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FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

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Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#281

Post by the_duke »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #260
simias wrote: post #201

I agree that any aggressive towards the maintainer is unwarranted, even if I personally disagree with his move. In particular this comment quoted in TFA amused me: >Then drop it and let someone else maintain it. I want to reply to this person: then fork the last open source version and maintain that. That's the whole point really. Besides he apparently made the change two years ago and people only start noticing now,…

I'm a startup tech founder, benefiting massively from FOSS code. I realise there is a debt here, and the plan is definitely to repay that debt once we're cash-positive. Being able to have that plan, and not having to pay for software licences up front, is awesome. But I totally understand TFA's point of view. Maintaining a FOSS library is hard work, and those benefiting from it should contribute. If he's not seeing t…

The problem with tech startups, especially VC funded ones, is that they are rarely profitable until they are sold to a bigger company or (in rare cases) go public.

And once either of those happens, there will be forces opposing substantial OS contributions ("fiduciary duty" etc), which will win out if the leadership doesn't fight for it.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#282

Post by scarface74 »

the_duke wrote: post #281
marcus_holmes wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a startup tech founder, benefiting massively from FOSS code. I realise there is a debt here, and the plan is definitely to repay that debt once we're cash-positive. Being able to have that plan, and not having to pay for software licences up front, is awesome. But I totally understand TFA's point of view. Maintaining a FOSS library is hard work, and those benefiting from it should contribute. If he's not seeing t…

The problem with tech startups, especially VC funded ones, is that they are rarely profitable until they are sold to a bigger company or (in rare cases) go public. And once either of those happens, there will be forces opposing substantial OS contributions ("fiduciary duty" etc), which will win out if the leadership doesn't fight for it.

And most tech startups aren’t even profitable after they go public...

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#283

Post by Conan_Kudo »

nicky0 wrote: post #275
toadkicker wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't count how many times I've submitted a patch only to hear my supervisors complain that I made a contribution to the thing that makes the business profitable.

I know you are deploying irony but due to competing interpretations I can't figure out its intent. Do you mean the supervisors do complain or they don't?

I'm pretty sure he's not being ironic. I've heard the same thing from other folks before.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#284

Post by ghettoimp »

esotericn wrote: post #213
DagAgren wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But every person, sensible or not, has bills to pay. When you say "no sensible person goes into FOSS for the money" you are saying "most people can't afford to actively maintain a FOSS project", and you really can't claim that is in any way good for FOSS.

Most people can't afford to do effectively anything other than go to work and flop on the couch. I don't think that's a problem for FOSS, it's a problem (if you call it such) of the economic system that we live under. Generally the only realistic answer to that for most people at an individual level is to focus on financial security so that you don't have to care about that sort of fluff. Most people can't. That's ho…

> Most people can't afford to do effectively anything other than go to work and flop on the couch.

You're definitely right about this for folks who are barely scraping by, working multiple jobs, etc.

But for folks in IT, taking the time to read and comment on HN... we make the time for what we choose to make the time for.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#285

Post by jagged-chisel »

tobias3 wrote: post #243
jagged-chisel wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributing it inside the client does indeed qualify as 'distribution' under the GPL and would require the client to then be licensed under the GPL.

As far as I understand this would be a "mere aggregation" since the application and the kernel module communicate at arms length through the kernel syscall interface https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#MereAggregation . So they'd have to make the source of the kernel extension available (as the GPL requires) but it would not be viral to the application using the kernel extension. As the FAQ entry says this i…

I agree. I was thinking along the lines of linking the code into the app, rather than an included kernel module.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#286

Post by coldtea »

pjmlp wrote: post #191
coldtea wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, the FOSS community has created bigger companies and made bigger money than some of your favourite commercial projects (proprietary compilers, etc).

Like LLVM, which everyone is using to replace GCC, so that they are able to profit without contribution thanks MIT?

First, why should they contribute? You make it sound like a problem for the FOSS guys being exploited, but the choice of license is usually made explicitly to allow third parties to profit from their project without the burden of contribution.

Second, despite not having to contribute, license while, LLVM has still seen so much contribution from big companies (Apple for one) that the whole argument is moot.

Third, I meant companies like RedHat, or projects like Mongo, MySQL and others -- far more successful money-wise than most niche commercial compilers the kind that you appear to be a fan of while deriding FOSS for not making money...

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#287

Post by CathedralBorrow »

laughinghan wrote: post #171
hapless wrote: post #65

The heart of the matter is that a fairly small number of people on a proprietary UNIX are mad that they have to pay money to continue to be free riders on the Free Software movement. Mr Fleischer has done a huge amount of unpaid work so a narrow segment of wealthy software workers can avoid the choice between paying for proprietary software and supporting Free Software, after spending thousands of dollars on a MacOS…

I fail to see how that is in any way the heart of the matter. The articles mentions someone being mad completely in passing, in a quoted tweet. If anyone in this HN thread is mad, they're a tiny minority because I haven't seen any. Instead it seems more like the heart of your comment is that you view everything in terms of an ideological battle between the Free Software movement and everyone else. So when you came up…

> "you immediately sorted everyone into heroes and villains and self-righteously took a stand"

And when you proclaim that this person "views everything in terms of an ideological battle between the Free Software movement and everyone else", would you say that's a more nuanced and balanced take on the matter?

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#288

Post by CathedralBorrow »

m000 wrote: post #93
otikik wrote: post #78

I'm fortunate enough to have been paid to do open source code for the last ~10 years or so. I am thus a huge open source & free source advocate, and I am completely biased for it. I think everything done here seems legal, because BSD licensing pretty much allows for this (I am not a lawyer though, and I haven't examined how things were with third-party contributions for example). Morally, the only fault I can say on…

> Morally, the only fault I can say on the maintainer's behavior is a lack of transparency. Totally agree with that. The maintainer seems to have made very little effort to get compensated for his work. It would surely be nice if some company stepped-up and offered to sponsor the development of the project. But it's also kind of childish to scheme and hold grudges for not getting something you never bothered asking f…

> "But it's also kind of childish to scheme and hold grudges for not getting something you never bothered asking for."

When you state that he never bothered asking for something, what are you basing that on?

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#289

Post by toyg »

72deluxe wrote: post #253
MayeulC wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to feel that September is slowing and it might end at some point, that in the end it really is related to the technology adoption life cycle[1]. If you look at the bell curve on that page, its integral is the technology penetration, that is a sigmoid: start slowly (initial period), accelerate (eternal september) for a while, and start to decrease the penetration speed. At some point, enough people will l…

Are you sure? I am certain it's accelerating. More and more people use the Internet for their daily life and more and more services are "going digital". I know some 16 year olds (born 2003, after XP how depressing, I feel old) and the concept of NOT having the Internet and dirt cheap music streaming etc. is completely alien to them. They also have no concept of privacy and will install every service known to man on t…

I was installing everything that was “free” back in 1995. You cannot expect a teenager to be familiar with internet-privacy mantras; it’s actually horrible how we’ve created a situation where these poor kids are forced to learn and self-defend against an onslaught of trackers.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#290

Post by jitendrac »

Well, We should respect contributors. It is upto contributor to release their code unless he is redistributing app with viral license like GPL.

Here neither big companies nor the sole maintainer is breaching any license clause.

If anyone want to get the project mainstream, just find and fork the last open-source code version available, fork it and contribute/maintain/re-license as needed use case. another options is to, hire/contract the sole maintainer to develop needed feature of current version.

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