Re: Next Steps For the Software Heritage Problem

[Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech>]

Hi,


On 2024-06-20 08:36, MSavoritias wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2024 17:46:08 +0200
> Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> wrote:
> 
>> On 2024-06-19 12:25, raingloom@riseup.net wrote:
>>> On 2024-06-19 11:54, Efraim Flashner wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 12:13:38PM +0300, MSavoritias wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> One of our packages, dbxfs, left Github a while ago and continued
>>>> development on a different forge. They adjusted their README to
>>>> disallow hosting of their code on Github. Based on this
>>>> restriction we have labeled later versions of the software as
>>>> non-free and have not updated the package. IMO saying that source
>>>> code cannot be uploaded to SWH would fall into the same category.
>>>
>>> No wonder more and more people are growing dissatisfied with the
>>> free software movement.
>>>    
>>
> Hey Ekaitz,
> 
> Please remember two things in the context of all of this:
> 1. Guix is not a software entity but it is made of people that want a
> safer, collaborative space to create things. These things may be code,
> a blog post or anything else as part of guix. Even a social network
> account. I am saying this because you only talked about Free Software
> in your message and not about people or different contexts.
> And we are talking about people here. Not code. Code is not alive.

I was specifically talking about the Free Software issue raised by 
Efraim and the message by Raingloom. And exactly what you point out is 
what I wanted separate as you very well did. Now we are talking about 
the people and about how things affect people, and that's a different 
matter I'm going to tackle below.

> 2. You seem to imply that Free Software or code is apolitical. (in the
> sense of social or state politics not) Which it is not. Nothing is.
> For example Free Software is explicitly pro-capitalist and
> pro-Google/big companies. I am not saying I disagree, but its good
> to keep in mind that politics exist and do exist always. And in the case

I'm not one of those people that think everything is politics but that's 
not a debate I want to open. Free Software can be understood from many 
ways. I don't think it's pro-capitalist, but pro-freedom, but that 
freedom affects the capitalists too, and it's a *value* they have. But 
freedom is also an anarchist value, and it can be an anti-capitalist 
value too it becomes more politic when you put more things around it. 
The issue I was trying to point is Free Software attracts many people 
from many different backgrounds and politics, and trying to push for one 
side defeats its purpose: making people stay together because they have 
some shared value.

>> There are many valid reasons why someone might criticize the Free
>> Software movement and people behind it, but making free software only
>> has 4 simple rules. If you don't comply with them you are not free
>> software anymore. It's as simple as that, and that simple it should
>> be.
>>
>> Free Software gives me the FREEDOM to print the code, make a roll
>> with it and shove it up my ass if I want to (and even distribute my
>> modified copies for other people to do so). The same freedom I have
>> to upload it to github. If you prevent me from doing one or the other
>> you are restricting my freedom and that's defeating the purpose of
>> free software and we cannot consider your code free software anymore.
>> The line is clear, and trying to pretend to be free software while
>> restricting people's freedoms (regardless of what they are) is absurd.
> 
> This is missing the context that GPL does indeed restrict people's
> freedom to license code as the see fit. Because it was written to
> further the political goals of FSF. It is on purpose. So we are already
> restricting the freedom of people to do what they want on purpose.

It does restrict your freedom but only if your goal is restrict other 
people's software freedom. I'd say the argument here was that GPL 
provides more absolute freedom in the current world than other licenses 
but I don't think the GPL was a very easy decision to make for the 
radical freedom fighters. That's why some people don't like it.

> And lets not forget
> "your freedom ends where the other persons freedom begins"
> and consent of course in the issue at hand.

Yes, but I don't think this is a matter Free Software needs to deal 
with. And my original message was around that.

Now, we should do something as a set of people that collaboratively work 
in a project. Probably not under the Free Software label, because what 
free software is is already pretty clear and well defined, but as 
something else, may that be Guix users and contributors, if we wish.

>>
>> The Free Software movement can be labeled (and is often labeled) as a
>> political movement but I'd say it's more of an ethical movement. It's
>> a way to share *values* and the value we share here is freedom. We
>> might or might not share other values, politics, religion or
>> anything, but as long as we put the freedom in the first place we
>> should agree that free software is better than any other software
>> model we have.
>>
>> There are bad actors in the world (say thieves, killers or... GitHub
>> and AI), and we can discuss about how we should deal with them but I
>> don't think the answer is putting our *values* aside but embrace them
>> harder (one value, freedom, in our case).
> 
> Definetily agree. The solution is not to embrace propietary software or
> restrict software. Its to write down some common social rules that are
> rooted in consent.
> 
>> If people is not happy with the Free Software movement because it
>> puts the freedom first, I can only understand it as people being mad
>> about Free Software because it's about software.
>>
>> For other values, we can start other initiatives I may or may not
>> agree more with, but if the value is freedom (in software), I don't
>> think there's any better way to push for it. But trying to disguise
>> other things inside of the Free Software is kind of dishonest.
> 
> Fair. I mean we already have CoC and channel descriptions. Idk if we
> have event guidelines/CoC yet but we should.
> 
>> I don't know, maybe I'm just a little bit tired.
> 
> No worries. I think it was very well said.
> 
> MSavoritias

That was just for clarifying my point wasn't against this discussion but 
to say that the decision Efraim took on dbxfs is not only correct but 
the only possible decision, and that it should be.

Now in Guix, I don't feel comfortable with the fact we are helping 
people use AI that doesn't respect the licenses of our work to be 
trained. I'm sick of it.

If they respected the licenses, I'd be ok with it. Since I accepted Free 
Software's social contract I'm open for anyone to use my code with any 
purpose (unless they don't respect people's freedom later).

Also, even if we don't do anything about it, Guix's codebase is public, 
so they could do it anyway, regardless of SWH, so there's not much we 
can do about that.

What we *can* do is raise our concerns to SWH, motivating them to be 
more strict with their collaboration with companies or with the terms of 
their collaboration. It's probably better that they are in our side in 
this battle than if we are alone. I think they are sensible to this 
issue so it shouldn't be hard to have a proper conversation with them 
and see if we can understand better what they do, how, in which terms 
and so on.

Maybe it's better that these AI companies reach our code through SWH 
with a well-written contract than letting them steal it from the 
internet without having them to sign anything.

I'm kind of just guessing there, but we are probably stronger that way.
Also, if we could make other distros to take part on this it would be a 
great way to be stronger.

In any case, I think SWH are more than sensible to this issue and I 
think their connections might be helpful to not only restrict this 
HugginFace from doing shady things but to start pushing for regulation 
for every AI company that uses our sweat for their purposes.

So, to come back to my original point: It's not the free software that 
needs to change. It's the regulation of AI companies that should, and 
the responsibility we demand from them. Legally and morally, they should 
be accountable of what they do, and that's the direction I'd like to 
approach this. Maybe it's not easy to change the regulation of the whole 
world, but we can try to push for it in Europe (we pioneered some 
related regulations before) first.

In summary, I don't think this is just a SWH is bad/good or Free 
Software is bad/good issue.

Best,
Ekaitz

PS: If there's action I'm open and ready for it, but I won't like this 
discussion to become an exercise of ethical bragging with no goals.