#licensing

· 1w ago

Licensing question: I'm re-implementing an encoding scheme in Rust. I have a GPL-2 reference implementation in C that I check against.

The C source is 50-ish lines, the Rust reimplementation is 70-ish lines. Both are mainly a switch/match logic.

How free am I to choose another permissive license for the reimplementation?

As it's reimplementation of the algorithm, rather than copying the code, I don't think I'm bound by the GPL. I also haven't gone clean-room, as I was eyeballing the reference when writing the other, but I think that would only be relevant for patents.

Not looking for binding opinions, just discussion.

#freeSoftware #licensing

Licensing question: I'm re-implementing an encoding scheme in Rust. I have a GPL-2 reference implementation in C that I check against. The C source is 50-ish lines, the Rust reimplementation is 70-ish lines. Both are mainly a `switch`/`match` logic. How free am I to choose another permissive lic

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Free Software Foundation Europe @fsfe@mastodon.social

· 1mo ago

Maintaining a #FreeSoftware project? Make your licensing unambiguous (for humans and machines🤖 ) with REUSE. Used by @kde@floss.social, the @Linux kernel, Siemens, @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz projects, and more. 1️⃣ Choose and provide licenses 2️⃣ Add copyright and license information to each file 3️⃣ Confirm REUSE compliance Get started ➡️ https://reuse.software/ #FreeSoftware #Licensing

REUSE - Make licensing easy for everyone

reuse.software

REUSE - Make licensing easy for everyone

We make licensing easy for humans and machines alike. REUSE solves a fundamental issue that Free Software licensing has at the very source. Adopting our recommendations is as easy as one-two-three!

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James Akers @JamesAkers@expressional.social

· 2mo ago

As I look at monetizing some of the little software tools I am making, I have been told by some of the people I show them to, to look into copyrights. I do admire a good idea, and more and more- a good business model that keeps people honest and away from the creepy surveillance capitalist ways. When chatting with some folks and looking into open source licenses, I find myself drawn to closed custom licensing agreements that would lend themselves to one time purchases of self hostable servers, that could run on other hardware, or even be resold, but not duplicated (like selling an instance to a hoster that can serve many people, but the hoster wouldn't be able to create another instance). In this way, my business model would be selling new instances of my webapp tools for artists, and servicing them. Any business model/ monetization advice on keeping things open source vs closed and copyright proprietary? #advice #licensing #copyright #artist #software #business

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n_dimension @n_dimension@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Hey #Microsoft #Charity #office folks... ... Did you just got de-licensed today? My folk can no longer use desktop office, only Web and Mobile. #licensing

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Bradley M. Kühn @bkuhn@fedi.copyleft.org

· 2mo ago

Folks here might be interested in this post I just made to the copyleft-@next@fedi.copyleft.org mailing list — covering many issues including:

Do we still need weak #copyleft at all?
How do we deal with companies who use strong copyleft as a bait-and-switch?
The so-called¹ “FOSS sustainability” problem. https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/next/2026q3/000091.html

¹ In the age of #LLM-gen-AI, ppl still use the word “sustainable” to refer to #FOSS developers not getting paid enough is #disturbing.

#licensing #FreeSoftware #AI #OpenSource

lists.copyleft.org

Do we still need weak copyleft? (was Re: Exceptions to copyleft-next)

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Bich Nguyen @bich@apobangpo.space

· 3mo ago

"Yet an examination of Washington discipline records by KUOW and ProPublica found that regardless of what the law calls for, Washington fails to reliably call the public’s attention to serious misconduct allegations against doctors who have been allowed to keep practicing while their cases proceed." https://www.propublica.org/article/washington-doctor-misconduct-failed-disclosure via @ProPublica@newsie.social #healthcare #physicians #bioethics #misconduct #SexualAssault #licensing #washington

Washington Law Says to Alert the Public When Doctors Are Accused of Misconduct. It Can Take Months.

ProPublica

Washington Law Says to Alert the Public When Doctors Are Accused of Misconduct. It Can Take Months.

In the case of Mark Mulholland, who was repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct, the board waited six weeks to announce that it had filed charges. He was allowed to keep seeing patients during that time, and one alleges he abused her in the interim.

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kkarhan @kkarhan@jorts.horse

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@petrillic@hachyderm.io Worse is when you have folks in other juristictions use a "non-license" that isn't legally accepted like "#PublicDomain". #0BSD is by far the most permissible for #Software, but #licensing may have good reasons for beibg chosen.#CC0 is the closest to "public domain" (except the authorship disavowal part) for creative works (incl. writing)I'm not a lawyer and AFAIK there's only #downstream forward compatibility for #copyleft, so yeah, not easy if impossible!

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kkarhan @kkarhan@jorts.horse

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@nixCraft@mastodon.social And to add insult to injury: One cannot get new #OnPremise #licensing for these products! I hope @eucomission@ec.europa.eu do ban this shite or ban #Atlassian across the #EU for violating #GDPR.Cuz only #accountability and #consequences can help!

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cmars 🅅 @cmars@infosec.exchange

· 7mo ago

Are there more software licenses like these out there? #opensource #licensing #NoAI GitHub - non-ai-licenses/non-ai-licenses: This repository contains software licenses that restrict software from being used in AI training datasets or AI technologies. https://github.com/non-ai-licenses/non-ai-licenses

GitHub

GitHub - non-ai-licenses/non-ai-licenses: This repository contains software licenses that restrict software from being used in AI training datasets or AI technologies.

This repository contains software licenses that restrict software from being used in AI training datasets or AI technologies. - non-ai-licenses/non-ai-licenses

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