An update to the Timescale license • Hacker News Board

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#111

Post by cycloptic » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #93

rabidrat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. The OSI may have "Open Source" in its name, but we decide what "open source" means. And I agree with the 'spirit' of open source, which is based in RMS' inability to replace code on his printer. The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications. This "it's not open-source unless you allow Amazon to profit from your c…

I would tend to agree. Saying "our software is free for anyone to do anything they want with, except Amazon to profit from" may not be free in letter, but I certainly see it free in spirit. I fear we're letting perfect be the enemy of the good here, and letting the FOSS ecosystem wither and lose incalculable value by letting trillion-dollar corporations exploit the hard work of people for free. If the choice is betwe…

The trillion dollar companies don't get it "for free", they still have to pay employees, contractors and consultants to actually run the software. And as you know, the salaries tend to be a lot higher at bigger companies. Pick your poison.

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#112

Post by StavrosK » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

cycloptic wrote: post #111

stavros wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would tend to agree. Saying "our software is free for anyone to do anything they want with, except Amazon to profit from" may not be free in letter, but I certainly see it free in spirit. I fear we're letting perfect be the enemy of the good here, and letting the FOSS ecosystem wither and lose incalculable value by letting trillion-dollar corporations exploit the hard work of people for free. If the choice is betwe…

The trillion dollar companies don't get it "for free", they still have to pay employees, contractors and consultants to actually run the software. And as you know, the salaries tend to be a lot higher at bigger companies. Pick your poison.

If you give me a couch for free but I have to bring a truck to take it away on, does that make it not-free?

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#113

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

mixedCase wrote: post #84

> Rights still disallowed under Timescale License [...] > No right to distribute modified Source > No right to distribute modified Binaries, unless as part of a Value Added Product Yeah given these restrictions the license doesn't even come close to the spirit of Open Source and it's laughable that they suggest otherwise. Of course, they're well within their rights to do this and I wish them the best of luck doing bu…

Yeah, this is basically closed source software with source code available for viewing. Just because Microsoft allows the windows source code to be viewed by some institutions doesn't make windows open source. There's room for debate on open source vs. not open source thing but I don't see how this falls into the gray area. When you're not allowing forking and distributing modifications then I feel it falls squarely into not open source.

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#114

Post by cycloptic » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #112

cycloptic wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trillion dollar companies don't get it "for free", they still have to pay employees, contractors and consultants to actually run the software. And as you know, the salaries tend to be a lot higher at bigger companies. Pick your poison.

If you give me a couch for free but I have to bring a truck to take it away on, does that make it not-free?

If you had to pay to rent a truck and also pay to hire workers to move it in and out of the truck and then up 10 floors to your apartment, then yes, it wasn't free, there is a real cost to you. A cost that you saved me because I didn't have to pay someone to take it to the landfill. So I would actually be saving money despite that it looks like I gave it to you "for free". And if I was really crafty I'd have suggested for you to use a particular moving company and then I'd have charged them a referral fee.

(Of course this is a somewhat cynical view, and this isn't even getting into the other costs associated with second hand furniture -- anything with upholstery carries a risk of containing mold or vermin and you may need to pay more to get it cleaned/sanitized)

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#115

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #109

Reading the comments here, it seems to me that there are two sides to the debate: One side says it's not FOSS unless it's completely free, and the other side says it's fine for a small subset of use cases to lose a modicum of freedom if it means that everyone else benefits with more software that's essentially OSS. I think that what the "purist" view is not considering so much is that, when it comes to a company like…

Language matters and distinctions matter and branding matters. If you believe that OSS > Source Available > Closed Source that doesn't mean you want the concept of OSS to be diluted by Source Available. If you want to release a Source Available piece of code then all the power to you. But don't call it Open Source Software (or whatever vague variant of that implication you use) unless it actually is. Source Available should stand or fall on it's own merits and not by trying to co-opt the goodwill that OSS has built up over the last many decades.

edit: This is a license that doesn't allow source code modifications to be released and only after feedback does it even allow you to run source code modifications privately. That very much is not in the "spirit of open source."

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#116

Post by rzzzt » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

ramses0 wrote: post #56

slashdev wrote: post #2

It would seem these folks listened to the criticism of their Timescale License here on HN and took it to heart. Right to repair, right to improve, and the gating of enterprise features were the only serious criticisms, and they've been addressed. I tip my metaphorical hat to them. I'm curious to see if some vocal people here will still not be satisfied with anything short of a OSI-approved FOSS license. Really the on…

https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition#T... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline... The litmus test has always been: "while you may not want your software used in a weapon of mass destruction (or other purpose you don't agree with), it is not free software / open source unless it can be used for that purpose" ... those are items…

I was missing this wikipedia link from your list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#117

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

rabidrat wrote: post #90

rectang wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious to see if some vocal people here will still not be satisfied with anything short of a OSI-approved FOSS license. I don't have a problem with the terms of their license. Use whatever license you want — just don't call it "open source" ! From the blog post... This is problematic: > open-source in spirit It ain't. It is firmly in the spirit of "source available" licenses, which have a decades-long history…

Hard disagree. The OSI may have "Open Source" in its name, but we decide what "open source" means. And I agree with the 'spirit' of open source, which is based in RMS' inability to replace code on his printer. The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications. This "it's not open-source unless you allow Amazon to profit from your c…

You statement on what is open source:

>The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications.

Description of the license from the linked articles:

> Rights still disallowed under Timescale License:

> No right to distribute modified Source

> No right to distribute modified Binaries, unless as part of a Value Added Product

I'm very confused on how you're reconciling your stated view on the definition of open source and the directly conflicting text of this license.

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#118

Post by doctor_eval » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

I’m not much of a fan of AWS, but when Amazon takes a “free as in speech AND beer” product and turns it into SaaS, that’s pretty much the expected outcome since (a) the license allows it and (b) companies exist to make money. Why would Amazon spend more than necessary to create this service? It’s not that they’re intrinsically evil for doing this; it’s literally how the rules are written. If you want to change that world, you need to change the rules.

So I think this direction for complex, expensive to create “open” backend software is inevitable, and that dogmatic appeals to some formal and restrictive definition of openness are philosophically naive.

Arguments that Timescale is not open remind me again of the paradox of tolerance [0]. This basically says that a tolerant society must not tolerate intolerance. This is because a tolerant society is vulnerable to intolerance; a tolerant society, by definition, fails when it allows intolerance.

Similarly, I am quite comfortable to consider software “open” if I can download it, build it, and use it in my products; even if it is closed in some specific dimension that is required for it to exist. It’s a shame in theory that I can’t create a little TSaaS without Timescale’s approval, but it’s not a right that most people care about, and I prefer that to a world in which the Timescale product itself doesn’t exist.

Ultimately, it’s an argument between dogmatic openness and pragmatic openness. I’m decidedly in the pragmatic camp on this one. And FWIW, my recollection is that OSI itself was created in order to extend and formalise the definition of “open” to include pragmatically open licenses beyond the GPL. (I could be wrong here, it was a long time ago and I was not involved, but I seem to remember discussions on slashdot and technocrat)

In any case, I think that any academic discussion of the definition of “open” needs to take into account the paradox that perhaps, by requiring dogmatic adherence to the definition of “open”, we cause the world to be more closed. Which is, I think, not what we want.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

edited to clarify.

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#119

Post by rectang » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #93

rabidrat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. The OSI may have "Open Source" in its name, but we decide what "open source" means. And I agree with the 'spirit' of open source, which is based in RMS' inability to replace code on his printer. The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications. This "it's not open-source unless you allow Amazon to profit from your c…

I would tend to agree. Saying "our software is free for anyone to do anything they want with, except Amazon to profit from" may not be free in letter, but I certainly see it free in spirit. I fear we're letting perfect be the enemy of the good here, and letting the FOSS ecosystem wither and lose incalculable value by letting trillion-dollar corporations exploit the hard work of people for free. If the choice is betwe…

> Saying "our software is free for anyone to do anything they want with, except Amazon to profit from" may not be free in letter, but I certainly see it free in spirit.

Some people feel just as strongly about imposing field-of-use restrictions to exclude military entities as you do about excluding "trillion dollar companies". Others feel strongly about excluding all commerical usage.

But "Open Source" means no field-of-use restrictions — so although any of you are free to craft your own licenses excluding X, Y, or Z, you don't get to call those licenses "Open Source".

> I fear we're letting perfect be the enemy of the good here, and letting the FOSS ecosystem wither and lose incalculable value by letting trillion-dollar corporations exploit the hard work of people for free.

No economic value is lost. Timescale is free to publish their own software offings with their own licensing; those offerings merely exist outside the Open Source ecosystem.

Open Source is plenty successful. It does not need to destroy itself in order to encompass all things.

Besides, "letting trillion-dollar corporations exploit the hard work of people for free" is what Open Source has always done. Everybody gets to use it for free — trillion dollar corporations, governments, religious organizations, activists, convicts... everybody!

Re: An update to the Timescale license

#120

Post by rabidrat » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #117

rabidrat wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. The OSI may have "Open Source" in its name, but we decide what "open source" means. And I agree with the 'spirit' of open source, which is based in RMS' inability to replace code on his printer. The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications. This "it's not open-source unless you allow Amazon to profit from your c…

You statement on what is open source: >The right to study the code running on your hardware, the right to make modifications to it, the right to distribute those modifications. Description of the license from the linked articles: > Rights still disallowed under Timescale License: > No right to distribute modified Source > No right to distribute modified Binaries, unless as part of a Value Added Product I'm very confu…

That's fair, I didn't look closely enough at the specific terms to make sure it conformed to my view of "open-source". I specifically disagreed with the parent comment and others, which declare that "it's not open source unless [Amazon is free to profit from the software]".