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Be very careful with licensing. VMware early-on had licensing code that disabled a customer's app and cost them a lot of money. Licensing of enterprise features is best to have a nag screen and disable some future actions rather than drop a ban-hammer. They were forced to strip out that code and ended up with weak enforcement of licensing. Telemetry and online verification are unacceptable to some customers of on-pre…
Why MongoDB?
https://github.com/furkansenharputlu/f-license/blob/master/s...
This is really cool - you should write a how-to blog on it when you have time. I think it could really help drive more adoption.
It is unethical for end-user software to be closed source, and this project is wrong for enabling this.
It is unethical for end-user software to be closed source, and this project is wrong for enabling this.
By contrast, several top comments here are pointing out how it's counterproductive to do this kind of license enforcement, and that it introduces fragility. Someone pointing that out, and then throwing in an "or you could use Open Source, where you don't have to worry about this at all, and this kind of enforcement makes that an increasingly compelling alternative", is going to get a lot more traction than just a blanket statement that will not change any minds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s plenty of reason for end user software to be closed source. The biggest one is so that it can exist. Plenty of software would not be written if someone was not paid to do it. And plenty of those would not be paid if the source was available. If you disagree, vote with your wallet.
No one is entitled to a business model. If you can't exist without being ethically sound, then you can't exist - period. Capitalism is not a replacement for ethics. And in any case: you can sell open-source software.
Do you do that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one is entitled to a business model. If you can't exist without being ethically sound, then you can't exist - period. Capitalism is not a replacement for ethics. And in any case: you can sell open-source software.
And in any case: you can sell open-source software. Do you do that?
It is unethical for end-user software to be closed source, and this project is wrong for enabling this.
One problem with this maxim is that all nefarious code would also be open-sourced. Would you really want every subversive tool also openly available? One could argue that the inner workings of a car engine or music box are "closed source," yet there is no imperative on releasing detailed schematics with every unit.
Yes, of course. Every last one of them. That will make such tools more usable by people who actually need them, and more understandable by those defending against them.
> One could argue that the inner workings of a car engine or music box are "closed source," yet there is no imperative on releasing detailed schematics with every unit.
If everyone could carry around a machinists shop and universal manufacturing facility they way they can carry around a laptop, there'd be a lot more demand for such schematics. (And there is already such demand among groups of hobbyists and enthusiasts in those areas.)
It is unethical for end-user software to be closed source, and this project is wrong for enabling this.
I think that's a very simplistic view of ethics. Most things are not that black and white. Proprietary licensing is the most successful funding model we've found so far for software. And that funding doesn't just make some people rich (though it certainly does that); it also pays for lots of developers to do things that often don't get done in less well-funded projects. Yes, some vendors abuse the power that propriet…
Why MongoDB?