Three decades ago, it seemed inconceivable that the dominance of closed-source applications and operating systems could be challenged by FOSS underdogs. Now, Linux provides a great desktop experience, Libre Office does a great job of replacing the once-dominant Microsoft suite, Android runs two thirds the world’s phones, and Open Source applications, servers and tools power most of the internet.

Why open source isn’t everything

The success and acceptance achieved by FOSS is, if I’m honest, beyond even what I would have imagined as a young programmer. And yet it’s also clear that while this has lead to many benefits, the stranglehold of “Big Tech” on our society is stronger now than ever.

There are many reasons for this. Source code, and our right to see and change it, is not the only battleground.

• Large platform businesses maintain monopolies through network effects, not code. If Facebook or AirBnB opened-sourced their code tomorrow, that would only give you access to run your own Facebook to use by yourself, it wouldn’t enable you to connect your followers, or the marketplace of local rentals, to your alternative platform.
• Likewise, many Big Tech projects care less about the source code than they do about the data that they collect. Visual Studio Code is open source, using the MIT license, and yet the main thing Microsoft gains from it, alongside their Github ecosystem, is data to train their AI models.
• And finally, the acceptance of open source tools and libraries in for-profit tech companies does lead to development work on these tools, but generally only in ways that move them in a direction that is needed by these large tech companies themselves as they control the development work through wage labour.

Is the problem not enough Free/Libre?

Certainly when it comes to libraries, large companies prefer licences like MIT, Apache and even LGPL, which allow them to use the libraries in a closed source ecosystem, while benefiting from community collaboration on the library itself.

An argument could be made that more use of the GNU General Public License would help. It certainly might drive slightly more code to be open source. But again, while access to source code is better than no access, it simply isn’t making a dent in Big Tech hegemony.

In fact, it’s we may have gotten to the point where the Free Software movement’s Four Essential Freedoms are actually getting in the way. The first of them is called “freedom 0” (as programmers often start counting from zero) and is “The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose”. That’s an important freedom, but it’s a two edged sword.

In the same way that absolute freedom of speech allows hate speech, abuse, and threats, absolute freedom of use for a technology allows it to be used to build weapons and enrich plutocrats.

Is there an alternative to freedom “for any purpose”

Of course, there are a range of software licenses that restrict potential uses. For example., the Non-violent Public License attempts to restrict use of the software to prevent harming humans or engaging in acts of war, as does the Reticulum License.

Using software licenses enforced only by Copyright law may or may not be strong enough to prevent these kinds of misuse, but it seems a step in the right direction for technologists to start caring about how our tools are used.

LoRes is changing to the Anti-capitalist License

The LoRes Mesh project would like to be part of this current of projects pushing back on absolute freedom of use. Using any of these licenses helps normalise the idea that there’s a kind of freedom that we want where people are free from oppression.

Picking any of these licenses would help us normalise the idea that these projects, while they don’t strictly meet the definition of FOSS (according to some organisations at least), can help us build a world that is more free.

In choosing which one, an important consideration for us is that the LoRes project is heavily aligned with Co-op Cloud which is an alternative to corporate clouds built by tech co-ops. This focus on tech co-ops is a good reminder that it is generally the for profit, big tech companies that are driving the way that technology can be a force for oppression.

And so, we’re picking the Anti-capitalist Software License for our source code. It allows use of our software by individuals, non-profits, educational institutions, and member owned enterprises such as worker co-ops.

If you’re wanting to use LoRes software in an organisation that doesn’t meet this definition, drop us a line. We still have the ability to license the software to specific users under another license, and perhaps there are liberatory use-cases that weren’t considered by this license, but it seems a great place to start.