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Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

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Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#51

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

> The MIT license is replaced with a custom, ‘free for non-commercial and evaluation’ license

This is really all I want out of anything. I don’t want to pay to evaluate, just to see if it’s a good fit. But if I’m going to use something commercially, I actually want to pay for it, at least if that thing is a complicated component like a rich text editor or handsontable. These open source projects usually have 1-2 developers who account for 95% of code changes[0][1]. If they went away, the project would die. Commercially, that’s a huge risk.

EDIT: Just read this license. I wonder why they went with license keys?

[0] https://github.com/quilljs/quill/graphs/contributors

[1] https://github.com/basecamp/trix/graphs/contributors

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#52

Post by vortico »

lazerwalker wrote: post #8

> Unfortunately, our observation is that the ratio of commercial to free users is about 1 to 25. That's a ~4% conversion rate. Anyone have data for any similar OSS software libraries with a free tier?

VCV (https://vcvrack.com/) converts 2.6% of its free users to customers of its commercial plugins.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#53

Post by kelnage »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #51

> The MIT license is replaced with a custom, ‘free for non-commercial and evaluation’ license This is really all I want out of anything. I don’t want to pay to evaluate, just to see if it’s a good fit. But if I’m going to use something commercially, I actually want to pay for it, at least if that thing is a complicated component like a rich text editor or handsontable. These open source projects usually have 1-2 deve…

Because commercial software companies never die (and take their IP down with them)? And are you seriously advocating that a lack of knowledge about a factor you have identified as being important (most commercial companies rarely tell you how many developers account for the majority of the code changes) is somehow beneficial to you, compared to actually knowing?

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#54

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

kelnage wrote: post #53
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #51

> The MIT license is replaced with a custom, ‘free for non-commercial and evaluation’ license This is really all I want out of anything. I don’t want to pay to evaluate, just to see if it’s a good fit. But if I’m going to use something commercially, I actually want to pay for it, at least if that thing is a complicated component like a rich text editor or handsontable. These open source projects usually have 1-2 deve…

Because commercial software companies never die (and take their IP down with them)? And are you seriously advocating that a lack of knowledge about a factor you have identified as being important (most commercial companies rarely tell you how many developers account for the majority of the code changes) is somehow beneficial to you, compared to actually knowing?

> Because commercial software companies never die.

I wasn't clear. I wasn't comparing to commercial companies. I basically don't use commercial software because I'd rather have to code features myself than depend on somebody for documentation. Depending on someone for documentation (ie. having to reverse engineer something you paid for!) is one of the worst feelings in the world. Commercial open source is the best of both worlds for project that require a lot of domain knowledge from developers (eg. the highest-end knowledge of browser compatibility issues, which is required to build a contenteditable rich text editor). You may not agree, but my perspective is that in the open source world, the reality is that the primary developer is the difference between the project existing and not existing. You can just ignore that and not compensate that person with anything but good vibes, but then you'll find that the project no longer exists.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#55

Post by jononor »

anoncake wrote: post #50
jasonkester wrote: post #18

Great to hear. It's painful to watch so many good developers giving away their best work for free, because they feel it's somehow their duty to do so. It's the same feeling I get watching fresh graduates working 100 hour weeks for these startups because there's free food and everybody else is doing it. You want to help, but the culture is just so well geared towards attracting new kids to exploit and convincing them…

> It's the same feeling I get watching fresh graduates working 100 hour weeks for these startups because there's free food and everybody else is doing it. There is a difference though: When contributing to open source, youre giving away your work to the public. When working excessive hours for a startup, your giving away your work to a for-profit company you dont own. Though the difference isnt very big when your OSS…

It is also much easier to use open source work as demonstration of competence to land consulting gigs or a job, compared to proprietary work.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#56

Post by myWindoonn »

jasonkester wrote: post #18

Great to hear. It's painful to watch so many good developers giving away their best work for free, because they feel it's somehow their duty to do so. It's the same feeling I get watching fresh graduates working 100 hour weeks for these startups because there's free food and everybody else is doing it. You want to help, but the culture is just so well geared towards attracting new kids to exploit and convincing them…

You have misinterpreted that particular bit of economic wisdom.

"Anything that people will do, they can be paid to do." This means that, if people are already doing something, then it is possible to form a market by compensating them and claiming that the compensation is due to what they have done. However, it does not mean that things which you intend to do will be compensated.

It's painful to listen to the same tired anti-Free Software arguments. You feel that money is a reasonable yardstick for value, but if it were, then most commercial software would be given away, since software is merely information (a collection of bits) and information markets always have a degenerate behavior where the value of any particular piece of information tends towards zero as the number of people who know it climbs. (Formally, these markets have the quirk that every purchaser becomes a seller, causing the market to spiral into a degenerate shape.) Indeed, SaaS embodies this economic lesson.

Worse, you've confused giving away Free Software with giving away hours of labor to startups. These are very different situations, and I think that you know it, but by confusing them, you get to claim that FSF and GNOME are as exploitative as Y Combinator. To give you a clue, one side backs Free Software, and the other side doesn't.

Hearing a cultist of finance decry the cult of Free Software is pretty cute. Of course you're gonna be uncomfortable with our model and the fact that it gets shit done. Either loosen your mind or continue to be uncomfortable.

The things you've said have negative value. Indeed, you are not helping the situation personally. As a result, I'd like to invoice you.

Ending thought: Isn't almost all software actually shit? Why do you think that it has value?

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#57

Post by kelnage »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #54
kelnage wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because commercial software companies never die (and take their IP down with them)? And are you seriously advocating that a lack of knowledge about a factor you have identified as being important (most commercial companies rarely tell you how many developers account for the majority of the code changes) is somehow beneficial to you, compared to actually knowing?

> Because commercial software companies never die. I wasn't clear. I wasn't comparing to commercial companies. I basically don't use commercial software because I'd rather have to code features myself than depend on somebody for documentation. Depending on someone for documentation (ie. having to reverse engineer something you paid for!) is one of the worst feelings in the world. Commercial open source is the best of…

Okay, I can see what you're getting at. I'm still not convinced that this move is the right way to go about it, as compared to simply keeping an FOSS license and setting up consultancy payments or similar (as they had previously) - as others point out, the commercial licenses can be a serious pain to navigate in many companies, that can significantly reduce the benefit your product offers.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#58

Post by myWindoonn »

siscia wrote: post #31

As somebody trying to make a living out of open source software, I am really glad of this new movement. I predict that eventually we will see more and more projects following the same route and try to monetize their products and it will become much more normal, companies will get used to it and eventually everybody will be better off.

Get a day job and use your spare time to produce Free Software. It works for musicians and artists, and it works for our creative endeavor as well. (Code is art and little of what we do is genuine engineering.)

As somebody who produces Free Software and has a day job, I think that this new movement will strangle itself, and that that's an appropriate fate.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#59

Post by hobs »

myWindoonn wrote: post #56
jasonkester wrote: post #18

Great to hear. It's painful to watch so many good developers giving away their best work for free, because they feel it's somehow their duty to do so. It's the same feeling I get watching fresh graduates working 100 hour weeks for these startups because there's free food and everybody else is doing it. You want to help, but the culture is just so well geared towards attracting new kids to exploit and convincing them…

You have misinterpreted that particular bit of economic wisdom. "Anything that people will do, they can be paid to do." This means that, if people are already doing something, then it is possible to form a market by compensating them and claiming that the compensation is due to what they have done. However, it does not mean that things which you intend to do will be compensated. It's painful to listen to the same tir…

In general I think you are right, but imo you have one serious flaw in your argument

>Worse, you've confused giving away Free Software with giving away hours of labor to startups. These are very different situations, and I think that you know it, but by confusing them, you get to claim that FSF and GNOME are as exploitative as Y Combinator. To give you a clue, one side backs Free Software, and the other side doesn't.

If you are working yourself to death for free software instead of ycom, you die the same. Producing free software isnt some magical net good that is worth your life.

Re: Handsontable drops open source for a non-commercial license

#60

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

kelnage wrote: post #57
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because commercial software companies never die. I wasn't clear. I wasn't comparing to commercial companies. I basically don't use commercial software because I'd rather have to code features myself than depend on somebody for documentation. Depending on someone for documentation (ie. having to reverse engineer something you paid for!) is one of the worst feelings in the world. Commercial open source is the best of…

Okay, I can see what you're getting at. I'm still not convinced that this move is the right way to go about it, as compared to simply keeping an FOSS license and setting up consultancy payments or similar (as they had previously) - as others point out, the commercial licenses can be a serious pain to navigate in many companies, that can significantly reduce the benefit your product offers.

Yeah, I definitely don't know much about the side you're describing, wherein a company has pains with commercial licenses. I thought companies want either a "clean" FOSS license /or/ a commercial license. What's the difference between buying OSX/Windows for your business and buying commercial OSS?

Personally, I'd rather get an open source commercial product that I can read the source and contribute back to (which means yes, I would be giving those contributions back for free, that's part of the deal), than having to deal with having either no source code, or code and consultants, which is also fraught with challenges.

It is scary you can't fork a commercial OSS project, but if the company dies they usually make the software free.

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