Hacker News with Generative AI: Licensing

You shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library (gnu.org)
The GNU Project has two principal licenses to use for libraries. One is the GNU Lesser GPL; the other is the ordinary GNU GPL. The choice of license makes a big difference: using the Lesser GPL permits use of the library in proprietary programs; using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.
Open Source, Licensing, GPL
5 points by stefankuehnel 17 hours ago | 2 comments
Everything but the Beholders: D&D updates core rules, sticks with CC license (arstechnica.com)
Wizards of the Coast has released the System Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license.
Gaming, Licensing, Creative Commons, Open Source
7 points by Tomte 2 days ago | 1 comments
Qualcomm says license fight was because Arm wants to make its own server chips (theregister.com)
Qualcomm has amended its complaint against Arm in a 2024 lawsuit, adding more allegations about Arm's purported breach of license agreements and accusing it of "misrepresenting" their relationship by intending to make its own rival chips.
Legal Disputes, Technology, Server Chips, Licensing
4 points by rntn 2 days ago | 0 comments
Breaking the Llama Community License (victor.earth)
If you're distributing or redistributing a LLM model that is under the "Llama 3.3 Community License Agreement", you might be breaking at least one of the terms you've explicitly/implicitly agreed to.All of the Llama models and their derivatives (fine-tunes etc) of them is are covered by a Llama Community License.
Open Source, Licensing, AI
144 points by mkl 12 days ago | 81 comments
Monotype just hit us with a $30k/yr font license fee for one font (reddit.com)
Monotype just hit us with a $30,000+/yr font license fee for one font. I’m speechless and lost
Fonts, Licensing, Pricing, Software
37 points by robin_reala 20 days ago | 6 comments
Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source (danb.me)
Today Gumroad announced that they’ve become open source, with this being echoed by the founder and on social sites like Hacker News:
Open Source, Software, Business, Licensing
122 points by ssddanbrown 22 days ago | 50 comments
Microsoft Urges Businesses to Abandon Office Perpetual Licenses (microsoft.com)
As a leader of a small or medium-sized business, you may have invested in Microsoft Office years ago through a perpetual license or “on-premises” version to equip your team with essential productivity apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Microsoft, Business Software, Licensing, Productivity Tools
7 points by m463 23 days ago | 0 comments
Broadcom raises minimum requirement for VMware licenses: from 16 to 72 cores (techzine.eu)
Broadcom is significantly increasing the minimum requirement for VMware licenses. According to VMware distributor Arrow, the minimum number of required cores per command line will increase from 16 to 72 as of April 10.
Software, Licensing, VMware, Broadcom
6 points by prtaylor 28 days ago | 0 comments
GPLv2 is not impressed by Git (thomas-huehn.com)
There is this strange little clause in the GNU General Public License, version 2 – but not version 3 – that pretty much everybody ignores. When distributing a modified program in source form,
Open Source, Licensing, Software Development
7 points by Tomte 29 days ago | 0 comments
VMware turns its back on small businesses: 72-core license policy backlash (systemadministration.net)
VMware by Broadcom has officially declared war on small and mid-sized businesses with the rollout of its new licensing policy, set to take effect this April.
Software, Licensing, Business, VMware, Cloud Computing
47 points by walterbell 33 days ago | 38 comments
Free Software Foundation rides to defend AGPLv3 against Neo4j license add-ons (theregister.com)
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) on Monday backed a lone developer's brave effort to overturn a pivotal court ruling that threatens to undermine the AGPLv3 – the foundation's GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.
Free Software, Open Source, Law, Licensing, Legal Battles
12 points by josephcsible 52 days ago | 2 comments
Not Lonely at All (2009) (ma.tt)
Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software wrote a blog post called Getting Pretty Lonely and and says, among other things, “Whenever I am reminded that WordPress is GPL, my passion for it takes a bit of a dive. I’m more comfortable with the true freedom of liberally-licensed products.” More importantly, he says that “GPL stifles participation,” and implies the same for adoption.
Software, Open Source, Licensing
22 points by luu 53 days ago | 1 comments
"When you upload or input information through Firefox, you grant us a license" (mozilla.org)
Firefox is free and open source web browser software, built by a community of thousands from all over the world.
Privacy, Software, Licensing, Open Source
839 points by tomp 57 days ago | 9 comments
Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness? (ycombinator.com)
As per the recent introduction of "Terms of Use" for Firefox which is covered by (almost) copyleft license, Mozilla now imposes following non-sense on it's users.
Mozilla, Firefox, Open Source, Licensing, Privacy
46 points by AlgebraFox 58 days ago | 23 comments
DOGE claims there are 227 unused VSCode licenses in DoL (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Software, Licensing, Twitter
17 points by thefujin 59 days ago | 13 comments
Author changes popular VSCode Material Theme license, threatens to sue (visualstudio.com)
So, uh, the guy who made the VS Code Material Theme is threatening everyone who uses it in their products. He seems to have forgotten it was originally licensed under the Apache License, 2.0.. He wiped the commit history to make it look like it was always his weird fake license.
Software, Open Source, Licensing, Lawsuits
8 points by PortableCode 59 days ago | 2 comments
Meta's Llama license is still not Open Source (opensource.org)
Meta, Open Source, Licensing
5 points by LorenDB 67 days ago | 0 comments
Open source projects could sell SBOM fragments (thomas-huehn.com)
Scanning source files for licensing information (because the package managers‘ metadata is insufficient) is a lot of work, and a lot of wasted effort, because only rarely do companies pool their resources.
Open source, Software Development, Licensing, Security, Collaboration
113 points by Tomte 68 days ago | 62 comments
What does it mean that MP3 is free? (idiallo.com)
The MP3 format, once the gold standard for digital audio files, is now free. The licensing and patents on MP3 encoders have expired, meaning you can now include them in your applications without paying royalties. For software developers and audio enthusiasts, this might seem like a big deal. But, surprisingly, almost no one noticed. Why? Because the world of technology has changed so drastically that MP3's significance has faded into the background.
Technology, Audio, Software, Licensing, Patents
164 points by foxfired 79 days ago | 103 comments
Feluda – A CLI tool to detect restrictive licenses in dependencies (crates.io)
Software, Programming, Open Source, Security, Licensing
42 points by anistark 85 days ago | 17 comments
Only 1 in 10 Oracle Java users want to stay with Big Red (theregister.com)
Only around one in ten Oracle Java customers are likely to stick around following costly licensing changes Big Red made to its development and runtime environments in January 2023, according to research.
Oracle, Java, Licensing, Software, Business
76 points by rntn 87 days ago | 62 comments
Significant Risks in Using AI Models Governed by Llama License (shujisado.org)
Although it has already been explained that the Llama model and the Llama License (Llama Community License Agreement) do not, in any sense, qualify as Open Source, it bears noting that the Llama License contains several additional issues.
Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Licensing, Open Source
3 points by jonymo 89 days ago | 0 comments
Sci-fi author Alan Dean Foster moves into gaming with Pomme studio deal Midworld (venturebeat.com)
Best-selling science fiction and fantasy author Alan Dean Foster is moving into gaming in a multi-license deal with studio Pomme, starting with a game based on his classic Midworld novel.
Science Fiction, Gaming, Literature, Licensing, Games
4 points by doctaj 96 days ago | 1 comments
Nokia Design Archive (aalto.fi)
Archive materials are subject to a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Please see HERE for attribution instructions.
Design, Archive, Nokia, Finland, Licensing
172 points by microflash 100 days ago | 58 comments
FluentAssertions 8 has changed its license to a commercial model (github.com/fluentassertions)
Software, Open Source, Licensing, .NET
30 points by twirls 102 days ago | 4 comments
Pluralsight unilaterally cancelling lifetime licenses (reddit.com)
“You know that lifetime license we gave you? Never mind.”
Business, Software, Licensing, Customer Relations, Online Learning
15 points by ado__dev 102 days ago | 7 comments
Campsite switches to Creative Commons Non-Commercial license (github.com/campsite)
This is an open source version of the Campsite app. This codebase is available as-is and is not actively maintained by the Campsite team. We will only consider pull requests and issues regarding self-hosting or critical fixes. The codebase is provided as a reference for those interested in learning how Campsite works. We welcome forks of this repository for use in non-commercial projects.
Open Source, Software, Licensing, Creative Commons
127 points by bpierre 102 days ago | 104 comments
LLMs Are Directing Open Source Licensing (danb.me)
I’m often looking at the licensing of open source projects, either out of personal interest or while moderating posts to /r/opensource, and through this I’ve seen a recent trend of projects having something like this in their readme:
Open Source, Licensing, Artificial Intelligence
3 points by thunderbong 109 days ago | 0 comments
ScyllaDB – Why We're Moving to a Source Available License (scylladb.com)
ScyllaDB has decided to focus on a single release stream – ScyllaDB Enterprise. Starting with the ScyllaDB Enterprise 2025.1 release (ETA February 2025):
Open Source, Software, Business, Licensing, Database
82 points by campers 128 days ago | 30 comments
ScyllaDB moving to a source available license (scylladb.com)
ScyllaDB has decided to focus on a single release stream – ScyllaDB Enterprise. Starting with the ScyllaDB Enterprise 2025.1 release (ETA February 2025):
Open Source, Software, Databases, Licensing
14 points by twoodfin 129 days ago | 10 comments