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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

#291

Post by cmcd »

lambda wrote: post #274
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…

> He's been the sole maintainer on the project since 2012 [1] and has never been compensated for it I have to object to that. I work for a company which pays him to build branded versions of FUSE for macOS, and has been doing so for several years. He does reliably ship us new builds, but it has sometimes been a little difficult to get him to respond to feature requests or even patches that we send him. I don't believ…

How long has your company been working with him? It sounds like this change was made two years ago.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#292

Post by huhtenberg »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #168
huhtenberg wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know exactly what you mean, but this is incorrect. CC is not "closed source". CC makes a license incompatible with the OSI definition of "open source", which is one of the interpretations of the term. There's a persistent confusion over the difference between OSI's definition and the casual understanding of it. To the laymen, if you can _see_ the source, then it's an _open_ source. And if you can _use_ and _change_…

No, that is completely wrong. If you can _see_ the source, then it is _shared_ source ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative ). If you can _use_ and _change_ it, then it's a _open_ source. Are you going to tell me next that "free speech" means not paying for the radio? And that everything else is just one interpretation of the term? Or that freeware and free software are interchangeable terms? CC is…

> CC is not open source and does not get to pretend it is.

CC is not a closed source license either, which is what GP claimed. That's the point.

> Come up with your own marketing name.

... and the second point is that OSI zealotry doesn't make anyone any good. "Open" is an ambiguous word. It's the same issue as with "Free software", which is almost universally followed by the "free as in speech, not as in beer" explainer. 25 years in use, still ambiguous.

"Open source" is a misnomer, it doesn't mean exactly what it says. Ideally, it should've been called "libre source" or some other made-up name, but that boat has sailed. And so flipping people off because their understanding of the term is different from the OSI definition only serves to antagonize them and needlessly paint the whole open source movement bad.

Saying this as someone with all side projects released under OSI licenses, some as far back as in mid 90s.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#293

Post by shmerl »

saagarjha wrote: post #83
Athas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FUSE maintainer (and this article) implies that kernel driver signing certificates are so difficult to get that forking is not realistic, even without considering the technical issues. I don't know if that is true, but if it is, then that is a certainly due to Apple policies. It's also interesting to contrast with Linux FUSE, which to my knowledge has never been associated with any maintainer drama.

I don’t think getting a signing certificate is all that difficult if you can demonstrate that you’d use it for something that Apple approves of.

Doesn't matter. Apple is a gatekeeper, and that was exactly my point. They cultivate such kind of approach, and maintainer becoming a gatekeeper simply mirrors their own attitude.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#294

Post by cmcd »

saagarjha wrote: post #83
Athas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FUSE maintainer (and this article) implies that kernel driver signing certificates are so difficult to get that forking is not realistic, even without considering the technical issues. I don't know if that is true, but if it is, then that is a certainly due to Apple policies. It's also interesting to contrast with Linux FUSE, which to my knowledge has never been associated with any maintainer drama.

I don’t think getting a signing certificate is all that difficult if you can demonstrate that you’d use it for something that Apple approves of.

It is not easy to get certificates for OSS.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#295

Post by tw04 »

marktangotango wrote: post #266
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,…

> then fork the last open source version and maintain that. But the current maintainer has the Apple provided signing cert, that's the whip hand in this whole deal. I personally don't blame this fellow and in fact apluad him. To many companies exploit OSS maintainers. I think it's great to see someone turn it around for once.

>But the current maintainer has the Apple provided signing cert, that's the whip hand in this whole deal.

So apply for a new signing cert? The only thing I'm hearing is "he closed and I don't want him to close it but forking it takes a lot of effort and I don't want to put in that effort".

If nobody is willing to put even the basic effort of applying for a new signing cert, color me skeptical that they'll actually maintain the entire project including the apparently voluminous changes needed to work with Catalina.

I hate nothing more than people who complain something isn't open source but want it to be maintained by someone else's time and effort. People's time isn't free, and they have no obligation to give you their current or previous time for nothing. (Not talking about you personally, referring to the guy in the original post)

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#296

Post by laughinghan »

dmitriid wrote: post #241
laughinghan wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they demonstrably can allow for a sustainable project , the obvious example being the Linux Foundation. And if you admit to the existence of donations, then do you admit that you were wrong to say "open source folks don't want to pay for anything"?

Linux Foundation is an obvious example of big corporations paying for the development of a project they rely on: most money comes from huge corporate membership fees, most code comes from salaried programmers at those corporations. Most devs though would balk at the idea of paying for Linux.

Yes, big corporations like Google, who is perfectly capable of paying for osxfuse, too.

Balk? You think the MBAs at those big corporations are pushing them to pay for Linux over the objections of the devs? No, devs don't balk, devs are the reason those companies are paying for Linux.

What in the world do any of your points have to do with the discussion at hand? My parent, pjmlp, claimed that (1) open source can't be sustainable because (2) open source supporters don't value open source work as being worth paying for, both of which are contradicted by the incontrovertible facts that (1) sustainable open source projects exist and (2) they're sustainable because of open source supporters who pay for it. Corporate supporters, yes, but corporations are composed of people, and corporate supporters of open source are only that way because their "open source folk".

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#297

Post by laughinghan »

pjmlp wrote: post #186
laughinghan wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they demonstrably can allow for a sustainable project , the obvious example being the Linux Foundation. And if you admit to the existence of donations, then do you admit that you were wrong to say "open source folks don't want to pay for anything"?

Since you brought up the Linux Foundation as an example, the large pool of contributions are from Fortune 500 happy to use Linux instead of paying for UNIX licenses. Which in any case only a tiny part of kernel contributors can live from.

Tiny part? Your immediate preceding sentence observes that the large pool of kernel contributors live on salaries provided to them by Fortune 500 companies.

Is that a roundabout way of admitting that you're wrong and open source can be sustainable?

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#298

Post by javajosh »

dspillett wrote: post #144
javajosh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot pay rent with 3rd party code contributions.

But you might be able to pay rent with it if those not wanting to feed back their work wanted the code enough to negotiate a paid licence under other terms. That can be messy for projects with many past maintainers where the licence options at the time of individual contributions did not explicitly allow this or arbitrary relicensing, but in this case (single current maintainer, other contributions made under a licen…

I'm not sure how that works, legally. If I understand you, you're suggesting that you can GPL your work to create leverage in a future negotiation with a potential user who wants to modify it privately and/or integrate it into proprietary software.

Can you un-GPL your work for a single entity? Doesn't that mean that you yourself are violating the GPL? I'm legitimately asking, not being rhetorical.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#299

Post by laughinghan »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #287
laughinghan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Would I say what is a more balanced take on what matter? The two quotes you pulled appear to be takes on different matters.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#300

Post by jason0597 »

toadkicker wrote: post #269
earonesty wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Small companies don't have the resources"... that's some backward thinking right there. By failing to contribute, small companies cost themselves money very quickly. How can a small business afford to live in a world of un-maintainable forks, patches and tech debt? Only large companies can afford to maintain private forks of FOSS. Small companies have to give back, or they will simply disappear.

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.

Why would they complain? Sorry, I don't work in software so I don't understand.
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