require* right to installation.
* GPLv3 is sorta looser & sorta stricter— mainly, it's just different.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/
#copyleft

@stage7 personally I do wish for #FLOSS to have more teeth…

• I mean, #GPLv2 got confirmed as valid in Germany and the #license terms successfully enforced.

The only restrictions I'm aware of are "[legal and/or business] deals that have unexpectably bad terms and conditions" (aimed at exploiting "someones lack of expefience, ability to make informed decisions or socioeconomic situation [of distress]") which mostly aims at criminalizing #PaydayLoans at extortive APRs, rentseeking, discrimination and other tactics preying on #consumers.

• It's more of a #ConsumerProtection thing and almost certainly doesn't apply to #Businesses which are exempt from consumer protection (cuz #B2B aind #B2C!)

Plus #FLOSS licenses ain't the norm (and I'm pretty shure that we rather see #CCSS banned than #AntifascistLicense|s being struck down!)…

• OFC this is #NotLegalAdvice and #speculation, tho OFC one has the freedom to decline business based off objective and/or terms/justifications, like throwing a Neonazi out of a bar.

#AntifascistLicenses #Antifascism #Licensing #FOSS #OpenSource

As you might guess, I get #copyleft questions all the time, & #FOSS developers being an inquisitive & intelligent bunch, these questions are sometimes quite complex.

After 30 years, though, I have mostly “heard it all”, & I only get a truly novel & difficult question once every few years.

@giomasce just asked me an excellent question re: LGPLv2.1 (also applies to #GPLv2) that is novel & I'd never considered before.

I'll say what it was publicly when I figure out what the answer is.

@rootwyrm @david_chisnall @davidgerard @0xabad1dea @dougwade @zeyus yeah, and the gew cases of litigation in terms of enforcement backfired hard as well...

• Don't even get @landley started on the #BusyBox #GPLv2 enforcement...

That being said in #Germany said #GPL licenses get enforced by courts - as #Fritz! (nee #AVM) found out the hard way.

@edboythinks personally I'm in the process of.migrating from #Ubuntu fonts to #B612 because they are superior yet more permissively licensed.

• Sadly I've not found an elegant way to force #SunGalatDemi into the #Linux #kernel as #Console #Font and #license-wise that would not work (#CDDL is incompatible with #GPLv2) nor would it make sense as any machine that I can't #SSH into runs in #MDA mode thus only has the hardware fonts of that mode anyway...

@katyswain I think #GPLv3 did more harm than good due to being a later version of the #GPL and thus causing #LicensingConflicts.

• Worse even: many parts of it are inherently incompatible with how #IP, #Patents and #Licensing works that if caused problems for #GPLv2 as well.

There's a reason why I've chosen #0BSD over GPLv3 in many newer projects and even consider changing said license on those that I am the sole contributor of...

Today, @richardfontana & I restarted, relaunched, & revitalized copyleft-next.

All versions & variants of #GPL are great licenses. But, today, #GPLv3 turned 18 years old & #GPLv2 turned 34 years old.

At least once in a generation, #FOSS needs a new approach to strong #copyleft.

These posts have details: https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2025q2/000000.html & https://fedi.copyleft.org/@next/114769761806288554

I ask you to follow @next & check out our website at https://next.copyleft.org/.

FYI: I'll migrate this account to @bkuhn@copyleft.org later this week.

Today, we (@bkuhn & @richardfontana) excitedly announce that we have restarted, revitalized, and relaunched copyleft-next!

Today, #GPLv3 turns exactly 18 years old. This month, #GPLv2 turned 34 years old. These are both great licenses and we love them. Nevertheless, at least once in a generation, #FOSS needs a new approach to strong #copyleft.

Read more in this thread about the relaunch of the copyleft-next project … ( or read more on the post here: https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2025q2/000000.html )

This song is released under the GPL-2.0 license as part of the Battle for Wesnoth game and the music is located at

https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/tree/master/data/core/music

Also described at:

https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Available_Music

Title:
Battle Epic

Author:
Doug Kaufman

official filename:
battle-epic.ogg

If you like this song maybe you want to follow @wesnoth

#wesnoth #WesnothMusic #GameMusic #music #GPLv2 #soundtrack #WesnothSoundtrack #FediMusic #DougKaufman #BattleEpic

@santi @mos_8502 @Wintermute_BBS well, as for #GPLv2 and license enforcement, using #copyleft as a bat to club corporations with isn't effective.

@landley still feels remorse for having started that with #BusyBox.

Not to mention #GPLv3 & #AGPLv3 really is bad unless one wants to commit "asset denial" aka. be an anticompetitive dickhead and at that point it's close to "asshole licensing" of #SSPL & #RSAL!

@sodiboo @tauon @puppygirlhornypost2 @silly I don't think it's much of a "#freedom" on #iOS but rather that the few devices and OS versions in circulation, alongside everyone from #jailbreaker to #malware (espechally #govware #developers) want to crack it open result in way more personnel and money behind it.

• OFC the fact that the #Android experience is worse from that POV is the lack of #regulation re: #repairability and #openness that would make shit work. Most cheap #phones are done with even cheaper #SoC's by manufacturers who can't be assed (or frankly don't give a shit at all!) when it comes to #Linux #mainline support. (I mean, you've seen the video where @SexyCyborg demanded a vendor to give her the sourcecode as per #GPLv2 for her device?)

Granted @GrapheneOS does limit their support to devices that can comply with their #security standards.

• The issues are mostly caused by hostile app developers that specifically decided to knee-jerk their users / customers for no good reason.

I do wish for both vendors like #Fairphone to up their game and regulators like @EUCommission to actually push for more #transparency, #openness and #LongTermSupport of #Smartphones, because #ManufacturedEwaste like #SOYES, #WiKo, #Unihertz and others that ship #outdated #AndroidDevices and never even a single update are a major problem!

• I don't blame projects like @LineageOS that they can't cover every device & SoC even tho they propably have the widest compatibility, I just think that there needs to be pressure that manufacturers don't just vomit stuff on the market and let customers frustratingly figure out the rest.

I do have to give #Apple credit where it is due, and that is that #iOS does have consistency and accessibility nailed down very well. Something that they obviously are able being the "#BenevolentDictator" of a #SingleVendor & #SingleProvider - platform.

• Obviously since they are the #vendor for #hardware and the sole ["legitimate" / official] #distributor for any #Apps they do OFC cross-finance their relatively long #support with their 15-30% cut from #App #sales & #InAppPurchase|s they charge, which is why #AndroidPhones suffer the "#3DO syndrome": Needing to charge more since they only get to make money once with hardware sales and not after that, so there's no incentive for them to give a shit beyond "brand value" to care. #Google, #Samsing, #Fairphone and very few others do, but most don't as they close the books on the product once launched and sold out (angrily stares at Unihertz)...

Maybe one day the folks at @frameworkcomputer acquire Fairphone and decide to bring the same modularity to #Smartphones and get something done that makes it easy to maintain long-term and that even #GrapheneOS are willing to support.

• Until then the #Enshittification is ruining everything as usual...

I wrote to the address in the #GPLv2 license notice and received the #GPLv3 license | Mendhak / Code

https://code.mendhak.com/gpl-v2-address-letter/

#GPL #freesoftware #licensing

真的有人寄信要 GPL 授權的 copy...

Hacker News 上看到 2022 年的文章：「I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022) (mendhak.com)」，原文在「I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice and received the GPLv3 license」。 作者在 GPLv2 看到這段： You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 5…

https://blog.gslin.org/archives/2025/04/25/12366/%e7%9c%9f%e7%9a%84%e6%9c%89%e4%ba%ba%e5%af%84%e4%bf%a1%e8%a6%81-gpl-%e6%8e%88%e6%ac%8a%e7%9a%84-copy/

#copy #fsf #gnu #gpl #gplv2 #gplv3 #hard #license #mail #public

I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice

https://code.mendhak.com/gpl-v2-address-letter/

#HackerNews #GPLv2 #OpenSource #SoftwareLicensing #HackerNews #TechCommunity #GPL

Android: sviluppo interno da aprile (ma resta open source)
#Android #AOSP #CodiceSorgente #Developer #GMS #Google #GoogleMobileServices #GPLv2 #KernelLinux #Notizie #Novità #OpenSource #Sviluppatori #Sviluppo #TechNews #Tecnologia

https://www.ceotech.it/android-sviluppo-interno-da-aprile-ma-resta-open-source/

@AugierLe42e I assume that port is fixed to a specific USB Hub / Controller / Port and the button is similarly linked to some GPIO / I²C / PS/2 port...

• What you can do is check lsusb for #USB devices and see if the specific port in question has a USB mass storage device or SATA bridge chip attached to it when said button is pressed.

If #QNAP used #Linux they should've provided those drivers / scripts as part of their #GPLv2 obligations to buyers/owners of said #NAS boxes.

• Just don't expect any of that code to be useable, as @landley can attest from the #BusyBox license enforcement…

Either way if you can reliably identify the port & detect the button presses that should be sufficient to build like a #bash or #python script to basically detect the drive, mount it and cp -r /dev/$DRIVE/ /home/copied_drives/$LABEL/

• It may need some fiddling and will most likely only work reliably on unencrypted drives with ext2-ext4, btrfs, ntfs, fat32, exfat filesystems...

Pretty shure you'll have to tweak a bit unless you want to use /dev/by-uuid/$UUID and the UUIDs of the partitions as name...

@nixCraft Those @homebrew instructions for #macOS on your web page will not help the circa-2006 #rsync 2.6.9 #Apple pre-installs at `/usr/bin/rsync`

They probably stopped with that version because it was the last one to be #GPLv2 licensed: https://rsync.samba.org/GPL2.html

Thanks @fsf!

🍏 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/

#emacs #macos #gplv2

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

@FritzAdalis @fl0und3r @fence Granted, #OpenBSD usually removes #complexity and stuff that can't be #secured to their standards, and I do applaud them for that.

• Even tho it comes at the cost of a system that isn't easy to get started with, since one's experience and intuition from #Linux won't help one here...

That being said even tho I despise #Netflix, they moved to #FreeBSD as that cuts down on their specific hardware needs, which is ne net and gross positive for the world and #BSD's as they'll need less hardware, datacenter floorspace, cooling, power and thus reduce the impact of their business.

• Tho it's not because Netflix is envoirmentally concious or some other #greenwashing reason, but because their infrastructure is more expensive than personnel and cutting down 5% cost at that is saving them millions even if they pay their BSD engineers 10x to their Linux counterparts.

OFC for #commercial users, BSDs are always more preferable as #GPLv2 of #Linux would basically make it hard to do the "security by obscurity" part of #DRM & #CopyProtection they want on stuff like #GameConsoles.

• BSD is way more permissive and I do like that.

Sadly for many, Linux won for most "mainstream" applications to the point that outside nieche cases, it's a rounding error in statistics.

• That being said many innovations do get adopted where possible, like #OpenZFS support (tho AFAIK OpenBSD lacks that for the aforementioned complexity reasons)...