Re: Concerns/questions around Software Heritage Archive

[Olivier Dion <olivier.dion@polymtl.ca>]

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024, Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv> wrote:

[...]

> GPL’d software I’ve created has been packaged for Guix, which I assume
> means it’s been included in SWH.  While I’m dealing with their (IMO:
> unethical) opt-out process, I likely also need to stop new copies from
> being uploaded again in the future.

Even without Guix, SWH could upload your projects into their "database".
In fact, I believe anyone can ask to archive your project to SWH.  So
even if you ask Guix to not do the archiving, anyone contributing might
change that in the future.

I believe that preventing Guix from archiving your software is a
symbolic standpoint -- which I respect --, but would put more burden on
the Guix developers.  On the other hand, if enough people refuse to
archive to SWH, this might shift Guix onto a new direction for longterm
source archiving.

I'm not a lawyer, but perhaps a first solution -- for the AI stuff --
would be to add an exception to the GPL that prevents AI from training
on it.  Alas, as usual, our legislators are late on that matter, so that
might not even work.

[...]

-- 
Olivier Dion
oldiob.ca