NVIDIA DLSS For Blender Under Review But Licensing Concerns Persist
A few months ago at SIGGRAPH was a demo of Blender with NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) integration. The pull request is now open for landing NVIDIA DLSS support into Blender for better quality upscaling/denoising and performance but concerns persist over the licensing due to NVIDIA DLSS binaries… ⌘ Read more

FreeRDP 3.22 Released With Overhauled SDL-Based Client UI
FreeRDP 3.22 was just released as the newest version of this Apache-licensed open-source Remote Desktop protocol (RDP) implementation for interfacing with another computer over the network… ⌘ Read more

The Case Against Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
Small modular nuclear reactors (or SMRs) are touted as “cheaper, safer, faster to build and easier to finance” than conventional nuclear reactors, reports CNN. Amazon has invested in X-Energy, and earlier this month, Meta announced a deal with Oklo, and in Michigan last month, Holtec began the long formal licensing process for two SMRs with America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commis … ⌘ Read more

New Jersey Law Requires E-Bike Drivers To Have License, Insurance
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: As one of his final acts in office, former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law new requirements for e-bikes in his state. The new legislation signed Monday requires that owners and operators of e-bikes have licenses, registration and insurance. Owners and operators of e-bikes must be at l … ⌘ Read more

SPDX SBOM Generation Tool Proposed For The Linux Kernel
For those organizations on the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) bandwagon for increasing transparency around software components with license compliance, vulnerability management, and securing the software supply chain, proposed patches to the Linux kernel would introduce an SPDX SBOM Generation Tool… ⌘ Read more

What Happened After Security Researchers Found 60 Flock Cameras Livestreaming to the Internet
A couple months ago, YouTuber Benn Jordan “found vulnerabilities in some of Flock’s license plate reader cameras,” reports 404 Media’s Jason Koebler. “He reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock’s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet.”

This led … ⌘ Read more

Burn 0.20 Released: Rust-Based Deep Learning With Speedy Perf Across CPUs & GPUs
A significant update to Burn was released today, the MIT and Apache 2.0 licensed tensor library and deep learning framework written in the Rust programming language. Burn 0.20 brings some low-level changes as it continues to strive to deliver high performance AI across the diverse hardware ecosystem… ⌘ Read more

Wikipedia Signs AI Licensing Deals On Its 25th Birthday
Wikipedia turns 25 today, and the online encyclopedia is celebrating that with an announcement that it has signed new licensing deals with a slate of major AI companies – Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Perplexity and Mistral AI. The deals allow these companies to access Wikipedia content “at a volume and speed designed specifically for their needs.” The Wikim … ⌘ Read more

Public Domain Day 2026 Brings Betty Boop, Nancy Drew and ‘I Got Rhythm’ Into the Commons
As the calendar flips to January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 are entering the US public domain alongside sound recordings from 1925, making them free to copy, share, remix and build upon without permission or licensing fees. The literary haul includes William Faulkner’s As I Lay D … ⌘ Read more

Groq Investor Sounds Alarm On Data Centers
Axios reports that venture capitalist Alex Davis is warning that a speculative rush to build data centers without committed tenants could trigger a financing crunch by 2027-2028.

“This critique is coming from inside the AI optimist camp,” notes Axios, as Davis’ firm, Disruptive, “recently led a large investment in AI chipmaker Groq, which then signed a $20 billion licensing deal with Nvidia. I … ⌘ Read more

‘Pull Over and Show Me Your Apple Wallet’
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: MacRumors reports that Apple plans to expand iPhone and Apple Watch driver’s licenses to 7 U.S. states (CT, KY, MS, OK, UT, AR, VA). A recent convert is the State of Illinois, whose website videos demo how you can use your Apple Wallet license to display proof of identity or age the next time you get carded by a cop, bartender, or TSA agent. The new st … ⌘ Read more

Open Source Initiative Estimates the ‘Top Open Source Licenses in 2025’
The nonprofit Open Source Initiative offers “enriched” license pages with “relevant metadata to provide deeper insights and better support”.

So which pages got the most pageviews in 2025? The MIT license, Apache 2.0 license, BSD licenses (3-clause and 2-clause), and GNU General Public license:

mit
(1.5M)
apache-2-0
(344k)
bsd-3-c … ⌘ Read more

FFmpeg Developer Files DMCA Against Rockchip After Two-Year Wait for License Fix
GitHub has disabled Rockchip’s Media Process Platform repository after an FFmpeg developer filed a DMCA takedown notice, nearly two years after the open-source project first publicly accused the Chinese chipmaker of license violations. The notice, filed December 18, claims Rockchip copied thousands of lines of code fr … ⌘ Read more

NVIDIA CUDA Tile IR Open-Sourced
As a wonderful Christmas gift to open-source fans, NVIDIA dropped their proprietary license on the CUDA Tile intermediate representation and has now made the IR open-source software… ⌘ Read more

Inside Uzbekistan’s Nationwide License Plate Surveillance System
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles’ license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicens … ⌘ Read more

Welcome To America’s New Surveillance High Schools
Beverly Hills High School has deployed an AI-powered surveillance apparatus that includes facial recognition cameras, behavioral analysis software, smoke detector-shaped bathroom listening devices from Motorola, drones, and license plate readers from Flock Safety – a setup the district spent $4.8 million on in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and considers necessary given the scho … ⌘ Read more

Apple Becomes a Debt Collector With Its New Developer Agreement
Apple released an updated developer license agreement this week that gives the company permission to recoup unpaid funds, such as commissions or any other fees, by deducting them from in-app purchases it processes on developers’ behalf, among other methods. From a report: The change will impact developers in regions where local law allows them to … ⌘ Read more

Judge Hints Vizio TV Buyers May Have Rights To Source Code Licensed Under GPL
A California judge signaled support for forcing Vizio to provide the full source code for its SmartCast TV software after finding a contractual obligation under the GPL. If upheld, the case could strengthen users’ rights to modify GPL-licensed software embedded in consumer electronics. The Register reports: The legal comp … ⌘ Read more

Disney Puts $1 Billion Into OpenAI, Licenses 200+ Characters for AI-Generated Videos and Images
Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and has entered into a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate AI-powered short videos and images featuring more than 200 characters from its Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar franchises.

The new features are expected to launch in 2026 … ⌘ Read more

@klaxzy@klaxzy.net do you know what I also find equally just as stupid and dumb is having to upgrade the software license on something just to be able to get OIDC or OAuth support ffs 🤦‍♂️

Details of plan to keep pubs open longer for World Cup revealed
Licensing hours could be extended to 01:00 if a home nation reaches the final stages next summer. ⌘ Read more

Japanese Devs Face Font Licensing Dilemma as Annual Costs Increase From $380 To $20K
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GamesIndustry.biz: Japanese game makers are struggling to locate affordable commercial fonts after one of the country’s leading font licensing services raised the cost of its annual plan from around $380 to $20,500 (USD). As reported by Gamemakers and GameSpark and tra … ⌘ Read more

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers To Build Its Surveillance AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Flock, the automatic license plate reader and AI-powered camera company, uses overseas workers from Upwork to train its machine learning algorithms, with training material telling workers how to review and categorize footage including images people and vehicles in the United States, according to material … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Your gitea thinks the LICENSE file in the yarn repository is SSPL-1.0 instead of GNU AGPL 3.0,
and I can’t help but giggle at that

Chinese Pharma is On the Cusp of Going Global
China’s pharmaceutical industry has quietly evolved from a hub for generics and clinical trials into something more ambitious – a genuine competitor in drug discovery that Western giants are now courting to fill gaps left by looming patent expirations worth over $300 billion by 2030. In the first half of 2025, nearly a third of global licensing agreements signed by big pharma inv … ⌘ Read more

Warner Music Group Partners With Suno To Offer AI Likenesses of Its Artists
Warner Music Group has reached a licensing deal with Suno that will let users create AI-generated music using the voices and likenesses of artists who opt in. WMG says participating artists will have “full control” over how their likeness and music are used. “These will be new creation experiences from artists who do opt in, … ⌘ Read more

AMDGPU Driver Lacks HDMI 2.1 While AMD-Xilinx Driver Has Some HDMI 2.1 Support
Those following Phoronix and the open-source AMD Linux kernel graphics driver know that the HDMI Forum has prevented AMD from implementing HDMI 2.1 support in their open-source “AMDGPU” driver as due the driver implementation would run afoul to the organization’s licensing requirements. It’s been pointed out online this week that the AMD-Xilinx DRM driver though does have some HDMI 2.1 support albeit different hardware… ⌘ Read more

Science-Centric Streaming Service Curiosity Stream is an AI-licensing Firm Now
Curiosity Stream, the decade-old science documentary streaming service founded by Discovery Channel’s John Hendricks, expects its AI licensing business to generate more revenue than its 23 million subscribers by 2027 – possibly earlier. The company’s Q3 2025 earnings revealed a 41% year-over-year revenue increase, dri … ⌘ Read more

Major Music Labels Strike Deals With New AI Streaming Service
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The world’s largest music companies have licensed their works to a music startup called Klay, which is building a streaming service that will allow users to remake songs using artificial intelligence tools. Klay is the first music AI service to reach a deal with all three major record labels, … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Open-Sources Classic Text Adventure Zork Trilogy
Microsoft has released the source code for Zork I, II, and III under the MIT License through a collaboration with Team Xbox and Activision that involved submitting pull requests to historical source repositories maintained by digital archivist Jason Scott. Each repository now includes the original source code and accompanying documentation.

The games arrive … ⌘ Read more

ACLU and EFF Sue a City Blanketed With Flock Surveillance Cameras
An anonymous reader shares a report: Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the city of San Jose, California over its deployment of Flock’s license plate-reading surveillance cameras, claiming that the city’s nearly 500 cameras create a pervasive database of residents movements in a s … ⌘ Read more

Hyundai Data Breach May Have Leaked Drivers’ Personal Information
According to Car and Driver, Hyundai has suffered a data breach that leaked the personal data of up to 2.7 million customers. The leak reportedly took place in February from Hyundai AutoEver, the company’s IT affiliate. It includes customer names, driver’s license numbers, and social security numbers. Longtime Slashdot reader sinij writes: Thanks … ⌘ Read more

Airbnb Rival Sonder Abruptly Shuts Down, Orders Guests To Leave
Sonder, a short-term rental company and former Airbnb rival, abruptly went out of business after Marriott ended its licensing deal on Nov. 9 – leaving guests scrambling as they were told to vacate their rooms immediately. From a report: Paul Strack, 63, visiting Boston from Little Rock, Arkansas, told CBS News he received an email from Marriott on Sunda … ⌘ Read more

Mac OS 7.6 and 8 for CHRP releases discovered
For those of us unaware – unlikely on OSNews, but still – for a hot minute in the second half of the ’90s, Apple licensed its Mac OS to OEMs, resulting in officially sanctioned Mac clones from a variety of companies. While intended to grow the Mac’s market share, what ended up happening instead is that the clone makers outcompeted Apple on performance, price, and features, with clones offering several features and capabilities before Apple … ⌘ Read more

DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks
Jen Fifield and Zach Despart,  Reporters  -  ProPublica

_Stephan: Even in the Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War, it was not as dangerous to walk the streets, particularly if you are not a White person, as it is today in the United States, and it is about to get worse, as this article describes. If you are a person of color I urge you to get a passport card. They cost … ⌘ Read more

HOPL: The Human Only Public License
Comments ⌘ Read more

How Open Source License Scanners Work
Comments ⌘ Read more

Why More People Are Taking Control of Their Digital Lives with Self-Hosted Alternatives
Remember when owning software meant you bought a CD, installed it, and it was yours until your computer died? Even if you got a new computer, you could install that same software on the new one. Only “serious” software packages had strict licensing restrictions. These days, most of our tools live in the cloud, guarded… ⌘ Read more

10 Crazy Things Resulting from Hidden Contract Provisions
We often scroll past pages of endless fine print and click “I agree,” never imagining the bizarre, life-altering consequences buried within. These legal documents—from software End-User License Agreements (EULAs) to celebrity film contracts and even property deeds—are crafted to grant sweeping power to the issuer. But what happens when companies slip absurd demands, perpetual rights, […]

The post [10 Crazy Things Res … ⌘ Read more

Liquibase continues to advertise itself as “open source” despite license switch
Comments ⌘ Read more

Most polite TV license man award goes to: ⌘ Read more

What are PolyForm licenses?
Comments ⌘ Read more

Fluentd to Fluent Bit: A Migration Guide
Fluentd was created over 14 years ago and still continues to be one of the most widely deployed technologies for log collection in the enterprise. Fluentd’s distributed plugin architecture and highly permissive licensing made it ideal… ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net A renewed vision test might be a good idea for some people. 😅 I mean, it is kind of curious that you get this license as a young person and then it lasts a lifetime, without any further tests. As long as you don’t screw up really bad, it remains valid …

The driver’s license documents in Germany now have an expiration date. You have to renew them every 15 years. (Not the license itself, just the documents.)

I just got my renewed documents. Their expiration date says something like 01.09.40. Huh? That looks super weird to me, like an error. But no, it’s 2040 … Just 15 years away.

“But all your stuff is MIT licensed! They are allowed to do that!”

Haha. As if they would care. They crawl everything they get their hands on.

Besides, that’s not true, the license states that the copyright notice must be retained. “AI” breaks that. They incorporate my code and my articles in their product and make it appear as if it was their work.

think i’m gonna use this license on my git repos going forward. it kicks ass https://anticapitalist.software/

When I chose the MIT license for all of my software, I thought:

“Should I use GPL, which I don’t really understand? Is that worth it? Yeah, there is a theoretical possibility that some company might use my code in their proprietary product … and then what? Should I sue them to enforce the GPL? I’m not going to do that anyway, so I’ll just use the MIT license.”

And now we have those LLM scrapers and now it’s suddenly a reality that these companies (ab)use my code. I can see it in my logs. I didn’t expect that back then.

GPL wouldn’t help, either, of course. (Regardless, I now think that GPL would have been the better choice anyway.)

I’m honestly considering taking my code and website offline. Maybe make it accessible through some obscure protocol like Gopher or Gemini, but no more HTTP.

(Yes, Anubis might help. Temporarily.)

I’m just tired.

Open Source SQL Workbench Says “No Republicans Allowed!”
The Apache licensed SQL query tool says Republicans (and many others) are not welcome to use their software due to “despicable politics” and “contempt for human rights.” ⌘ Read more

Software License Management with Polar.sh
Comments ⌘ Read more