Here's an interesting stunt: a project called Malus.sh will take your money, and in exchange, it will ingest any free/open source code you want, refactor that code using an LLM, and spit out a "clean room" version that is freed from all the obligations imposed by the original project's software license:
When Free Software Depends on Nonfree - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
When a program is free software (free as in freedom), that means it gives users the four freedoms, so that they control what the program does. In most cases, that is sufficient for the program's distribution to be ethical; but not always. There are additional problems that can arise in specific circumstances. This article describes a subtle problem, where upgrading the free program requires using a nonfree program.
Sorting out the Ethical Licensing Mess
Software developers who give the world, for free, usage rights to the code they write often use open source licenses to make this gift legally explicit. These free usage rights (and then some) are …
How markets coopted free software’s most powerful weapon (LibrePlanet 2018 Keynote)
Several months ago, I gave the closing keynote address at LibrePlanet 2018. The talk was about the thing that scares me most about the future of free culture, free software, and peer production. A …
The Anti-Capitalist Software License
A software license towards a world beyond capitalism.
Pluralistic: It’s extremely good that Claude’s source-code leaked (02 Apr 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Anthropic's developers made an extremely basic configuration error, and as a result, the source-code for Claude Code – the company's flagship coding assistant product – has leaked and is being eagerly analyzed by many parties:
Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software
Choice Outstanding Academic Title Software is more than a set of instructions for computers: it enables (and disables) political imperatives and policies. Nowhere is the potential for radical social and political change more apparent than in the practice and movement known as
Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them
A few days ago, I came across a blog post titled On FLOSS and training LLMs that articulates a growing frustration within the free and open source software…
The Value of Open Source Software
The value of a non-pecuniary (free) product is inherently difficult to assess. A pervasive example is open source software (OSS), a global public good that play
Cory Doctorow: IP
You’ve probably heard of “open source software.” If you pay attention to the politics of this stuff, you might have heard of “free software” and even know a little ab…
History of free and open-source software
The history of free and open-source software begins at the advent of computer software in the early half of the 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, computer operating software and compilers were delivered as a part of hardware purchases without separate fees. At the time, source code—the human-readable form of software—was generally distributed with the software, providing the ability to fix bugs or add new functions. Universities were early adopters of computing technology. Many of the modifications developed by universities were openly shared, in keeping with the academic principles of sharing knowledge, and organizations sprung up to facilitate sharing.
Some startups are going ‘fair source’ to avoid the pitfalls of open source licensing | TechCrunch
New alternative category to 'closed source' could help companies monetize software in the open -- without going all-in on open source.
Open Source is Not Enough
by James Halliday // The open source movement has fundamentally changed how software gets written. But in the process, corporations have been given a vast gift of free labor.
Ten FOSS Development Fallacies For User Facing Software
This is a list, inspired by the Five Geek Social Fallacies, of common patterns or behaviours that developers of free/open source software (FOSS) fall into when they try to develop software for users who are not technical, or for whom non-technical users would be the most obvious userbase. Hopefully writing these down (which frankly is cathartic more than anything) is helpful to some in recognising these thought patterns and avoiding them when developing software - I’ve got some of my own thoughts on this at the bottom.
The Rules of Open Source No Longer Apply | Built In
When free software first gained traction, the world looked very different.
Reimagining OSS Licensing and Commercialization with Fair Source - Adam Jacob, System Initiative
