Oct 14, 2026, 7:29 PMThanks also @davidrevoy for inspiring adding such a notice https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy/117440226629383529
- Oct 14, 2026, 7:29 PM
Replies
- Oct 14, 2026, 7:37 PM
Btw I have heard at least one prominent FOSS person (I'm choosing to not fill their notifications here by identifying them) that nobody cares about attribution requirements (and particularly not enforcing them). But to me, attribution is what I care about MORE than any other licensing requirements, more than copyleft "share-alike" style provisions, etc.
If you feel similarly, it would be good to hear on this thread. Perhaps even copying a similar notice into your project is a good idea.
Oct 14, 2026, 7:42 PM@cwebber I agree. I extremely dislike copyright (and would like it to be abolished even if that makes copyleft licenses (even more) useless), but I think that attribution and often also proper citation/references is extremely important.
Nantucket Litnantucketlit@mastodon.socialOct 14, 2026, 7:45 PM@cwebber What I've found, at least in writing, is that people want to be recognized for what they've made, and properly credited.
David Fi&erdjfiander@code4lib.socialOct 14, 2026, 7:46 PM@cwebber attribution in licenses is how UC Berkeley brought down AT&T and the UNIX System Labs.
ferunandogureito@mastodon.gamedev.placeOct 14, 2026, 7:48 PM@cwebber yep. same 👍️
Oct 14, 2026, 7:49 PM@cwebber What if the attribution is then done to every piece of training data? That's not impossible if the training data is known, but will it be acceptable?
Oct 14, 2026, 7:52 PM@cwebber attribution is the single most valuable thing a person or a project could get imho. But i guess this is due to the fact the most of the tech persons in the past were either academics or people with high hacker ethics. I miss the times were tech especially in opensource was about getting the badge to be a smartass or a project everyone looks up to. Nowadays even opensource projects just try to be funded or bought by a third party
Oct 14, 2026, 7:54 PM@cwebber I've always considered it to be important to respect even when it is optional. Tangerine had an attribution page that reproduced the license/copyright notices for the entire dependency graph. I had all the dependencies vendored, so the page was generated automatically from the sources. Mollytime will have a similar feature (eventually) once we're done rebuilding the UI and I figure out a way to do it without vendoring everything.
- Oct 14, 2026, 8:12 PM
@cwebber i think over the decades my hopes for my FOSS work burned down from a big important career making big important things, to hoping anyone at all finds my stuff to be useful for something, to i guess i can entertain a few dozen people for a few minutes every now and then, to ok i get it pausing your music to listen to worse music is too much to ask, look, i drew some pictures do you like pictures
- Oct 14, 2026, 8:15 PM
@cwebber and the idea that the outcome of this is my work being slurped up into a training set for my contributions to be misattributed to the theft machine, and nobody knowing i exist is not ok
- Oct 14, 2026, 8:18 PM
@cwebber but ultimately i'm not interested in taking anyone to court. i don't have the money to burn for that, and the impact on my health would probably be unlikely to have been worth it to me. so all i get out of a license is a statement of intent. people generally are good about respecting the intent of the license, so that's worked out well so far (even if it's been mostly not applicable anyway). but these ai companies don't give a shit, and i'm at a loss of what to do about it
Steve Purcellsanityinc@hachyderm.ioOct 14, 2026, 8:06 PM@cwebber If someone publishes something very clearly based on my work (or someone else's) I will be disproportionately offended if there's no attribution, because it's rude.
Oct 14, 2026, 8:15 PM@cwebber Attribution is pretty much the only thing I ever cared about (and I still care about it, very much). I also do not believe prominent people when they say they "don't care" about attribution. Like, really? So if someone had never credited your work your entire career and/or claimed it for themselves, you think you'd be in the same position as you are now? Or is attribution only important when you're on your way up the ladder?
I have a *lot* of feelings on attribution, in fact.- Oct 14, 2026, 8:16 PM
@cwebber Honestly, for a more negative take, any prominent individual in a community who says that "attribution doesn't matter" immediately sets off alarm bells in my head.
CyrikCyrikCroc@dragonchat.orgOct 14, 2026, 8:15 PM@cwebber Too many folks in and around FOSS think "nobody has taken enforcement action over this, therefore nobody actually cares about it." It's wrong and it signals that the person is thinking about FOSS in terms of what they can extract rather than a collaboration among peers.
allisonaparrish@friend.campOct 14, 2026, 8:21 PM@cwebber i'm an artist/academic/educator and i consider making foss to be a part of my practice. any kind of attribution helps me to make the case that my work has "impact" which in turn helps me to keep my job. a lot of foss projects that are related to academia in some way will request that papers resulting from research that makes use of the project include an actual bibliographical citation—i assume for similar reasons. tbh i think this prominent foss person is full of it
fellhouseaudioxinniw@post.lurk.orgOct 14, 2026, 8:17 PM@cwebber attribution seems like the most basic social reciprocity available and, as you mentioned, probably the most important. "where did you get *awesome idea from*? "oh *awesom idea* came from *this person*. aren't they neat?"
Filipfnohe@ohai.socialOct 14, 2026, 8:34 PM
James Smith 💾Floppy@mastodon.me.ukOct 14, 2026, 8:25 PM@cwebber absolutely, attribution is the most important part of the whole thing. Citing your sources seems to me to be one of the most basic parts of human decency.
- allisonaparrish@friend.campOct 14, 2026, 8:28 PM
Send Cookiesotfrom@functional.cafeOct 14, 2026, 8:28 PM@cwebber I care about attribution
bribrhfl@digipres.clubOct 14, 2026, 8:30 PM@cwebber i don’t code in any meaningful sense (thankfully) but unless the point is some sort of ephemeral anonymity, attribution is generally the thing i care most about with the art i do put out into the world.
- Send Cookiesotfrom@functional.cafeOct 14, 2026, 8:35 PM
@cwebber and I feel some people really tell on themselves with their attitudes towards consent and truth
leeinherentlee@flipping.rocksOct 14, 2026, 8:36 PM@cwebber don't give a shit about copyright but yes attribution is meaningful to me - as others have said respect is important, plus i want to give people ways to learn more if i learned. we exist in a social web and recognizing that web is valuable for us and others
Oct 14, 2026, 8:38 PMI tend to release things under ISC/MIT/BSD (2-clause) type licenses because attribution is nice—theoretically required by the licenses—and more significant to me than any share-alike terms. But in the end, I'm more interested in solving problems and sharing those solutions. And similar to @datarama's insightful reply, "as long as 1. you don't claim that you made my work, 2. you don't claim that I made your work."
iliailia@phpc.socialOct 14, 2026, 8:38 PM@cwebber It is an interesting thought & problem.
The issue with any licensing is firstly enforceability & legality. Just because you put something in a license file doesn't mean you can enforce (as in courts would rule in your favour).
Big OSS licenses have the advantage of being legally verified and supported by precedent.
- Oct 14, 2026, 8:40 PM
@ilia These clauses already exist in prominent, and previously enforced, licenses. We didn't add anything, just called attention to the clauses.
(And yes, I have done a substantial amount of work on FOSS licensing issues.)
- iliailia@phpc.socialOct 14, 2026, 9:18 PM
@cwebber ah, good to know, thanks for clarifying IANAL n'all that...
Oct 14, 2026, 8:58 PM@cwebber attribution is literally the only possible reward when you give your software away for free. It's all there is, so it's all that matters.
Oct 14, 2026, 8:59 PM@cwebber I hate copyright but want some credit for stuff I do, cuz that's the coolest thing someone can give me for the work I do for fun. So, the thing I care about the most is attribution, and that is why I license my stuff copyfree. If I didn't care, I would license it public domain, but attribution feels kinda like praise; I made something useful enough for someone to use, and I know that because they are attributing me
Hakan Bayındırbayindirh@mastodon.sdf.orgOct 14, 2026, 9:05 PMI feel somewhat different about the whole issue, and I want to underline something:
Permissive licenses are about developer freedom, but copyleft licenses are about user freedom. I care about user freedom more than developer freedom.
Another angle is, if I create a tool/library and I share it for free, it's GPLv3. User freedom is non-negotiable plus, I don't want my free work to be sold to anyone. It's created to be free as in beer and as in speech.
I don't allow otherwise.
- Oct 14, 2026, 9:05 PM
@bayindirh yes, I am one of the people who popularized "user freedom" as a term, partly in my talks about copyleft.
- Hakan Bayındırbayindirh@mastodon.sdf.orgOct 14, 2026, 9:09 PM
@cwebber Kudos to you. I don't remember where I read it first, but I write it everywhere the discussion permits.
From my understanding many FOSS developers don't understand how GPL/copyleft works, and as a result they are afraid of it.
Many developers don't care as well, and love MIT because it's "carefree".
Every license has its place, but there shall be more GPL software IMHO.
Oct 14, 2026, 9:08 PM@cwebber +1 to all of the above. Attribution is just so cheap to do, it's a red flag when it's too much effort for somebody.
Oct 14, 2026, 9:11 PMI have a project repository that started out as a fork and eventually morphed into a project that was reworked into something beyond the original scope to become something new.
I still have attributions to the original author and posted the links to the previously forked repository. It was the spark, after all, and it is just as relevant in the timeline as it was when it was the origin.
Given that the project is a list (in this case, a blocklist), it can't really be copyrighted.
Popstar Touristoctonion@tech.lgbtOct 14, 2026, 9:13 PM@cwebber My history is in both academic computer science and physics, and in both fields attribution is *paramount*. Reviewers will, correctly, hold papers back from publication if work isn't cited properly, especially if it's the reviewer's own work :)
Of course in practice some things things slip by, work is stolen between peers and between professors and students all the time, but the intention is understood and important.
This inability to cite is perhaps the first thing that bothered me about LLMs. Code isn't cited, books and articles aren't cited, websites and blogs aren't cited (in addition to stealing meaningful traffic from them while paradoxically hammering them with scraping requests). It all goes to these companies' fundamental business model, which of course boils down to capitalism's standard procedure - steal the commons, then sell it back to us.
Oct 14, 2026, 9:28 PM@cwebber hard agree.
Oct 14, 2026, 9:34 PM@cwebber I’m starting to feel that building open source licences on copyright was the right idea but the wrong foundation, and that we should have based them on the concepts of academic misconduct and plagiarism, which, when wielded properly, can ruin the career of a rogue who chooses to ignore the licence.
- Oct 14, 2026, 9:35 PM
@futzle Well, open source is in many ways a *reaction* to software becoming subject to copyright in 1980, whereas previously all software was in the public domain
Kirtai 🏳️⚧️kirtai@tech.lgbtOct 14, 2026, 9:55 PM@cwebber
Attribution is the most important thing.
Oct 14, 2026, 10:35 PM@cwebber Attribution's probably the most important part: it's how we can trace the history of programs because the Ladies of the Chips know programmers are pretty bad about recording our own history.
Oct 14, 2026, 11:29 PM@cwebber i care about attribution as a social function, but i don't care about enforcing attribution via licensing
Todd Knarrtknarr@mstdn.socialOct 14, 2026, 11:33 PM@cwebber I care heavily about attribution because that's the way you trace back to who's responsible for a piece of code. You can't enforce any other requirements if you can't identify who the code came from, and you end up taking the heat for any problems.
And of course there's the good-manners part, which I prefer to be the important part because the above only matters if there's problems and I prefer there not to be problems.
Oct 14, 2026, 11:45 PMI'd say I mostly care about attribution for my own projects in the same manner that I care about copyleft. I want software to be an unmistakably social endeavour, and I think attribution is a piece of that goal in addition to copyleft. I weigh copyleft a little higher because it makes up more of the pieces of my ideals by number, but I think attribution is very important as well. It's important to see code in its social context.
Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialOct 15, 2026, 1:41 AM@cwebber I definitely think sharing credit for where I got an idea is super important! I do appreciate when I receive it, but definitely think I care more about making sure I give the proper credit.
Jon A. Cruzjoncruz@mstdn.socialOct 15, 2026, 2:20 AM@cwebber I, for one, mainly care about proper attribution. Aside from MIT/BSD and LGPL for software, most all the #3DPrinting designs i publish go up under CC BY 4.0.
Attribution is key.
Mistymisty@digipres.clubOct 15, 2026, 6:40 AM@cwebber I’ve always been surprised when I hear people say that given how many people clearly value it!
Oct 15, 2026, 7:23 AM@cwebber having unwittingly become an expert in a certain cursed project, I say: attribution is SUPER IMPORTANT.
The cursed project when it was announced tried to hide they were based on ATproto, then launched and quietly went closed-source à la Truth Social.
And whenever they use other people’s tools built on ATproto, they are TERRIBLE at crediting them. Ouuuuuuf!
Oct 15, 2026, 11:01 AM@cwebber I care about attribution. More so than in the past. Now that the fruits of our commons labour are being sucked into the genAI blender, sold back to the commons without consent nor attribution I try to be precise in giving proper attribution. I wish @creativecommons had stood up in enforcing attribution. Sadly they did not. Nor did other organisations afaik.
Makes me wonder what will be left of copyright. Will it solely be a right for the rich & powerful? Maybe it already was? 🤔
Oct 15, 2026, 11:27 AM(1/2) IMO @cwebber has made a strawperson argument, because I don't know anyone (at least, anyone who is serious about #FOSS policy & how its impacted by LLM-gen-AI) who says “nobody cares about attribution requirements”.
I can only speak for my own position, but my position (based on 30 years of community observation) is that (a) attribution is not particularly important to most *who choose* **non**-copyleft, & (b) attribution *alone* never had a particularly good enforcement hook.…
matthew greenmrgtwentythree@mastodon.sdf.orgOct 15, 2026, 7:55 PM@cwebber "i just don't want someone to take my name off my code" is absolutely something i've said to people before.
gregor herrmanngregoa_@chaos.socialOct 15, 2026, 9:51 PM@cwebber right; I still remember how proud I was when I first read a "Thanks to /me" in a changelog or bug report or something. and I try to follow this path myself.
(I do care about licenses but that's a different topic.)
David Ruffnerdavidruffner@masto.nycOct 15, 2026, 10:20 PM@cwebber Yes attribution is very important to me. Ideas and creations don't come out of nowhere. They evolve from prior work. Attributing reflects that reality. It helps to build trust and to connect people.
DerJoshDerDerJoshDer@bonn.socialOct 15, 2026, 10:53 PM@cwebber
#sharealike trained models should be qat trained models of all sizes as #openweights . Ttbh.
David Revoydavidrevoy@framapiaf.orgOct 14, 2026, 7:48 PM@cwebber :blobcatheart: