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The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

drewdevault.com

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

#131

Post by Bartweiss »

mindcrime wrote: post #107
zzzcpan wrote: post #52

Maybe open source is just not keeping up with the real world, a few things could destroy it: lack of open source license choices restrictive enough and clear enough and enabling openness so much that most businesses can't profit in any significant way from software under those licenses; lack of standardized proprietary licenses for dual-licensed open source project; lack of standardized open source CLAs and CLA integ…

lack of open source license choices restrictive enough and clear enough and enabling openness so much that most businesses can't profit in any significant way from software under those licenses; A license like that would, by definition, not be an Open Source license. Asking projects to switch to such a license is basically asking them to stop being Open Source.

I'm very confused by the number of people arguing that the problem with Open Source is the difficulty of controlling IP and restricting future use. It looks to me like a case of burning the house down today to be sure it won't crumble in the future.

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

#132

Post by lovelearning »

mindcrime wrote: post #104
XiZhao wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contri…

This RedisLabs link explains the kind of bad behavior this clause aims to prevent. As I understand it, the bad guys here are cloud providers.

[1]: https://redislabs.com/community/licences/

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

#133

Post by kup0 »

dantillberg wrote: post #119
kup0 wrote: post #77

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 :)

Tiny note: "sew confusion" is a malapropism; "sow confusion" is the canonical expression.

Thanks! I knew something didn't look right, but apparently hadn't had enough sleep or caffeine to figure it out.

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

#134

Post by etatoby »

lovelearning wrote: post #132
mindcrime wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contri…

This RedisLabs link explains the kind of bad behavior this clause aims to prevent. As I understand it, the bad guys here are cloud providers. [1]: https://redislabs.com/community/licences/

So cloud providers who take a piece of open source software, install it, upgrade it, and generally maintain its operation in order to provide a service to their customers, billing the service, are now the bad guys?

Sounds like somebody needs to re-evaluate their business model to me, and it's not the cloud providers.

This attempt to have the cake and eat it too is dumb.

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

#135

Post by etatoby »

peterwwillis wrote: post #100
XiZhao wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/

It is often said that if you don't call people out for bad behavior, you enable it, and them.

This?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0

also called Conspiracy of Silence

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

lovelearning wrote: post #132
mindcrime wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contri…

This RedisLabs link explains the kind of bad behavior this clause aims to prevent. As I understand it, the bad guys here are cloud providers. [1]: https://redislabs.com/community/licences/

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by etatoby »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #118
XiZhao wrote: post #65

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…

Can you at least change the name, to something that's not CC? It's going to be confused with Creative Commons otherwise.

That's their purpose. This entire endeavor is quite evil IMHO.

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

#138

Post by AstralStorm »

codeflo wrote: post #124
rectang wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the name, the abbreviation, and the suggested usage of "Apache + Commons Clause" for a proprietary offering, this "Commons Clause" project has severe problems with deceptive messaging. If it was unintentional it was incredibly foolish; if it was deliberate.... Either way it should be junked.

The plus sign suggests an additional right, as a dual license would offer, instead, it removes rights from the Apache license. I don't think that's an accident because judging from the website, this seems to be a very serious attempt to put a positive spin on "look but don't touch" style proprietary licensing schemes. Fuck this.

In other words, it is no longer Apache license and it is NOT ALLOWED to use Apache Software Foundation trademark Apache.

Call it Indian license or what not.

This is unlike GPL which allows the use of the name as long as the clauses are not restrictive.

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

#139

Post by TimothyBJacobs »

dragonwriter wrote: post #98
TimothyBJacobs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Don't we have the AGPL for this purpose to require them to contribute back their proprietary changes. That doesn't help upstream monetize; this is entirely about money, not reciprocal contributions of code.

That was the point I was trying to make. Guess I didn't word it well :)

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

#140

Post by fasquoika »

wrs wrote: post #75
_jal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 attack…

Normally I’d agree, but in fact this post is not just criticism, it’s a demand for self-censorship. That is, stop talking about this, and don’t ever talk about it again. >The only solution is to bury the Common Clause project. Kill the website and GitHub repository, and we can try to forget this ever happened.

That still isn't censorship, or even anything approaching censorship, because the author has no power to actually do those things. It's still just a suggestion, albeit a pretty strongly worded one
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