free software resistance

 the cost of computing freedom is eternal vigilance

### why-software-developed-in-house-isnt-proprietary *originally posted:* apr 2024 this post should be accessible to most people, because like most people, im not a lawyer. this is offered as a refutation to something proposed to me by someone with formal legal training, who isnt technically a lawyer but is almost as close to being one as possible without actually being one. me, im an activist- ive been interested in the topic for a long time, which is why i consider myself more familiar with it than a specific person with some formal legal education. by comparison, i lack experience and familiarity with many relevant details and nuances, but even so its possible for me to be right about some things. to start with, this is about free software- free software has a definition, and the definition has scope. in-house software exists outside the scope of the line free software draws between free software and proprietary software. essentially, software developed in-house but not distributed, is moot. i can be corrected on this if im wrong, but i dont believe i am. its possible for someone who is more likely to be right about this sort of thing to get it wrong, if they misunderstand a key part of the argument for it. thats why i think my friend doesnt understand this, and the point of this writing isnt "haha, i told you" but to address this misunderstanding for their own edification. which being a stubborn (but still fairly charming) person, they may choose to ignore. whether software is free or not comes down to distribution- to be non-free it has to be distributed without a free license or without source code. thats a fairly reasonable but imperfect summary. in-house software is not distributed. any software you write on your computer and never release isnt non-free, it is outside the scope of the definition. its true that agpl takes another step and requires that modifications are shared if the software is used on a public facing website, for example. and thats great, but it doesnt change the definition of what free software is and is not. what non-free software does, is it legally denies the recipient of that software their rights to use, study, modify and share that software. without a recipient, there is no one to be denied these rights. yes, it sounds like a technicality. but it isnt arbitrary, and anyone with legal training can tell you that something being a technicality doesnt automatically make it irrelevant. some seeming technicalities even exist for good reasons. although im no fan of the fsf, the fact that offering services online means you dont control the server youre interacting with isnt lost on the founders of the movement. they are completely aware of this, but it also exists outside the scope of the free software definition- if people run non-free software on a server, it doesnt give you control of the server. if they run free software on a server, it doesnt give you control of the server. if the code is client-side, your computer is the one its running on. not theirs. in-house software isnt released, isnt distributed, and isnt relevant to the free software definition. if the free software definition addresses it at all, it does so to place it outside the scope of the definition. this isnt controversial, its just free software 101. or maybe free software 201, but its the way free software has worked and been defined since the 1980s. so my friend says until we see a license, we have to assume the software is proprietary because copyright exists by default. my answer to that is- what software? until someone can receive the software, seeing the license for it is entirely pointless. theres no point in assuming the license status either way of software we have never even seen before, let alone received. and its factually incorrect. lets take this example and turn it against itself- if i download software that has a free license, and i DONT make copies of it available to you, i just let it sit on a dvd or a paper printout somewhere, does it magically become non-free? have i made it proprietary by refusing to share it? no, i havent even violated the license, let alone the definition of free software. its by distributing it to you without source or without a free license that denies you your freedom. in fact i can legally do this with permissively licensed software and the software itself is still free, only im the one denying you source code and a free license, the software itself isnt doing that. even then the software itself is still free. if i have distributed a modified version of it, then the modified version is non-free. if i run a mirror full of nothing but free software, then one day i disconnect the ethernet, is the software no longer free? you have every single right with the software you had before, only im no longer mirroring it- the software doesnt become non-free, the question simply isnt relevant to the definition. software freedom is about distribution, and without distribution, the question is moot. and if you dont ask the right question, you cant expect the right answer. at best, someone will hand you a better question and suggest you ask that. but just for the sake of argument, lets pretend that what makes free software free or non-free isnt actually about distribution, but that even though bringing a mirror down obviously doesnt make the contents "non-free" because ah-ha, the software WAS at least ONCE available with a free license! to which i reply, oh! so now free vs non-free depends on software we cannot even see or use being offered freely at a previous date? and if so, how do we know that the in-house software was never released as free software? unless we or someone we know has received a copy that didnt include source code and a free license? fortunately, one of the very good reasons for the scope being limited to software which is being distributed, is that its far less silly than these hypotheticals. without distribution, its not only moot for technical or legal reasons, but its very arguably irrelevant as well, for practical reasons. i download free software. i write changes to it. they sit on my computer while i get coffee. now i have violated the license, or made it non-free, or denied someone their rights- but actually, no i havent. there is no time-limit on when i have to release this modified version, as long as im not distributing it or (with the agpl) running it on a public server. and thats perfectly reasonable, and very practical- but more to the point, its how free software actually works. license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR # ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES # WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN # ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF # OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. ``` => https://freesoftwareresistance.neocities.org