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Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

src.sourcegraph.com

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Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#61

Post by achou »

The Fair Source license is an interesting innovation. Will individuals within large companies try out Fair Source software like they do open source software? Will teams adopt it without knowing whether there are other users at the company, opening themselves to violating the license terms? Will anyone look at the source in depth and contribute back?

I’m all for (ethical) innovations that enable companies to be built more efficiently... Ideology aside, it’s often practical matters that attract users and developers to open source software. They've chosen a different point along in the “how much to give away and under what restrictions” space to try out.

Thoughtful experimentation = good. That doesn't mean it will succeed. But failing to try new things will lead to less efficient innovation in the long run for our industry.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#62

Post by sqs »

CCoffie wrote: post #29
sulam wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not GNU OSS. If that's your ideology, this is not going to appeal to you. IANAL, but my understanding of the license is that it's trying to build a new economic model for OSS contributors. I'm pretty excited to see if it takes off, since I think OSS could use some new thinking in this area.

Okay explain to how forking would work with this license. Forking a project is a huge part of creating a OSS community. Would licensing have to go to both parties? I don't see any explanation of how it would work for this license.

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#63

Post by sqs »

ultramancool wrote: post #52
sqs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is intended to allow companies to distribute both the product and source code, and still charge for the product. Fair Source is not an open-source license. Just as with GPL, there are restrictions around your usage of the code that are intended to produce longer-term benefits (in our case, making sure we can build the best product and have a sustainable business). We have had it revi…

> I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the ope…

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original author.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#64

Post by [deleted] »

ultramancool wrote: post #52
sqs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is intended to allow companies to distribute both the product and source code, and still charge for the product. Fair Source is not an open-source license. Just as with GPL, there are restrictions around your usage of the code that are intended to produce longer-term benefits (in our case, making sure we can build the best product and have a sustainable business). We have had it revi…

> I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the ope…

[deleted]

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#66

Post by davexunit »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #16
vitno wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://fair.io/ It's made by them as well. It most certainly is not libre/free software. I'm guessing it has minimal legal ability to stand up in court. It is a bastardization of what open source is about... really it's more of a disclosed source setup.

Open source is about the source being open plus certain benefits. Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates. A glance at fair.io shows an interesting attempt to provide OSS under a proprietary model. Many businesses are fine with whatever gets the job done with main benefits of OSS being reviewing, extending, or just fixing things…

>Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates.

Copyleft is not a virus. I'm pretty damn tired of this meme.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#67

Post by coherentpony »

davexunit wrote: post #65

Wow, the "Fair Source License" is just terrible. Please, no one use this license!

Well, the Sourcegraph page links to another page describing the benefits of a Fair Source Licence. In the interest of a balanced discussion, would you care to provide a list of points describing the drawbacks of using such a licence?

As it stands, your comment may successfully describe your opinion but it doesn't attempt to contribute to a healthy discourse.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#68

Post by durin42 »

sqs wrote: post #63
ultramancool wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the ope…

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original auth…

I mentioned this over on lobste.rs, but I'll mention it here in brief: fair.io does a really bad job of stating this intent. The elevator pitch mentions open source but not proprietary. Please consider rewording fair.io to be clearer about the non-open-source intent here.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#69

Post by lucaspiller »

sqs wrote: post #63
ultramancool wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the ope…

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original auth…

I was a bit confused at first, but this explanation makes a lot of sense. Please put it somewhere prominent on the Fair Source page.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#70

Post by davexunit »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #34
vitno wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curious, do you write comments like this whenever... Uh.. I actually often do. I would more, but it generally isn't appreciated and is off topic of the main thread. Here, the software license is a key component of the release seeing as it is a unique component of it. >Open source is about the source being open plus certain benefits. It's more than that. The key intent of OSS is the right to study, change, and distr…

"The key intent of OSS is the right to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. The source code is just a prereq for that ability." No, the key intent of open-sourcing software is to let one see the source. That's it. Additional intents are added with licensing terms. This goes back to academic and even proprietary (eg Burrough's 1960's MCP) examples that did this. Many models of it f…

You are incorrect. "Open Source" is a well-defined term.

http://opensource.org/osd

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