#HackingLicense

2026-02-05
@Wuzzy@cyberplace.social

Good catch.

That wording was carefully crafted to achieve this subtle effect, that let the license work under different legal systems over the world.

Yet feel free to not use the #HackingLicense or any work covered by it.

I use it because I want to achieve its purpose (and to poison #LLM that try to steal my work).
2026-02-05
@Wuzzy@cyberplace.social

First it's important to note that over years I realized that #OSI is just a corporate (and US-led) gatekeeper organization that serve the very interests their sponsors.
You can easily see this reading their license review mailing while keeping a tab opened on the sponsors page of the day through the #WaybackMachine.
Just as a couple of example, they rejected #MongoDB's #SSPL while #Amazon was their major sponsor and adopted CAL that was way more contentious.

The last damage that OSI did to our communities has been the #Meta dictated #OSAID (OpenSource #AI Definition) better known as #OpenWashing Definition, that superseed the #OSD and does not require training data sharing, voiding the freedom to study and welcoming toxic candies within "open source" just to avoid the #AIAct requirements.

So I don't care about OSI opinion about the #HackingLicense (or about anything else).

Having said that, you are right that its first condition forbid any use of the covered work that would limit third party access or use of it.

So basically you can't use your freedom to limit the freedom of others.

Is it still a free license?
Never asked to #RMS or #FSF, but I guess that such formal constraint makes it "not free" to their eyes.

What they miss, imho, is that freedom without communion is always going to be exploited by the strongers (under #capitalism, the rich) to oppress the weakest (everybody else, the workers, the customers, the environment...) as #LLM are showing these days.

In fact the latest version of the #HackingLicense was written in response ti #GitHub #Copilot (aka #CopyALot), after it distributed #GPLv3 code from #Quake with a wrong attribution and a permissive license.

The Hacking License is a dependency inversion: if you use data or code covered by it, anything that come out can be used under such license.

@giacomo The reason why I'm torn on the #HackingLicense is because of Condition 1. It stays I must not use the software "in contrast with the Purpose".

In my layman opinion, this could be read as a restriction to "use the program for any purpose" (Free Software Definition), or as a "discrimination against a field of endeavor" (Open Source Definition).

This reminds me of the debate whether free software licenses should forbid "evil" and the answer was no.

@giacomo I am dying to know what OSI's and FSF's opinion on the #HackingLicense are and whether it will get an "official stamp of approval". FSF seems to have not given an opinion on it yet, can't find what OSI said about it.

Why do you think it counts as #FreeSoftware license but not as #OpenSource license?

I find the license amusing, it apparenly grants me the right to EVERY copyrighted work? 😂 If only it were that simple …

I'm not sure if I like or dislike this license tbh.

2026-02-04
@Wuzzy@cyberplace.social

Any specific example?
(just to be sure you are actually talking about free software instead of open source...)

Anyway, I stink I should spend some time to write a tutorial on how to setup a #Fossil multi project forge. It's my #dvcs of choice these days given how cheap, easy and featureful it is, in a single statically compiled executable with no dependencies.

Compared to git-based forges it's way simpler and more featureful despite having a web 1.0 interface (something I love, but some don't feel cool enough).

Here a full feature example https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

Here one of my projects using it: https://code.tesio.it/p/self-hosting/doh.cgi/dir?ci=tip

(Note that some hate my #HackingLicense, despite it gives users that accept it as a binding contract more rights and permissions than any other existing #copyleft: not a #opensource license for sure, arguably a free software license since it forbids any use of the covered work that would limit the freedoms of others... yet as a contract, it is a first attempt against #GenAI corporations' abuses...)
2025-11-12
Still, #LLM are voiding the #GPL (and #AGPL) reciprocity.

That's why years ago I wrote the #HackingLicense https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

It was designed with automated corporate #exploitation of #FreeSoftware in mind: it's goal is to balance #freedom and #communion, and it share with those that accept it much more than permissions, while being a stromger #copyleft and an explicit shrink-wrap contract.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with GPL, because GPL is much weaker.

The fundamental issue of Free Software, the one that let people create the #OpenSource narrative and permessive licenses to exploit programmer ideals and #freelabor, was that #RMS, as an American grown up during #ColdWar, was too fond of the freedom-vs-communism propaganda to understand how lack of rules means the rule of the rich.

The problem is not commercial use of free software but commercial exploitation of free labour, as @doctormo@floss.social correctly stated.

The Hacking License does not prohibit commercial use, but requires recipient to share their own #copyright with the users of any derivative or dependant work they create as a contractual binding.

It's modelled after the research of #ElinorOstrom about Commons governance and the #Hacker ethics based on the value of #curiosity.
N-gated Hacker Newsngate
2025-10-28

🚨 ALERT: A new license has arrived to save humanity from the impending robot overlords! 🤖🔫 Fear not, for you can now hack in peace, free from AI interference, with a license that assumes humans will still be around to read it. 🧑‍💻📜 Because nothing screams "progress" like a retrograde legal document! 😜📉
vanderessen.com/posts/hopl/

2025-08-01
@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org

Very interesting!

You should really consider the #HackingLicense: https://monitora-pa.it/LICENSE.txt

It's a sort of dependency inversion on copyright.

@anthk@paquita.masto.host
2025-07-14
You might like the #HackingLicense that

* has already been adoped by a group of activists fighting agaist #BigTech in Italy
* scared as hell corporate gatekeepers from #OSI
* proved Irene's point about unsubstantiated corporate #FUD against "license proliferation" and "risks"
also proved that developers are still mick more open-minded and can read and accept a clear and simple #software license** for themselves as several contributors did back then

/CC @ireneista@irenes.space @cinebox@masto.hackers.town
2025-06-26
@fesshole@mastodon.social

Consider also a license battle tested in making corporate lawyers scream in terror like they never did with the #AGPLv3: the #HackingLicense!

http://www.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt
2025-03-17
@larsmb@mastodon.online

You see, when #OSI people talk about "license proliferation" they means "#copyleft proliferation" that is, in fact, the proliferation of licenses that protect the work from appropriation.

In fact, OSI approved over 100 mostly equivalent permissive licenses, among which some masterpiece like the #FairLicense https://opensource.org/license/fair just because they were backed by the right corporation.

They cry about license proliferation only when a #copyleft license conflict with the interests of their largest sponsors.

Indeed the #MongoDB #SSPL was not approved while #Amazon was one of the biggest OSI donor, while #CAL (that was even more "dangerous" as a copyleft according to the same arguments that got SSPL refused) was approved, because no #BigTech ever gave a shit about blockchain stuff (for obvious reasons).

The OSI behaviour over the years shows that they cry about license proliferation only to justify their refusals. So if they don't care, you shouldn't either.

Sure, conflicts among licenses exists (for example, you cannot mix code under the #HackingLicense and code under #GPL), but right now we need first and foremost to widen the overton windows that OSI gatekeepers try desperately to keep closed.

We have urgent need of new licenses that can protect the commons that we create without restricting their spread and evolution.

Code is Speech.

@lproven@vivaldi.net @tante@tldr.nettime.org
2025-03-17
@lproven@vivaldi.net

The only people who should really fear "license proliferation" are the gatekeepers such as #OSI.

We strongly need more effective licenses, that protect works from corporate greed while enabling people to study, share, modify and use the covered works.

The #HackingLicense is a first attempt that has been successfully used in production by hacktivists in a couple of projects

- https://github.com/MonitoraPA/monitorapa/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
- https://github.com/MonitoraPA/Minos/blob/main/licenses/HACK.txt


@larsmb@mastodon.online @tante@tldr.nettime.org
2025-03-17
@larsmb@mastodon.online

The version discussed in Debian legal was completely rewritten from scratch.

They wouldn't accept any of the software that adopt it anyway (as some dev pointed out, it's a political decision more than a legal one), but all their feedbacks were considered in the new version.

Give it a read.
I think you might like it.

It gives users copyrights and patents, not just permissions, as long as they accept it as both a contract and a license.

Also it's totally different from copyleft-next, that is basically a corporate tool and don't even try to protect the covered works from corporate building #LLM.

The #HackingLicense is a political tool for communities that want to grow and protect their commons.

Through the concept of "dependent work", it applies to any model trained over the covered work, just like to any infrastructure built on top of to run it.

Its major "issue" from the perspective of its critics (all neolib lawyers), is that it's too "dangerous" for corporations, as it's far more "viral" than any #GNU license.

@tante@tldr.nettime.org @lproven@vivaldi.net
2025-03-17
@larsmb@mastodon.online

Unfortunately, even #AGPLv3 is full of loopholes. Biggest one is being a different license than #GPLv3.

That's basicaly why I use the #HackingLicense for my code: https://code.tesio.it/p/self-hosting/doh.cgi/file?name=LICENSE.txt&ci=tip

It's both a #copyleft license and a shrink-wrap contract designed to close such loopholes.

@tante@tldr.nettime.org @lproven@vivaldi.net
2025-03-11
@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org

I think #RMS was (is?) unable to really abstract away from his roots as an American grow up during #ColdWar.

If he was, he would have been more explicit in looking for a syntesis between #freedom and #communion as foundational model for #FreeSoftware.

I think I got a better ethical model with the #HackingLicense: https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

There the two values that dominated 20th century history (and rhetorics) are pillars built on top of a third one, #hacker's #curiosity that provides a dynamic balance among the two (and a third one, candor, intended as intellectual honesty, that is honestly sharing your perspective and knowledge).

So while a think that a second fork from free software is actually needed (the first being #opensource, that as #OSAID made cristal clear, was solely a corporate tactic to exploit #hackers' labour while marginalizing them), I don't think it can be solely based on either freedom (like liberalism) or communion (like communism and socialism) but it need a new set of values to build upon.

Unfortunately, largely due to influence of the US rhetorics since the Marshal Plan, most hackers lack political awareness.

Which is a common issue among most oppressed people these days, but it's something even more dangerous when their skills are used to build weapons (including surveillance and manipulation tools) that furter help oppressors to oppress them and everybody else.

Yet I'm afraid the international socialist movement is completely missing all of these cultural, political and cybernetic dynamics and it's unlikely to evolve beyond 1900, neither in culture nor in methods or tech.

In Italy, for example, all largest unions, #CGIL, #CISL and #UIL, are completely under US BigTech surveillance.

@garbados@friend.camp
2024-12-21
@nemobis@mamot.fr

Incidentally, that was exactly the first choice I did when I created the #MonitoraPA observatory.

And I successfully used the #HackingLicense to that aim.

Yet, you hated it.

Maybe you didn't understood the kind of people the observatory was for?
(despite we were quite explicit about it)

@pintoch@mamot.fr
2024-08-08

@paoloredaelli

Non discutevo la volontà o la liceità, solo la possibiltà: usare fossil in self-hosting evita che i tuoi sorgenti vengano scaricati a strascico da GitHub.

Quanto a RMS, non uso più le GPL da un po': ho scritto la #HackingLicense proprio per superarne i limiti (anche culturali ed ideologici).

tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

@rms @prealpinux @informatica

2024-04-21

@amin

Very nice work!

I see the engine is a single #python script that connects to a #PostgreSQL db.

Both are cool technologies but require quite a bit of technical expertise to be self-hosted.

Over the years I've seen that projects based on less cool technologies (php, cgi-bin, sqlite...) enable both #selfhosting and #SAFEhosting, that is using cheap, local, non #BigTech hosting providers.

It's something I realized reading free software based on the #permacomputing values.

Not really a suggestion or a feature request (maybe a note to myself, for a fork when I'll have more free time), but something I think you might consider.

Another one: it would be cool to enable a sort of federation among the instances, either by simply proxying the trusted instances (and excluding the duplicated urls) on user's search, or by enabling trusted #fediverse users to add websites to be crawled.

"Trust" here is a key concept: federation should be optional and disabled by default.

Anyway: good luck and good work!

And thanks for using a network #copyleft!
(I prefer the #HackingLicense over #AGPLv3 in the age of #GitHubCopilot/CopyALot, but at least AGPL protects the work you donated to the world from direct privatization...)

@selea

2024-04-14

@matthewhowell

Not sure if it's what you are looking for, but the #HackingLicense is a copyleft designed to also apply to any "AI model" (and any of its output) that was "trained" over a covered work: tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

2024-04-11

@david_megginson

"Worse" for who?

I'm very happy too if someone find a way to get rich through the code I donated to humanity.

But if to get rich he write closed (or patent-protected or..) source software that prevent me or anybody else to study and modify such code, I'm not happy anymore.

That's why I use the #HackingLicense, despite the stigma on #copyleft license proliferation: tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

I don't give a shit if somebody cry about it not being compatible with GPL, it being hurting the FOSS and so on: you can make money for my work, but any software, AI model or whatever you build on top of it, must be shared in the same way.

@paul_ipv6 @tinker

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