Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

drewdevault.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 248 posts

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#41

Post by vertere »

fh973 wrote: post #9
marcinzm wrote: post #4

Another problematic aspect of this is that to me the Redis situation seems like a corporate grab of open source software after the fact. By that I mean, Redis Labs are not the creators of Redis. They are a consulting agency that then hired the creator of Redis. In other words, they only exist because the original Redis was not Commons Clause. Now they want to build a moat so others can't do what they did. Not a good…

Fake news, according to the man himself: http://antirez.com/news/120 The whole thing is evidently not about Redis, but modules that were developed by Redis Labs.

Seems like a good case study in poor communication then. It doesn't excuse people spreading misinformation without a decent attempt to ascertain the facts, but it seems Redis Labs mainly have themselves to blame. Their page [0] starts out: "Initiated by a coalition of top infrastructure software companies to protect their rights...". So they're trying to make it sound like a Big Deal, and beyond just for Redis. Then later we hear 'oh it's just relicensing a couple of non-core modules, what are you all carrying on about?' Even now it's not clear to me (not being particularly familiar with Redis) what direction things are changing in.

shakes head

Edit: Oh, and the confusing name. Why is it called "Commons Clause"?

[0] https://redislabs.com/community/commons-clause/

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#42

Post by JackFr »

paganel wrote: post #38
Someone1234 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to stop using the term "fake news" it is more a meme at this point than constructive English. Even reading that statement and assuming the best intentions I can see why people would be upset/concerned. Redis has gone from Open Source to "Open Core" with some of the best modules now essentially paid for.

> People need to stop using the term "fake news" it is more a meme at this point than constructive English. Just yesterday the most powerful politician from my country (a EU and NATO member) said during a live interview on prime-time TV that George Soros had sent 4 men in order to assassinate him last year (spoiler alert: they didn't succeed, even though they had been checked-in at the local Hilton hotel). His right-…

I think you miss the point .

Call a lie a lie, and don't trivialize it with the cute meme of the day.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#43

Post by btown »

wyldfire wrote: post #2

> including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software Wow! That seems like a mistake. This casts too wide a net and catches more than it should. > ... product or service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software... Ugh. Instead of unambiguous freedom-granting terms, this leaves it up to a court to help determine this vague…

If I am running a CRUD app for some business domain, does its value derive "substantially" from the functionality of the underlying database? Could a lawyer argue that because one of Slack's major selling points is the speed with which messages are delivered, its value derives "substantially" from whatever technology they use to enable pub-sub?

Even if Redis Labs wouldn't be so aggressive against Slack, could we count on that if they were acquired by Oracle, or if their acquirer were acquired by Oracle? In such a case, Slack would be in a pickle - they might be liable for having used the software without a license historically, which is in many ways a worse situation vs. having had to negotiate a commercial license in the first place. It's an insidious gotcha term wearing the cloak of open source, and thus it tarnishes the brand of the entire open source community.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#44

Post by DannyBee »

All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

The guidelines/definitions/blah blah blah exist precisely because of attempts to do this in the past.

If people want to try again, great, let them. Experimentation is good. (I personally wish they'd stop experimenting with repeatedly proven-to-fail models, but c'est la vie)

In the end, it's the developers who are going to decide whether it's the right way for the world to be.

That is, it's not going to destroy open source or anything else unless the people using/developing open source want it to.

Past that, Kevin's refrain is kind of tired, at least to me. Open source has always been a community that basically eats its own over time (nothing is ever good enough, free enough, open enough, etc). Solving that seems more important than solving this.

Saying "The OSS project we tried to build as a business sinks tons of money into open source and gets no help" as if it was a new problem is just silly. This is not a new problem at all. The fact that they believe doing literally the same thing that hasn't worked in the past will suddenly work to solve this problem in any meaningful way is disappointing.

For a person whose twitter bio likes to tell me how impressive they are, this is not impressive at all. I would have hoped for something better.

Because if this is all they've got, then yeah, that model of open source is likely screwed.

I will paraphrase a colleague:

The underlying issue they are trying to solve is that developers believe they should be able to extract some of the wealth they feel they created. In open source, that wealth is often only created because the software was free. Otherwise, people would have used something else that was free but worked well enough. Developers like to often argue this isn't true, but history shows it to be true basically always :) So saying you should be able to extract this wealth is probably wrong. Saying you should be able to get paid a reasonable amount of money is not.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#45

Post by _jal »

foundry27 wrote: post #37
vinceguidry wrote: post #6

This argument is theological in that it's arguing against an idea, labeling it heresy. His ideal 'solution' is to just fold it all up and try to forget it ever happened. But you can't fight ideas, ideas provide solutions to problems that people have and if you want people to stop rolling their own solutions, then the orthodoxy needs to make their solutions actually work for actual people, not just the faithful. Not e…

I don’t usually post here (more interested in the articles than the discourse over them), but this is something that really resonated with me. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, the suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of engineering. We don’t know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about…

> censoring the mere _idea_

Nobody is censoring anything, in either a precise or a fuzzy sense[1]. Conflating criticism and censorship is (a) a category error, (b) a really pernicious notion, and (c) confuses people and derails discourse.

A core principle of free speech is that the answer to bad speech is more speech. Mislabeling criticism censorship attempts to delegitimize that answer, and thus paradoxically attacking the very notion purportedly being defended.

Please don't do that.

[1] Insert private-citizens-cannot-censor distinction here beside an acknowledgment that the word is used informally with wider applicability.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#46

Post by JackFr »

_hyn3 wrote: post #35
vinceguidry wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire, I find religion to be extremely fitting to the free software - open source debate. Richard Stallman himself is very sympathetic to theological analogies for technology debates, calling himself Saint IGNUcius. https://stallman.org/saint.html

Invoking an atheist like RMS doesn't help matters, even if he may have a lot of wisdom and experience in the licensing wars. Conflating an argument over a particular licensing debate in 2018 with deeply-held religious beliefs that may have existed for thousands of years and even inspired actual religious wars (where thousands of people, or even millions -- might as well loop Godwin's law into this debate -- actually…

Lighten up.

http://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#47

Post by jessaustin »

_hyn3 wrote: post #35
vinceguidry wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire, I find religion to be extremely fitting to the free software - open source debate. Richard Stallman himself is very sympathetic to theological analogies for technology debates, calling himself Saint IGNUcius. https://stallman.org/saint.html

Invoking an atheist like RMS doesn't help matters, even if he may have a lot of wisdom and experience in the licensing wars. Conflating an argument over a particular licensing debate in 2018 with deeply-held religious beliefs that may have existed for thousands of years and even inspired actual religious wars (where thousands of people, or even millions -- might as well loop Godwin's law into this debate -- actually…

"We've killed lots of people for much less, so mind your manners!"

Wow I'm glad we don't live like that anymore. If using a word in a way that totally suits its literal meaning and most of its connotations is "insulting" enough to help forestall a return to that, bring on the insults! Here's one: RMS believes in free software more deeply and authentically than anyone in this thread believes in God.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#48

Post by TimothyBJacobs »

snarfy wrote: post #29

I can see their side. GPL was called copyleft for a reason, a nod to copyright. It's a copyright restriction which limits redistribution to certain terms. Cloud providers do redistribute. It runs on their servers. They do not have to honor copyright restrictions. They can make proprietary modifications and keep them, and they do. They might be honoring the letter of the license, but certainly not the spirit of it.

Don't we have the AGPL for this purpose to require them to contribute back their proprietary changes. As others have pointed out, if this was only about the modifications they would have used AGPL. Instead, and giving the clauses about consulting, it seems more like they are concerned about money than the health of the ecosystem.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#49

Post by dancek »

nathan_long wrote: post #7
vinceguidry wrote: post #6

This argument is theological in that it's arguing against an idea, labeling it heresy. His ideal 'solution' is to just fold it all up and try to forget it ever happened. But you can't fight ideas, ideas provide solutions to problems that people have and if you want people to stop rolling their own solutions, then the orthodoxy needs to make their solutions actually work for actual people, not just the faithful. Not e…

> This argument is theological in that it's arguing against an idea, labeling it heresy. I find this use of "theological" insulting and not fitting to the situation. "Ideological" or "partisan" would be better IMO.

Do you consider "religious" appropriate? I see the point that theology originally means something like the study of God.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#50

Post by vinceguidry »

_hyn3 wrote: post #35
vinceguidry wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire, I find religion to be extremely fitting to the free software - open source debate. Richard Stallman himself is very sympathetic to theological analogies for technology debates, calling himself Saint IGNUcius. https://stallman.org/saint.html

Invoking an atheist like RMS doesn't help matters, even if he may have a lot of wisdom and experience in the licensing wars. Conflating an argument over a particular licensing debate in 2018 with deeply-held religious beliefs that may have existed for thousands of years and even inspired actual religious wars (where thousands of people, or even millions -- might as well loop Godwin's law into this debate -- actually…

I think you're overblowing the potential for offense and committing the sin of assuming it's other people and not you that will get offended. If some religious person is offended by the characterization, I welcome them to articulate why. I'm highly spiritual myself and have interacted with many very religious people, and I can say that most of them relish the opportunity to think about worldly things using religious framing.
Post reply on HN