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FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

colatkinson.site

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Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#111

Post by pjc50 »

pjmlp wrote: post #69
hizanberg wrote: post #23

Likely the best outcome for the project barring company sponsorship that pays him to continue working on it as OSS. He's been the sole maintainer on the project since 2012 [1] and has never been compensated for it, he says it will always be free to end users but wants companies that are financially benefiting from it to help sponsor continued development [2]: > I will never ask end users for financial support. FUSE w…

This will keep going on, until FOSS community accepts that beyond university projects, someone pumping up their CVs, having a company sponsorship, or being able to pimp it up with some kind of subscription/consulting, there is little to no money to be made and everyone has bills to pay.

I think the developers generally understand that. No sensible person goes into FOSS for the money. It's the customers - consuming non-developers - who have a problem of expectations.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#112

Post by pjc50 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #48
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The footnote says Google are using their own fork. Now we don't know when they forked and how much they diverged, but it's quite possible that were going to maintain their own fork, anyway. It's also noteworthy isn't the "original author of osxfuse". In fact, Google is. So while I can empathise with the general complaint about commercial use, one doesn't get to make that complaint against the one company that origina…

One does get to make that complaint. Disagreeing with someone is no excuse for saying their freedom to exercise the rights of an open source license should be restricted, nor for declaring they have no right to speak their mind openly. Open source grants them this freedom, unpalatable as it may be to you. There is no legal reason preventing their complaint from being made. It may not be well-received by those who dem…

This isn't a question of rights. Most people understand in English that "can't complain" means "you can complain if you like but won't be taken seriously or regarded as a valid complaint".

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#113

Post by blihp »

tus88 wrote: post #71
eps wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if the dev feels entitled for _compensation_ per se, but G and other companies don't contribute back to the project in any form. Not $ and not in code. Now that is not a very good thing... though technically that's exactly what you get with permissive O/S licenses. It looks like the dev realized that and changed the license. It also doesn't look like he trusts this companies much, because otherwise he co…

> Now that is not a very good thing I am still waiting for someone to explain why open-source software is harmed by people using it, if they don't contribute back.

To many developers, the main reason they contribute to open source software is for the benefit of leveraging each others work. If one is the sole author due to lack of contributions, from that perspective there is no value to the developer in providing it as open source. The problem is compounded if they look around and see companies profiting off of their work and neither contributing fixes/improvements back nor funding the developer(s) who do.

So how is it harmed? By exactly the situation playing out with FUSE: the person who has been maintaining it has been seeing no benefit financial or otherwise and decides to take his ball (the source code) home as he has every right to do. I suspect if he doesn't see some corporate sponsorship soon he may very well decide to stop releasing future updates entirely.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#114

Post by znpy »

I am afraid there's nothing people can do about this issue: according to https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt the project is BSD licensed and AFAIK closing the sources of a BSD-licensed project ("re-licensing") is allowed.

Yep, he's allowed to do this and people basically have to suck it up.

This couldn't have happened if the code was GPL-licensed.

This might be a good occasion take a moment to think about all the BSD-licensed software you're currently using, and imagine it disappearing just like this piece of software. Then go back to your repository and re-license as much as you can as GPLv3.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#115

Post by kjksf »

znpy wrote: post #114

I am afraid there's nothing people can do about this issue: according to https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt the project is BSD licensed and AFAIK closing the sources of a BSD-licensed project ("re-licensing") is allowed. Yep, he's allowed to do this and people basically have to suck it up. This couldn't have happened if the code was GPL-licensed. This might be a good occasion take a moment to…

Cursory look at recent checkins seems to indicate that he wrote all the code.

As the copyright holder of the code he could re-license it the same way even if it was GPL.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#116

Post by pilif »

Nitpick:

> Now this may come as a shock to some of you, but Apple really doesn’t seem to like it when third party developers change just about anything about their UX

> Deploying a kext requires it be signed using a special Kernel Extension Signing Certificate, which can only be acquired from Apple

this restriction has nothing to do with them not liking people doing stuff about their UX and everything to do about the fact that kernel extensions bypass all security boundaries between users and processes.

Kernel extensions are bloody dangerous and I'm happy with Apple putting additional scrutiny on them.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#117

Post by rmoriz »

znpy wrote: post #114

I am afraid there's nothing people can do about this issue: according to https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt the project is BSD licensed and AFAIK closing the sources of a BSD-licensed project ("re-licensing") is allowed. Yep, he's allowed to do this and people basically have to suck it up. This couldn't have happened if the code was GPL-licensed. This might be a good occasion take a moment to…

What would be the incentive to deal with all the closed sourced Apple issues? GPL does not guarantee that someone else will be fixing it for free.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#118

Post by senko »

znpy wrote: post #114

I am afraid there's nothing people can do about this issue: according to https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt the project is BSD licensed and AFAIK closing the sources of a BSD-licensed project ("re-licensing") is allowed. Yep, he's allowed to do this and people basically have to suck it up. This couldn't have happened if the code was GPL-licensed. This might be a good occasion take a moment to…

People can fork the last-published BSD version. Nobody's taken that freedom from them.

Nobody can relicence the code that's under your copyright without your permission.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#119

Post by saagarjha »

kjksf wrote: post #115
znpy wrote: post #114

I am afraid there's nothing people can do about this issue: according to https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/blob/master/LICENSE.txt the project is BSD licensed and AFAIK closing the sources of a BSD-licensed project ("re-licensing") is allowed. Yep, he's allowed to do this and people basically have to suck it up. This couldn't have happened if the code was GPL-licensed. This might be a good occasion take a moment to…

Cursory look at recent checkins seems to indicate that he wrote all the code. As the copyright holder of the code he could re-license it the same way even if it was GPL.

He did not.
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