81–90 of 248 posts
Regardless of whether or not it is harmful to open source, I find the choice to use two words beginning with C (thus CC as an acronym) flawed, as that abbreviation is typically used to refer to Creative Commons, and Commons Clause and Creative Commons sound quite similar too since they both use the word Commons. I would hope this was not an intentional choice to sow confusion. Edit: obvious spelling error :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by "restrictive" and "openness" here? In particular, how does business and profit affect this? Would it maybe help to distinguish between the goals of Free Software (user freedom) and Open Source (abundance of high quality, royalty free code)? > AGPL is somewhat successful here, because big corporations already ban its use internally The word "because" is confusing me here. As far as I'm aware, the g…
I think the AGPL point is to say that there is not a need for an anti-commercial license if the AGPL effectively stops the things you're aiming to restrict. AGPL isn't perfect, but obviously neither is a non-open, non-free anti-commerce clause.
RedisLabs wants money, not sharing, from this kind of downstream use, so AGPL doesn't work.
What kills open source software is greed, and very few people are immune from that.
Kevin Wang here. Thanks Drew for the thoughtful post. I can accept that you might not appreciate my work on the Commons Clause, but I'm glad to see you acknowledge why funding OSS is so difficult. I think it's okay to fear the world of open source becoming a bit more closed. I do too. Whether that's a better world or not is up to debate, but I certainly don't think so. I think where we might disagree is what the grea…
My fundamental issue with the clause is that it fundamentally changes the nature of the licences it infects. It is just as disingenuous to say "we're an Open Source plus Common Clause project (Apache + Common Clause)" as it is to say "We host Redis (we mean Redis + Proprietary add-ons we use under the AGPL from Redis Labs, that you can't have, which make us incompatible with Open Source Redis)". There's nothing new o…
In fact, I'd love to see a v2 standalone license. One of the design constraints was size and readability. I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form.
More broadly, the average OSS license is far from robust.
Software: [name software]
License: [i.e. Apache 2.0]
Licensor: [ABC company]
If they actually used the Apache 2.0 license anyone would have the right to sell the software. Hence putting that clause and then putting "Apache 2.0" as the license makes no sense. The licensing terms would be contradictory.
Kevin Wang here. Thanks Drew for the thoughtful post. I can accept that you might not appreciate my work on the Commons Clause, but I'm glad to see you acknowledge why funding OSS is so difficult. I think it's okay to fear the world of open source becoming a bit more closed. I do too. Whether that's a better world or not is up to debate, but I certainly don't think so. I think where we might disagree is what the grea…
Hi Kevin, Drew here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your response, but I find it frustratingly vauge. What kinds of bad things happen to open source projects that drive them to this? If you are fearful of open source becoming more closed, why are you promoting that very approach? Did you consider promoting alternatives like AGPL first? Before I see an option violating one of the four essential freedom…
See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My fundamental issue with the clause is that it fundamentally changes the nature of the licences it infects. It is just as disingenuous to say "we're an Open Source plus Common Clause project (Apache + Common Clause)" as it is to say "We host Redis (we mean Redis + Proprietary add-ons we use under the AGPL from Redis Labs, that you can't have, which make us incompatible with Open Source Redis)". There's nothing new o…
I don't think the Clause is necessarily the most elegant end-all solution, but there are often broad business, timing and legal requirements that make it really hard to draft a full license to satisfy everyone. In fact, I'd love to see a v2 standalone license. One of the design constraints was size and readability. I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form. More broadly, the avera…
Care to elaborate? That is an extremely broad claim. The GPL has been upheld a number of times. The MIT/BSD licences are about as simple and solid as they get.
> I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form.
Yes, but to your point above, courts rarely appreciate schizophrenic agreements which say one thing in one place and an entirely different thing elsewhere.
How is X Open Source + Common Clause any different than the Redis^e + X hosting/brand piggybacking others have been doing to RedisLabs?
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…
> corporate grab of open source software Well then fork them. I mean it. ‘Licenses applied to previous versions cannot be revoked’ - https://commonsclause.com My understanding (IANAL), is that only new code can be subjected to new conditions/licenses. Old code can still be used under the old license.
Yes forking might in some cases be the only option, but it's not easy and it's not cost-free especially when the code is still available 'for free' (warning: many actual freedoms not included).
One challenge is the name "Commons" is very misleading. It's not creating a commons, and it's also confusingly similar to the term "Creative Commons" which has been around for a really long time.
Also, the Commons website says that the Commons license is not OSS "at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD". Yet that is the official generally-accepted definition.