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How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

jarinheit.posterous.com

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Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#41

Post by jarin »

obiefernandez wrote: post #34

A good, recent article about contributor vs. participant agreements. (Also a good primer on the subject) http://opensource.com/law/10/9/copyright-aggregation

It seems like the sole reason for aggregating copyright in this manner is to be able to dual-license the source code to companies. So basically the community is more than welcome to help improve Diaspora (and by releasing at such an early Alpha stage, it's all but certain that large amounts, if not the majority of the code will be written by the community), but only Diaspora has the right to make any money off of it.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#42

Post by lnguyen »

tptacek wrote: post #37
bconway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the projects listed above are AGPL-licensed. AGPL is egregious in its viral nature.

This word "viral" is like "death tax" or "pro-choice"; it communicates a real phenomenon with an overt spin. The reality is that this "virality" you're talking about is a perfectly reasonable authorship protection. It allows groups that want to claim firm ownership of a project to release its source code without worrying about ending up competing with a fork. We all know, at least ever since Github made it cool, that…

Actually the AGPL doesn't prevent you from competing with a fork, as long as that fork is also open.

Also as far as the contract goes, it's only if you want to contribute code back to Diaspora project and have it become part of canonical codebase. There's nothing to prevent you from making those contributions available on your fork and have them remain open.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#43

Post by tptacek »

lnguyen wrote: post #42
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This word "viral" is like "death tax" or "pro-choice"; it communicates a real phenomenon with an overt spin. The reality is that this "virality" you're talking about is a perfectly reasonable authorship protection. It allows groups that want to claim firm ownership of a project to release its source code without worrying about ending up competing with a fork. We all know, at least ever since Github made it cool, that…

Actually the AGPL doesn't prevent you from competing with a fork, as long as that fork is also open. Also as far as the contract goes, it's only if you want to contribute code back to Diaspora project and have it become part of canonical codebase. There's nothing to prevent you from making those contributions available on your fork and have them remain open.

Sorry, meant, "commercial fork". But you're right.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#44

Post by lnguyen »

baddox wrote: post #28
bconway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the projects listed above are AGPL-licensed. AGPL is egregious in its viral nature.

It's always seemed to me that with truly free software, you absolutely could compile into a binary and distribute it without the source code. I'm all for abolition of most if not all intellectual property protection, but the copyleft stuff always seemed to me just "we don't like certain restrictions on software, but we're perfectly fine with these restrictions on software."

It's about making sure that if you build upon the work that others have made openly available, that you contribute back.

If you want to keep your code closed, then you're more than welcome to do that. Just honor the choice that others have made with their code.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#45

Post by baddox »

lnguyen wrote: post #44
baddox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always seemed to me that with truly free software, you absolutely could compile into a binary and distribute it without the source code. I'm all for abolition of most if not all intellectual property protection, but the copyleft stuff always seemed to me just "we don't like certain restrictions on software, but we're perfectly fine with these restrictions on software."

It's about making sure that if you build upon the work that others have made openly available, that you contribute back. If you want to keep your code closed, then you're more than welcome to do that. Just honor the choice that others have made with their code.

I'm not saying that's a bad policy necessarily, I'm just saying it isn't exactly what I would call "free" software.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#46

Post by mathgladiator »

It seemed to me that Diaspora is trying to hold the code and project together, and the open source community isn't exactly the best for holding code together. We have forks all over the place. I've got a fork, you've got a fork; we all have forks and no spoons.

Is it better for the world for the open source community to fork left and right and ultimately risk fragmenting the market to fail to compete against facebook, or is it better for the open source community to work together as a singular voice and produce something spectacular?

I remain neutral in the answer, and I think Diaspora has a difficult path ahead of it.

It would be more interesting in my mind if the community actually worked together rather than forking to compete against Facebook. What if this was the opportunity for the open source community to rise up as a single voice and strike Facebook down? Afterall, we failed against Microsoft. Can we learn from our marketing and sales mistakes with Desktop Linux to strike a blow to closed source software? I don't know if it this project or some future project. I don't know if it is the slow march that will prevail. All I know is that the more we fragment, the easier we are to discount.

Well, I'm going to shave my beard now.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#47

Post by jarin »

mathgladiator wrote: post #46

It seemed to me that Diaspora is trying to hold the code and project together, and the open source community isn't exactly the best for holding code together. We have forks all over the place. I've got a fork, you've got a fork; we all have forks and no spoons. Is it better for the world for the open source community to fork left and right and ultimately risk fragmenting the market to fail to compete against facebook…

I totally agree, and I think the best way to get the community to work together and prevent forks is with a less restrictive license and no contributor agreement.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#48

Post by mathgladiator »

jarin wrote: post #47
mathgladiator wrote: post #46

It seemed to me that Diaspora is trying to hold the code and project together, and the open source community isn't exactly the best for holding code together. We have forks all over the place. I've got a fork, you've got a fork; we all have forks and no spoons. Is it better for the world for the open source community to fork left and right and ultimately risk fragmenting the market to fail to compete against facebook…

I totally agree, and I think the best way to get the community to work together and prevent forks is with a less restrictive license and no contributor agreement.

And unfortunately for us, it is not a decision that we get to make which is where I sense some of the anger stemmed from in the article.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#49

Post by jarin »

jarin wrote: post #47
mathgladiator wrote: post #46

It seemed to me that Diaspora is trying to hold the code and project together, and the open source community isn't exactly the best for holding code together. We have forks all over the place. I've got a fork, you've got a fork; we all have forks and no spoons. Is it better for the world for the open source community to fork left and right and ultimately risk fragmenting the market to fail to compete against facebook…

I totally agree, and I think the best way to get the community to work together and prevent forks is with a less restrictive license and no contributor agreement.

I hope it didn't come across as nerd raging. Well, I guess it was nerd raging, but I really do want the project to succeed.

Re: How Diaspora killed itself before it even launched

#50

Post by pwpwp »

dasil003 wrote: post #20
aditya wrote: post #9

Maybe if the author started with the premise that Diaspora is more about offering an open source, secure and decentralized alternative to Facebook rather than zomg facebook killer h8 gpl mindset they might understand the situation better? Diaspora is about choice, not market share.

Unfortunately social networking is about market share.

At the moment, yes. Once it's decentralized, not.
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