Episode: 3459
Title: HPR3459: Linux Inlaws S01E42: The Open Source Initiative
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3459/hpr3459.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 23:55:40

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 34594 Thursday, 4 November 2021.
Tid's show is entitled, Linux in Los S0142, the open source initiative,
and is part of the series Linux, in Los it is hosted by Monochromic, and is about 73 minutes long,
and carries an explicit flag. The summary is, the open source initiative.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
This is Linux in Los, a podcast on topics around free and open source software,
any associated contraband, communism, the revolution in general,
and whatever fence is your tickle. Please note that this and other episodes
may contain strong language, offensive humor, and other certainly not politically correct language
you have been warned. Our parents insisted on this disclaimer. Happy mum?
Thus the content is not suitable for consumption in the workplace, especially when
played back in an open plan office or similar environments, any minors under the age of 35 or
any pets including fluffy little killer bunnies, you trust the guide dog,
a lesson speed, and QT rexes or other associated dinosaurs.
Welcome to Linux in Los season 1 episode 42, the episode with the open source initiative. Martin,
how are things? Yeah, things are great, Chris. How's the English summer treating you?
The one that will arrive on August 12th, 1 p.m. No, no, no, no, we had it already.
Don't come over now. On the plus side, the football team is still interested in such a thing.
Another mistake made by UEFI, I feel completely missing. Sorry, I correct myself.
Sicily, if you're listening, not a smart move because the money was actually on Germany.
But anyway, not worried about this, this is not a show about football,
but rather about all the big open source. And tonight we have a very special guest. Martin,
why don't you introduce our special guest? Yeah, so tonight's guest is a very fine lady called
Depp Nicholson, who is part of the open source initiative and has done a lot of great work and
hopefully we'll find out a bit more about that tonight. Welcome to the show, Depp, how are things?
Great, thanks for having me. I think we got your extra English summer here in the US,
and if we could give it back, we would. It'll keep it, that's okay. I know international
shipping is kind of a, yeah, but we would send it back if we could. Oh, it's very kind.
And Martin, hang on, I thought the hosts were in charge of the jokes.
Maybe I'm wrong. Anything goes in English. Okay, first of all, very, very good to have you, Depp,
maybe for the two listeners in the audience who do not know what the OSI, the open source initiative,
initiative stands for and where it comes from. Maybe you can check some light on the acronym itself,
and the history of this important initiative. Sure, yeah. So the open source initiative has been
around for, I think we're now at about 24 years, and we started as like what, like how,
how do we position like what is going on in the developer world that's been called free software
for like a business community and so that folks can kind of get a grip on that and also to add like
maybe a little bit of a layer of, well, professionalism, but professionalism for tech,
like you still don't have to wear shoes or whatever, but we have to agree on what is open source,
and we have to agree on what makes a license usable. And so the open source initiative has been
occupying that space. We do get new licenses all the time, so we accept some, we don't,
for lots of different reasons. And we try to provide a lot of guidance on like what are
best practices in addition to choosing like a real license that other people recognize as open source.
Before we go, yes, thank you, but before we touch on that very important sub-grade of licenses,
what else does the open source initiative do for the community and beyond?
Yeah, so we also, we have a lot of different resources and stories. We keep track of different
things that are going on in open source standards. If you, you know, Simon Fibz, he's kind of our
man in Europe for a lot of those conversations. Although it seems like the US might be finally
ready to have some conversations about open source in a official way, which is very exciting.
So we keep track of a lot of those conversations. Sometimes that means that we'll submit testimony,
sometimes that means that we'll become part of a lawsuit as a like with by submitting an
Amicus brief, something like that. So we keep track of a lot of that stuff. And then we do,
in other years though, and where there's not a pandemic going on, we attend a lot of events and
give a lot of talks or host workshops on how to get involved in open source and how to become part of it.
And we also ask to act as a fiscal sponsor, a couple of open source projects as well.
You just spoke about the events. I think it was at a first time as in the free and open source
developer's European meeting, where I ran into the OSI actually at a booth called Man by Simon Fibz,
Simon, if you're listening, that was I think in 2015, maybe 2014 or so.
Oh, I see. Yeah, so pretty dynamic.
Yes, indeed, very much so. And this is basically that was my first touch point with the OSI.
Oh, yes. It's good to know those booths. They're worth it then.
Absolutely.
So that's great. And I think Simon might have actually been a board member at that time. And
one of the things that we do ask our board members to do is to pitch in on the booths,
which is it's kind of one of the nicer, you know, we have as a nonprofit, we have a lot of
different work that we could do. And probably one of the more fun ones is talking to people that
are like, oh, I'm into open source. I'm into like free and open source software at an event.
And I took a time out on my Saturday to come learn more. And we get to talk to those folks.
Wow. So that's really fun. Okay. I mean, yeah, when I look at the list of pass board members,
I mean, you have a very impressive legacy. I might add names like Ian Murdoch and Eric S Raymond come
to mind some of the forefathers, exactly some of the forefathers of the open source movement.
Yeah, it's we've been around for a long time. And what's interesting is that I think like what is
you know, what that open source community needs has evolved a bit like it does still need that
core mission that we do, which is, you know, making sure that the open source definition is well
known by people and looking at new licenses and making sure that people aren't, you know,
putting in stuff like the chicken dance license and things like that and trying to
say that that's open source. But yeah, it's been a long time. Simon's been a board member on
and off for a while, Allison Randall. Josh Simmons is our current board president. So, you know,
we keep managing to find folks that want to do a lot of free work to make open source work.
I also noticed that actually a guy called Guido from Rosson was on the board of the OSI at some
stage that doesn't necessarily mean that all your software that the OSI uses is written in Python,
does it? No, it doesn't. Actually, that might be a little easier. We've had, we've picked up a lot
of different technology over, I would say that many of our board members have been pretty passionate
about technology. So that means we've tried a lot of technology over the years, not over the years,
not just Python, so. That's good to know. Yeah. Although, I mean, recently, I think Guido has
drawn some a complicate Microsoft from a complete mistaken. I don't know if Guido and I are
connected on LinkedIn. So I have no idea. But he's not on our board now. So yeah, it's everybody's,
everyone's always moving. I assume we just will always, nobody's ever really gone from open
source. It's going to like one of those movies about like how the mob comes back and asks you
to do one more job. Okay. That's once a bit scary. Oh, yeah, without any guns and probably a lot
less money. Sorry. No guns involved. Glad to hear it. You mentioned that the OSI also sponsors
a couple of open source projects. Is that right? Yeah, one of the big ones is clearly defined and
so that's why a project that is focused on making like some of the labeling and the licensing
a little bit clearer and having that kind of be baked in. And we've had a lot of different projects
over the years, like another one that people love is Floss desktops for kids. And that's, you know,
giving free software laptops to kids and teaching them how to use them. We also are coordinating with
Brandeis University and doing like it's kind of like a mini courses for intended for professionals
that want to learn how to do open source. So we we work pretty closely with them on the curricula
and and then the the actual, you know, educational infrastructure. Brandeis has been a university
for like a hundred years or something. So they take care of all that part. That's old in the US
Yeah, I suppose many people know the OSI from a very important work on open source licenses.
Maybe you can explain for the one and a half listeners that I'm not familiar with with open source
licenses. The most important traits and I'm not just talking about GPL type licenses as a
couple of licenses, but rather the open source initiative definition of an open source license
before we kind of enter the discussion. Yeah, so so open source licenses and I and I've worked
I've kind of worked for everyone before I worked at the open source initiative. I worked for
the Conservancy. I was at Oayan and that I was at the free software foundation. So I've kind
of worked for everybody. So yeah, that was my first job in free and open source software.
I'm in the Boston area. So I worked in the office when people did that.
But you didn't have to suffer from something called RMS.
I would say that actually like when I worked there, RMS was doing a ton of travel and so I
actually was working there for probably like five months before I met him. I see. Yeah,
but we're going to touch on RMS later on, but sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you. So
I hope we're not actually good. Well, anyway, so yeah, so the open source definition is not so
different from the free software definition and comments to a lot of the same points, but basically
like it's no restrictions on selling or giving away the software. The program has to include
the source code as well as like any source code that you need to put it together. So if it's like
a bunch of separate parts and you can't compile them without like another piece, then it is
an open source unless you provide that little piece. And you have to allow for people to remix
this software like to make modifications or improvements and then allow them to be
out under the same terms as the original license. So you can't like take that and then take
something that somebody's made available open source and then change the license.
And there's not supposed to be any discrimination against persons or groups or fields of endeavors.
That's the one that's gotten a little bit spicier over the last couple years with the ethical
source conversations. And then a lot of the rest of it is you know kind of housekeeping like if
if you're using a program with a license and you redistribute it, don't strip out the license
because I mean that's just dishonest and not good but it also doesn't work with the open source
definition. And then you can't kind of going with the field of endeavor stuff and the people
or groups like it doesn't magically become not open source if you put it in a certain device
or use it in a certain setting. Maybe you just mentioned the ethical background. Maybe you can
elaborate a little bit on that because I just heard about it but I don't know what footwear with
the details. Yeah so we've been having or there's been like kind of in the larger technology sphere
conversation about like could we create an open source license that did not know people who were
I'm doing air quotes you can't tell but I'm doing air quotes who are evil which you know
are personally opposed to evil. What does evil mean in that context? Right that's the question
everyone is generally like personally opposed to evil but then no one has the same definition
for what that is. We probably agree on some stuff but a lot of those things are actually already
illegal so like you know you can't kill people legally and so like should you be able to kill
people with software like the answer is still no but not because of the open source definition
and it's illegal to kill people. Okay. Does that make sense? It's a sum of sand yes I'm just trying
to connect open source and killing people. Yeah so people you might consider is a military
application software. So like you wouldn't actually like I don't know type pew pew pew and watch
people crumble but it's but once you decide that the software that you've written it could end up
maybe it's got like a really good geographical location thing and you intended it for cars but
someone applied it to drones that have guns on them. This is what I was just thinking about yes
the application of open source free and open source software and actually military applications
garden systems weapon systems the whole log yes because in that case you would use it right?
Well so so here's the interesting thing I did earlier say that killing people is illegal but it's
not illegal if you're the one. If you're what? Oh if you're the government I don't know I think
that's the case for you all as well but in the US if you're the government and you are and you're
the military and you're taking action that's been voted on by you know whatever aspect of
the government authorizes military force then it isn't illegal to kill people. It can still be
immoral that is a different that's an open question depending on who's putting the killer it is
but it isn't illegal because I covered by either the law or a software license.
Right so I reckon that's one of the main differences between Europe and the US because in Europe
you would have to have a committee that would do a couple of sessions and then decide on if
somebody's going to get killed or not where in the US basically you have a law and government
taking charge of things I'm exaggerating but yeah but probably only a little bit when you think
about it in broad strokes which is not something that I would say is a selling point for the US
I don't feel like ridiculous and you all do in Europe for us having a ginormous military that
people without doing very much paperwork in case you were wondering but I'm also not certain
that that belongs in a software license either it's it's a I appreciate the idea but the that
that way of dealing with it is it's going to be it's going to be a little tricky one to apply I think
I mean it's not a it's not a restriction that you put on it right in your definition
it's not in the open-source definition there are people talking about should we make a part of like
either a new open-source definition or like an expanded open-source definition like could we say
you can't use this software but then it's a fine line because essentially if you restrict one
usage you might as well go for another one and who calls the shots on this one and and the military
here is is huge so like so we have we have an insurance company that specifically caters to
people who served in Yarm Services like is that a military application can they use open-source
actuarial tables in their work if we know military usage what about the cleaner down the street that
does like 90% of their business watching military uniforms for dress occasions like are they a
military application they're certainly supporting the military it gets very fuzzy when you when
you want to say don't be evil or don't use this for the military and then of course we have
like zillions of other military contractors that have like a mix of clients that are the U.S. military
and a mix of clients that are so can they use like an open-source accounting software for their
business I mean never mind the whole veteran area right I mean if you would basically exclude
any software usage for veteran organizations that's a whole different ballgame yeah and
rely on that work is you know unfortunately because of how the military affects people either
work serving veterans is helping them find cheap housing or address like PTSD or addiction issues
which I think we should do but that's it's not you know is it military if it comes in really tricky
I mean it's like genetic engineering right you can you can use it for different purposes
you can self-life with it but you can also basically engineer the next evil shenanigans
right like we might all want tomatoes that sit on the shelf a little longer but everyone might not
want actually talking sheep or some people might want talking sheep I'm not the boss of you so
but there's probably more there's probably more disagreement there than shelf stable tomatoes
yeah so so we work on like so we look at licenses and see if they fit this open-source definition
and the thing changes is the technology so we talked a little bit about the kind of the
social landscape but the technology landscape changes a little bit also so like we were recently
looking at the cryptographic autonomic license cow we call cow for sure which is easier to say
and that was a track at like could we make it so that the software is in the source code is all
low but draw a better brighter line between people's personal information and the software in this
particular application where they get mixed in a way that's a little bit new and a little bit
different and we decided like yes that means a lot of sense in order for people to use open-source
software in like a cryptographic sense like having a bright line between the software and people's
personal information definitely serves the goals of the open-source definition okay there has been
a lot of controversy around a certain type of say open-source but not free and open-source licenses
in the meaning in in on the likes of common clause something called reddish source available
license comes to mind maybe you can shed a some more light on the vetting process that the
OSI does for new open-source license and also maybe if you're showing client I know it's a
mind field to maybe to comment on some of the recent developments and I'm specifically including
common clause here as the as the second point yeah so so some of the so so we talked about the
ethical source licenses it was sort of an expansion of like the open-source definition and the
question you just brought up is like we retract a couple of pieces of the open-source definition
it's like could we make it so that you can't you can deny this offer to certain fields of
endeavor certain companies certain groups people with certain motives and so that would be like
a shrinking of the open-source definition which we're also opposed to so we look at these licenses
and we look at them not not just like how they're written but how they will interact in the field
because they don't exist in a vacuum the way that the way that a license like if a clause doesn't
say discrimination against a certain field of endeavor but but that is the way that it effectively
would have to be applied in the real world then we would turn down that license and it's a lengthy
process or it can be lengthy process if it's a shorter license it can be a shorter process but
generally we have a group of folks that discuss the license with folks so that's a license
discuss and and they try to help people kind of get to a place where the license is readable
they kick the tires a little bit to make sure that it's that they're not using words that don't
mean what they think they mean in other jurisdictions like that other English-speaking jurisdictions we
we can't be completely just in that way but and making sure that those licenses make sense and
people can understand how to apply them and so we sort of try to help folks get that license to
a place that makes sense is doing what the license author thinks it's doing and then it goes to
the like the decision-making body so we take a look at how that license will behave and if it will
grant all of the privileges that the open source definition grants to users of its software
and if it doesn't then we say no sometimes we tell people you know if you took this part out it
would be okay but oftentimes that's the part that they really gotten is exactly why they wrote a new
license and I reckon this has been the conundrum with many of the recent applications like common
clause and friends yeah and this like we did talk about the server side public license publicly not
so long ago and so and even the comments class like would say that they aren't an open source license
it's an alternative to an open source license and and I agree with the drafters there that it's
it's not like it's they want to make sure it's like a that one is most similar for readers who go
read the whole license if that's your jam but it's sort of like a non-commercial class is on a
creative comments type license and that would be a restriction of field of endeavor field of user
so that one's a no for us that's and honestly like we're we're not completely opposed to people
using other licenses like obviously prefer and hope they come over the open source way but if
they're going to use another license it's okay just it gets confusing for us and for the community
and for other software users if they call it open source but it isn't so that's where we get a
little like hey I think we're going to have to blog about this and say like you know xyz licenses
saying that their open source or not and they should please stop saying that and this class is not
that so no understood and shifting gives a little bit I mean some people may find
licensing boring but at the end of the day we're we're talking about the effects that a certain
license has on the general code base and much more importantly of the ultimate usage that such a
license implies I have come across quite a few interesting developments over the last year let's
put it this way where actually people said and now look copy left licenses especially
gpl and friends are way too restrictive for us for example there is a certain project called
Terminus to be that initially license its code base under the feral gpl but
decided to move to a way more liberal license like Apache I think their license under to allow
companies actually to include their open source code base in tax tax of their choosing without
having to publish any derivative work and I find this movement especially interesting because
that's exactly that's exactly actually I think the opposite where you broaden the adoption
of a code base by going for a way more liberal license from adopt from adoption point of view
than the gpl and friends would prescribe any any thoughts on this well of course I think that
depends on what your goal is and I haven't often told people that you should find a license like
say you've come over to the open source blade and you've decided you want
you still need to make sure you find a license that matches what you're trying to do with your
project it and so for folks that want like if you want your project to be bought or you want
you want jobs like at a large company that you hope will be excited by your software and
that company is using all permissive licensing you're not going to get to that goal by using
copy left if that's not your goal like I see the copy the goal of copy left licensing to be a
little bit more community-minded and a little less like you know what do I what what do I hope my
software will be when it like my part will be when it grows up and what will it get me and everyone's
going to eat I'm not saying don't make good business decisions because you know some lady told
you she likes copy left licensing but it's it depends on what your goal is and I mean if you're
if you want if you're writing a library for a huge permissively licensed platform then you
shouldn't we get copy left because no one's going to use it that's you're trying to do it as like
sort of a art project to see if anyone will accidentally use it which is also weird but who does
um but if you're if you're if you're working on something like if you're building something new
and you're hoping to become the platform and you want people who contribute to that platform
to have that code be available as a derivative work when they add stuff to it then you choose
to be left licensed I mean you see this one it's uh like get is that way um the Linux kernel is
that way but it's like they wanted everyone who contributed or wrote stuff or iterated on
that platform like that big main body of code for it to be automatically brought back in so
you know it depends on whether goal is yes that's exactly the the the issue with with libraries like
Lipsy like the GNU Lipsy which essentially is the runtime for many open source operating systems
I totally see the point that if you put a code base under gpl or some derived work
not necessarily less a gpl but something like for example if I were a gpl that is a very kind of
what I'm looking for and more stringent version of the gpl you actually have the possibility
of fostering innovation that way because of the very trait that each and every derivative work
as inversion of whether it touches a gpl component has to be published as well because in that case
you have the obligation to put your source code out there which for example the Linux kernel
and all the rest of it does make sense but on the other side I totally also see the need for
companies especially if you are a startup and do not want to have your code base running the
open from day one unless of course you happen to be a so-called open core company where that is
exact business model with the the initial code base out on GitHub and then you have an extended
or enterprise version of the software which is not open source is source source actually this is
what you sell in addition to additional services like support and so forth but at the end of the day
maybe you want to keep maybe you're maybe your startup basically running itself mode and you
want to keep your secret source unwraps for the time being unless you have enough muller together
to actually open source your core I mean you keep code secret like none of the stuff about
derivative works is invoked until you share that software out in the world like so if you're running
like maybe you have like a device that feeds your cat and you wrote some code there and you suck
down a little bit of gkl code to start it never leaves your house because your cats and in
or cat like the derivative part like where you have to share your work back never is invoked
because it never leaves your house so like in that stealth mode example like you can use
you pale code it's only when you become unstealth like when you leave your house that any of the
derivative stuff kicks in or you decide to sell a stack without disclosing the software as a license
and not either as a license thing you stack like sorry yes like an appliance out there basically a
piece of art which is a profit totally different totally different ballgame but that's exactly the
conundrum here right so right and if you are I mean if you do sell a device like I saw something
on on the internet the other day where they were like what's open source and one of the answers
the reason that my refrigerator comes with a copyright notice but it is I think there are there are
a handful of people who are like what's this gpl and it's like because it came with their fridge
and their fridge talks to the internet and has like a little bit of Android code and it or whatever
and and and for some folks that is that is as far as they're willing to go with open source they're
look at that notice and they're like huh not for the rest of us and probably not for anyone who's
wasn't halfway into our our session here no and before we put the remaining two listeners also to
sleep Martin why don't you go next probably with a different question no I was just going to tie
into that a little bit some fun of go ahead I mean if okay so from your side perspective from
the other side perspective you're doing education you're explaining to people which licenses do
what and which one to choose and so on in the scenario where you mentioned you know the obligation
to contribute back any changes or any derivations of over code base do you get involved in the let's
call it policing of that piece or is that a compliant yeah yeah the OSI has typically not been
involved in a lot of compliance work I don't think we're not opposed to people doing their
art organizations like I said I used to work at Conservancy and that's one of the main organizations
that does compliance and the FSF does some compliance work and so that's not something the OSI does
we're a little bit more like focused on like hey let us show you how to do this the right way
and not so much on the policing although you know that's I don't think I don't think that's
something we would jump in and certainly not both of the organizations that I mentioned that
do compliance work are much larger than we are because for a single staff person so I don't see
as tiny compliance work anytime soon I do think if there was something like you know somebody came
up with a little bit of make it illegal to do compliance work I think we would be opposed to that
or we would definitely have concerns I can't imagine who would write that and how that would be
written but we would have concerns about who was writing that especially if we didn't know who they were
so yeah so like I do think other organizations should be able to do compliance but it's not
something that we spend time on so you don't get to shoot people don't drag them in front of
courts and all the rest of it so you're missing out on all the fun parts
if you think compliance is a fun part oh wow so when I was at FSF here's what compliance
consisted of mostly it consisted of reminding myself once a month to send a note to somebody who
had a little piece of code that was out of compliance and to I had a series of letters that would
escalate the first one would be like it seems like you don't really understand how the TPL works
like let me help you with that it was kind of like a clipy note right then the second it would be
like hi you know like if you could for this to your legal department we'd like to have a conversation
you know as it would use these asking folks right and and that's what it was and it would long
and bring and then like after two years they'd be like we're not using that code anymore please
stop writing okay so hang on why that works anyway right occasionally someone would say oh okay
what does that mean and they would let us help them why didn't you bring in the C4 earlier than that
well this one so this is now going back like like 13 or 14 years ago I think most people when
they were out of compliance with the GPL at that time didn't know like they honestly didn't
understand that was the era still when you were talked to the legal department and they would
be like open source we're not using any of that and then you'd go down to the you know IT
department and they'd be like of course we are we're like 90% open-serlier never mind if you
want it first exactly right and now those two departments at least somebody amongst them talks
to each other and so the idea that you might be violating the GPL and I have literally no idea
what that is or what violating it means that era is largely coming to a close okay so that's
when we started nice we assumed the best I guess you you just brought up the FSF and given the
reason to what's the one I'm looking for controversy around certain people maybe is this a reward
for folks that listen to the first half hour absolutely if not more than if not more of course
I'm referring to a certain Richard M. Stormin and I can recall the statement that the OSI
should but maybe you get to elaborate a little bit on the on the notion behind this and how you see
this whole recent controversy that that developed in 2021 and maybe you also have a personal opinion
that you want to share certainly have a personal opinion I don't know how much of it I'm going to
share I did sign on to the letter and not as OSI general manager but as an individual who
previously worked in that office so the thing is is that like so I used to go to conferences when
I was at the FSF and then and I would go to conferences later and people would be like oh like
and I would be standing in a totally different table and they think it was still the FSF
or like I'd say to the EF table and they would call us the EFF or they would call that in the FSF
so people get all kinds confused and because the FSF is the longest in organization in our space
we feel like we the OSI felt like we needed to differentiate and say like hey if you were
in danger of taking our silence for like yeah we stand with the FSF and agree with their
decision to bring our mess back we don't so it just it felt like everybody needed to kind of say
where they stand and it's it's important because I think I think it would be better if if all
the organizations could work together and agree that we do want to see a bigger larger like
free and open-source software community globally but a lot of the behaviors that happen
within the FSFs like kind of realm there are not doing a great job of bringing a new people
and especially not doing a great job of making women and other historically under representatives
so welcome we recently had a member of the Free Software Foundation Europe on the podcast
who hinted at the fact that actually quite a few people joined the FSF after Richard
and Stormin was elected and after the shit storm hit the fan so their vicious people out there
who may consider this to be a marketing stand on the FSF side that's so funny because the other
the thing that you get when you're like oh I really think that we should be good about diversity
and that our mess needs to leave the FSF for that to be possible the thing that I got was that
Microsoft must be paying you and I was like oh yeah no no getting this for free if you think it's
in their interest I don't think it is but like weirdly like no no I will tell you that
Microsoft has never paid me to say that I think that we should increase diversity and reduce harm
in the the FSF and hang on hang on the best person hang on that I am trying that's um
and that that Mr. Nadela is just a puppet and that actually Bama is still running the show
yeah it's amazing like there are folks out there on the internet that will you know they'll look
and they'll be like oh I see that you that you both are on like some Twitter list so obviously
there's collusion there or like you know you like two people spoke at the same event so obviously
there's collusion there and that's like you know I I wonder if if they understand how either
in Twitter or like open source events work because it's it's like a whole mismatch of people and
they definitely don't agree with each other so yeah so that's been like it was even a joke and I'm
like you know where's our where's our big tech like shut up check or wherever we didn't get it
but yeah anyway so that was I don't know if that was all the that you were hoping to get
that I don't want I mean need to say um we are explicit but maybe we're not that explicit
yeah oh and yeah I mean yeah there's uh I mean and there's other things that like it's like
oh you know uh getting down to like relationships is between individuals it's like well that's not
appropriate for a public audience but we can see the pattern of like the way that people get traded
when they interact with the parts of the office that are a messes and charge of it does it's not
gross it's not like welcoming uh and I think the organization could do better but as they uh have
apparently decided that my opinion is not good so no it's interesting because I really I'm really
keen on seeing where this is going because there has as I said there has been a lot of controversy
people kind of implied that the that the pro list on guitar was mostly done by let's put it this
way pieces of software not exactly real people um this is a little bit of a of a controversy all right
so let's see where this is going but clearly uh it's interesting to see who's who for example who's
withdrawing funding I mean right had made it quite clear that this is not on and simply said no
look we're gonna we're not gonna fund the effort anymore and quite a few other people uh sorry
companies rather far it's huge but if it's if it's true maybe the personal membership gains from
the individuals joining after this make up for this this is people this is of course pure speculation
on my part there's probably a couple and I'll tell you I've worked at non-profits before I got
an influencer software and uh people have to run their math in public saying like I'm going to
give money now because of this thing or they also like to say the opposite like I'm not having
you money and if you work at that non-profit and you look up the person who just made this bold
statement that sounds like they've been this thousand dollar annual contributor uh you can't
even find their name in the database uh it's like they the people like to say that I'm not saying
that the FSF didn't get any members I don't actually know that because they don't work there or
I suspect they probably got a couple is it going to make up for uh tens of thousands of corporate
donations I would be surprised okay okay talking about funding how how are you funded
at the OSI we do a lot of corporate donations because um and we do have an individual membership
program um if you want if you want to find a topic that's more arcane even than free software
licensing you can look up our 990 which is our IRS filing that we do every year uh which we make
publicly available um but it feels like kind of the mix of funding from the public in from uh
corporations but we are trying to make open source um easier for like companies of all sizes to
use and adopt and that is something that companies might be valuable uh we also do want to make
sure that our membership of individuals um we set that level intentionally low so that uh
people could participate not just in uh not just in countries where 100 bucks is an easy gift
but in countries where that's an easy gift and we do also um offer membership to students
so uh at no cost so we we're trying to like get like input from our individual members and
funding from our corporate spot um let's uh the interesting you mentioned about the different
countries and um uh clearly not not being uh a membership being accessible to all those countries
how do you see the uh split between uh in terms of membership or do you have a a view of that
in terms of how um i don't have anything comprehensive but uh but i didn't think when i went um
i went to Brazil on behalf of the fsf and her at that time the fsf and your membership was $120
i think it's still the same and almost nobody Brazil was put to uh write a check for that amount
uh expect that's the uh and i don't think that's only for so i think that is a lot of South America
um and a lot of the global South marginally uh not including Australia who somehow doesn't get
included when we say the global South um but uh yeah it's um there's a little bit different uh inequities
between different countries and what they can uh what is a reasonable amount for like a uh uh
like an optional cost like a membership uh with an organization that you want to support like
those numbers are real different all over the place i mean we see the same like um um you know
with uh centers of central patents like the amount that uh seems reasonable for uh a Scandinavian
country to ask for uh for being a center central patent is really different than uh what might
seem reasonable to say India or China for using that uh a standard central patent in say a mobile phone
yeah i understand i understand and i mean can you give a bit of insight into um the different
countries into in terms of what kind of licenses they come to you or is that a
oh right oh is there is there uh is there a global difference or is it
people are individually deciding what they think is best what our project um yeah so that's uh that
i could go call different directions of that what i would say is that um each each country
has its own idea about uh how intellectual property and business in uh community interest
or lack of a more specific term how to strike that balance um uh the u.s has like
is pretty much an ip maximalist along with a couple of uh fairly wealthy other countries like
japan and korea uh and most of the eo um when you look at the ref uh their approach to ip tends to
follow along like a cultural or what's often a colonial uh connection or interest so like
offering speaking country in africa may fairly similar approach to ip as a as trans for instance
right right the other thing that you see is if there is like a business relationship so
um if the software is getting written in europe but the hardware is being built in indonesia
then uh they're going to try to harmonize approach to ip because of the way that the hardware
and the software interact um because it's going to be messy if like the hardware side is like no
we're giving everything away and the software side is like no wait that's not we didn't say you
could do please bring it back that's how to work uh so so you tend to see like harmonization
like like i said cultural language or colonial uh historical colonial relationship or um if they
make shared product together um so uh so that's like kind of where it starts but then um different
places uh see uh the fact uh maybe like an ip maximalist strategy and how that affects the
actual individual people living in their country and then they may go off script so to speak from
there and decide to make some carveouts or some exceptions uh or not participate in certain parts
of that otherwise maybe shared ip strategy okay yeah that makes the perfect sense it's uh
that's like in your work you've come across a lot of those uh issues already what we buy
well because software is global and uh and uh and for and yeah like we can't just be like the OSI
of the US because like even the software is here isn't not here like lots of it's made in lots of
different places most of our you know most of the major projects that people depend on are uh
developed in at least like five different countries so it has to you can't you can't like only
get uh one country's approach on software and for us uh like i said i'm based in the US um and we
have not had a lot of conversations about open source and standards and uh and like how or whether
to encourage open source usage for uh public software but that conversation has already happened
in Taiwan like it's for our public use of software and uh the conversation about like how to set
standards and uh how to like make guidelines for software that include the idea of like a lot of
this is going to be open source that conversation's already happening up we're gonna uh we're coming
in a little late but definitely gonna have to have that conversation with the knowledge of how
that conversation's gone another place and more interesting perspective that before we wrap this
up finally historical question um any any thoughts on Bruce parents given the
importance of said Bruce for the movement to use a more rather communist term let's put it this way
yeah uh at first i want to say like you know um everyone loves it really of course
if and we appreciate like what he did for the organization uh sorry maybe maybe for the two
people who don't and sorry and this is my fault because i should i probably should have introduced him
but maybe you can touch some but but maybe you can shed some light on who Bruce parents is
yeah so he created the open source definition and he co-founded the OSI with Eric Raymond
neither Eric or Bruce are involved with organization today um and uh you know and and Bruce
says that you know he has he always has maybe you'll have him on one day
he always has some sort of nice things to say about like what we should or shouldn't be doing
today um and uh you know uh he's doing something uh you know i i i don't think it's like
being spirited or personal or what have you uh maybe it is i don't know him very well um but uh
you know we uh the organizational leadership doesn't like obviously he doesn't agree with us
and so we don't agree with him i don't know were you hoping for something much spicier like uh
you know we killed this dog ten years ago and he's never forgotten
no no no no i don't have that story that story is not i don't have that he might even be a dog
on Bruce if you're listening this is purely fictional nobody could get out ten years
no nobody wants no no i love dogs i love cats a little more but i love dogs
but before we wrap this up there's something called the poxas as in the pics of the week that we
normally and that we normally um subjugate is what we're looking for
in flexing yes inflect upon our visitors as in our guests and the idea is basically if there's
anything worth mentioning that has touched you in any way as in you think that is worth bringing
on the show in the last week or two uh now this is the time and anything goes i mean normally we
kind of touch upon movies books not the rest of it but anything we be um is is is an option
so so over to you that what's your poxas what's your pox?
pox is the word poxas pox? yes something that irritates me like a pox
oh no sorry no no i could pick off the week oh a pick of the week okay sorry i got it i got it
i was like i thought we meant like like ox on your house no no sorry miss understanding
right i picked a week uh yeah i don't know i'm enjoying the Loki show i guess i'll say that
i appreciate it is like kind of at the power vibe the Loki show okay yeah
maybe yeah maybe you can explain for our non-American listeners um we don't know the show
what this is uh it is on um let's see what's it it's i think it's like Disney and uh it's on Marvel
it's like a basically so i'm a big sci-fi nerd this is how i ended up like doing software stuff
so this is from the like you know endless Marvel canon and uh and basically like so they like
retconned which is when you go back and pretend something happened that you didn't have happened
originally um they went back and apparently like Loki fell in through like some time travel
and ends up discovering this like huge 1984-ask time travel scene and um and because the uh
because it's a tv show instead of squashing him or burying him in history somewhere they ask him
for help that only he can provide and it's ridiculous fun and this is uh this is available on Disney
plus i think so yeah perfect Disney if you're listening to us at the end of us it's one
through at the end of in law starting you donations are like that and gifts and kinds too i mean
Martin is always looking out for a Disney plus subscription so i have one i'm a great great
okay Martin what's your box well following it's also a Disney plus right but in this case it's
air conditioning and watch to be uh well not not over here we don't we don't need air conditioning
yeah no i mean um i was i was the kid i filmed with the kids called Luca which is really
amusing Luca okay it's about a um uh and under under water living um a man like creature which
can also go above ground turn into human turn so it's all into quite quite amusing has a story
so obviously it's a kids film yeah like william b gates i'm joking okay that's how you learn
must in this year when you know he's gonna move under water and we're gonna it's gonna be like
if he if he returns from space eventually yes if he makes it back if he doesn't
it's a lot harder maybe though it's like a water landing and then this one happens to
me but Elon if you're listening before you go the email address is sponsored and it's Elon start
eating i did it before it's okay my box of week is actually a video on youtube that explains it all
um links of course as the other boxes will be in the show notes and this video teaser actually
explains what the internet is made of and funny enough is actually made of cats
enough enough enough teasing just check out the youtube link it's very funny i just came across
the other day and it's really insightful let's put it this way Martin we do have some feedback
for you yes claw at u m favorite list of the show um to the show whatever um commented on
yes commented on 41 sorry i commented on the bsd episode best of bsd great episode get gents
that was an awesome interview and i've could and i could have listened for even longer if you did
go if you did go the full three hours laughing out loud definitely better guests for interview
than i'd ever be no closer that's not correct just reply to that mail that i sent you ages ago
and say now look here i am i want to be on the show and we slot you in the wars
Martin any any comments on this on the comment yeah i think he clearly um must have fallen asleep
in the middle because it was about four and a half hours wasn't it sorry yeah we only posted the
energy version actually it was seven hours long sure there may be there may be the b-sides coming
coming up around christmas depending on if we find the time on this but then Martin you noticed
something odd on hpr from a completely mistake in regarding all Claudio five and it's going to
go odd but uh full distortion apparently a Claudio has been playing around with some hardware and
some poetry like what like hi ku or something hi ku okay so Claudio if you've done episodes already
don't be shy just reply that mail and your mother welcome to do full episode with a little
in-laws it'll boost your ratings that will of course help with your monetization strategy big times
i'm just saying and we'd like to know how you put these poems on this on this pc as well yes
so please come on the show Claudio we need people like you to stay insane i think i'm sorry
saying my mistake anyway doesn't matter oh Martin before i forget we have another one
i'll be covered by yes i'll be covered by zen floater too this should put me up a tree there you go
i had to play this show about three times to get all the content out of it well done zen floater
installing and running gnome 3 in an open bsd is extremely easy as gdm does all the work for you
interesting because i thought that system b would play a major role in this but not to worry about
certain up pulse audio is probably the hardest part most newbies have difficulty with indeed
but you know this squirrel is sick and tired of heavy desktops well i got a fork lift right
and i'm also getting sick and tired of internet sorry we also busy collecting acorns at the
official acorns being home computers back in the 80s but that's the size of the point okay
i'm also continuing with the comment yes i'm also getting sick and tired of internet amd 64
times plastic cp from hell Martin you're okay uh yes uh no
it's the weacher
i'm just checking because there's another background
yeah the dog was eating the headphones that was why
so it's not a weacher it's huge and it's better for a change okay okay
okay oh squirrels yes you squirrels and acorns yeah i'm also getting sick of and i'm also
getting sick and tired of inter AMD uh 64 platforms the plastic CPUs from hell
and along for the mainframe this here we go where we just use the dumb terminal i was happy then
i was in float i must be quite old i have a few open bsd servers to use yssh which satisfies it
this urge exactly but i need to buy some dumb terminals and put open this on my Raspberry Pi 400
thingy and take my two chrome books and just drown them both in a deep bathtub somewhere
careful now this might be what's it called um in germ it's on the mill it's
explicit talks talks no it's toxic garbage exactly there's no such thing as a perfect desktop i
hit them all those desktops always have you feeling unsafe with life oh there you go
why do we even put up with desktops and what drives the dollar to continue on with gnome yes
question what are they going to get out of it what will
i bm get out of it interesting question d everyone should run open bsd or not bsd or food
juita whatever that is or how about geeks with you heard instead of all this look stuff
i'm gonna comment on that in a minute we want something different on the computer table really
gnome and system d is is like a slow creeping cancer interesting point and the boring cancer
two where you limp fall off one at a time every fourth every three to four years
now there you go okay kids full disclosure heard it's not a system i would use for production
for thoughters then float has a couple of interesting points to be perfectly honest with you
given the fact that gnome three especially the level of of which gnome three is in battle system d
makes entanglement interesting so maybe there are hacks in gnome three that allows it to run
an open bsd flawlessly but to mark by for my understanding gnome system d and close and close
up by every release so that would be interesting to see at least that's road map that i see in the
project why not do away with a desktop all together as yes as as n floater implied that stops as
we all know of course evil goes without saying but the trouble is that not everybody has these
1.5 million for rupture entry of a class of something called a system z and of course i'll be a
mainframe just use terminal you know when i use exactly but you see funny enough Martin this
terminal has to connect to something yeah this of course and r2 speaking of course you can simply
buy in our address barry pie cluster a couple of hundred machines will do nicely and simply run
this zero as or or our system z emulator on top of this should give it this performance although
not quite as fast as this old iron that rbm sells you're interesting i mean the common is pretty
interesting about system b and cancer i would recommend running death one if you want to take a
look at linux in that regard i'm awesome other distros who basically or which just have diverted from the
path of enlightenment is that a one look for probably not no people before you send in
nazi comments i'm pretty neutral on system d it does have its advantages let's put it this way
standardization for external becomes the mind and funny enough it has been picked up by most
distros as the standard indies system and more yeah and before i get further hate mail no system d
is not against unix philosophy this is one of the great misunderstandings of of the of the of
the of the current area i think because if you take a closer look at the code best it's still
little tools doing one thing exactly pretty much in line with the with the overall unix original
unix philosophy it's only the case that these tools form one code base and i think this is
pretty much the misunderstanding that some people still rely on let's put it this way
yes i feel the camp episode on system d coming up do you know modern
and then float off course you're more than welcome to come on an episode and share your insights
on this if you choose to do so we are more than happy to have you on the show as usual
and that's all there is to it right with a lot of feedback
yeah and it's before i'm adding to the course then floater has won the award so far for the
longest comment ever definitely yes a small well done yeah a small small island called
and the uk look at it in the in the in the british are in the british sea will be on your
will be on the fan you see i mean you're looking at face at a face value of about two quid
but great putt will be yours soon the price has just to come down a bit
i'm sure he'll be pleased by the way anyway hey but martin sorry wait before we go back to
that there's more feedback more feedback yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes oh yes of course sorry
yeah heck i do for careful sorry go ahead yeah so heck of defo or whatever's name says you have a name
they signed it with be cool so anyway so be cool says a big hello to doctor Zimmerman and martin
full disclosure of front there is a place called the limits in laws i first went there for
madness but i stayed for the knowledge and now i have i have become a fan of the limits in laws
podges we have one hooray a real fan right anyway what sets you so you can he continues what's the
courtesy of art on hbr and even other than this way it's boss cast christian mark most of the
host on hbr i don't live this way to post because our hackers use and enthusiasts unlike us of course
none of them are taught to at all this incentive no matter how hard anyone can try
prose will be prose and averages will be images at the end of the day yes that's pretty nice
but do continue martin sorry okay yeah so i can't say i've listened to every single episode done
by you guys but i haven't listened to a great many of them and for some unknown reasons
episode number 26 aka microdinix harder is my favorite till the date and this is this is the
episode without porn i'm not at but to continue martin yeah we don't have that many no yes
anyway um this is not to say that the others weren't good the way you guys handled and explained
the heavyweights called asianinics and that parmer on that episode was special i really enjoyed it
and also learned a lot from it i mean use debian so i know that app hour comes enabled by default
on debian installs since debian 10 buster debian also makes it a bit easy by giving a couple of
packages to provide various app armor profiles for new for a few applications these packages are
app armor profiles and app armor profiles extra thanks to these packages in the showroom of course
and there's much more in the in the comment unfortunately heck i therefore we do not really have the
time but i really liked how you closed up the the comment and apparently that fan of the show is
Indian he said that quote and i find the end this male with an old Sanskrit quote and then he
wrote some Sanskrit and then he says a rough translation of the above what is that which cannot be
stolen by thieves not taken away by kings not get shared among brothers not the burden on the
shoulders to carry what if spend well always keeps growing what is the most superior wealth knowledge
and then he concludes with keep up the great work and keep spreading the knowledge thank you are
much therefore Martin is that the one of the marketing guys you didn't fire it's clearly something
someone related to no matter i'm just asking because if if this is the case well don't Mr. Visor
yeah look for keeping that one no jokes aside be cool thank thank you very much given the fact that
this is even longer than the previous comments then definitely it is on the top of the
things and i'll see you made a few suggestions of topics which is also indeed thank you very much
appreciate it so i think zen floater got the british files we're gonna denote the whole
american North American continent to you so so and by then if you're listening please wrap your
account please give wrap your country and send it to be cool as soon as we get his address
details will be in a male center the White House of course
and be could just decide thank you very much for the wonderful feedback unfortunately as i said
we couldn't we didn't have the time to read all but and here's a special gift if you're
so inclined we would love to have you in the show forget about not the North American continent
and appearance on links in laws would be much more gratitude i suppose in terms of appreciate it
definitely yep so that that is now when you're available and yes and just send me just
in the as you did before i just sent a message to feedback and links in those of you thank you
and now back to wrapping up the show with that and that thank you very much for being on the show
it has been more than pleasure and hoping to have you and having and looking forward to having you
back soon thank you and that was all for today's episode hope you liked it as much as we did
and see you soon and this is the Linux in laws you come for the knowledge but stay for the madness
thank you for listening this podcast is licensed under the latest version of the creative
commons license tap attribution share like credits for the entry music go to bluesy roosters
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intros and finally to the lesser ground for the song sweet justice used by the dark side you
find these and other ditties license under creative commons at tremendo the website dedicated
to liberate the music industry from choking corporate legislation and other crap concepts
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