Top all-time · #4739
Heather Meeker
Personal blog · heathermeeker.comprogrammingpolitics
Heather Meeker writes Copyleft Currents, a personal blog at heathermeeker.com about programming and politics. Since 2017, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times, most often “"Malus": Is Copyleft Dead?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-17, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters cite Heather Meeker's blog as a source on open-source licensing, including GPL litigation in China, FSF contributor agreements and AI copyright lawsuits.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A blog about open source licensing
Most-linked posts?
- "Malus": Is Copyleft Dead?2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-17
- License Picker 2.02 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-08-23
- /2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china-or-is-it/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-03-30
What Hacker News says?
https://heathermeeker.com/2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china... As the link warns, this is a secondhand translation, and my summary is thirdhand. Do your own reading, especially in the original language, if able. The general point here is that the Chinese legal system declared that the GPL legalese is OK, but that judges have the power to evaluate it in context of the case and retain the authority to override the le…
Comment linking /2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china-or-is-it/
on “Onyx is violating the Linux kernel's license, refuses to release source code”Submitted French court issues damages award for violation of GPL as a story · 927 points
HN discussionRedHat killed off CentOS in its previous form. RedHat also now has a written policy of terminating customers who exercise their GPL rights of republishing RHEL source code. That seems like subverting the GPL far worse than a CLA. If that's the best example here, then that already speaks volumes. Perhaps you can list some other examples of successful businesses who offer their core product under AGPL without a CLA? A…
Comment linking /2023/10/13/agpl-in-the-light-of-day/
on “Legal win”Submitted Open Source Community Over-Reacts to X Rated Code as a story · 8 points
HN discussion>You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. I have quite a few mainland Chinese friends in tech (I used to work there), and most work extremely long hours not because they like it, but because management and company culture enforces it and they're powerless to change it. They can't even conduct collective action, as that's essentially illegal. Chinese court…
Comment linking /2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china-or-is-it/
on “The anti crunch hours license”Submitted Victory for FireTek in the PyroTechnics Case as a story · 4 points
HN discussionUnfortunately, there's no single tome directly on point of these debates that I'm aware of. Some of these debates are very old, but some are also basically current events. I'd also be suspicious of any one point of view, including my own. As for blogs, I'd strongly recommend all the folks mentioned in the post, all of whom I link from my blogroll ( https://writing.kemitchell.com/blogroll.html ). Bradley Kuhn: http:/…
Comment linking /
on “Scapegoating free software’s failures”Submitted License Picker 2.0 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've written a bit on my experiences with OSI review in particular, and also the list of licenses it has approved. See, e.g., https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html . In a nutshell: people think there's a team of lawyers back there, counting angels on the heads of fine legal pins. But it's actually a highly politicized mailman list where activist-types do most of the talking. I put energy into co…
Comment linking /open-source-faq/what-are-the-most-difficult-questions-in-open-source-licensing/
on “The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name”Submitted A Chronicle of the Fall of Richard Stallman as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere has already been one court decision that pushes against a blanket fair use protection for AI training: https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2023/10/13/judge-bibas-i... And I think there are dozens of unfinished AI copyright infringement lawsuits... with likely more to come, I speculate. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2023/12/27/master-list-o... https://heathermeeker.com/ai-copyright-et-al-litigation-scor...
Comment linking /ai-copyright-et-al-litigation-scoreboard-sorted-by-complaint-date/
on “The I Hate AI License”Submitted "Malus": Is Copyleft Dead? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTraditional proprietary software is not publicly available in source form. _That's_ the point of the post, and the "third way": make source available, and develop it in the open, without giving a permissive public license that defeats your other immediate needs. Transition to a permissive license later, if and only if that meets your needs then. Parity is a radical copyleft license. If "not perfectly clear in every…
Comment linking /open-source-faq/what-are-the-most-difficult-questions-in-open-source-licensing/
on “In defense of a third way in open software licensing”Submitted Open Source License Picker as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe FSF has been (slowly) moving away from CLAs though [0] [0] https://heathermeeker.com/2021/06/01/fsf-drops-assignment-re...
Comment linking /2021/06/01/fsf-drops-assignment-requirement-for-gcc/
on “ZeroMQ – Relicense from LGPL3 and exceptions to MPL 2.0”Submitted Lawsuit Alleges NGINX Conspiracy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Good and Not Evil: The Advent of Ethos Licensing as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted "Malus": Is Copyleft Dead? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted "Malus": Is Copyleft Dead? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Open Source and the Eradication of Viruses (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Toward an Open Weights Definition as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Is Copyright Eating AI? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
