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I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

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Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#41

Post by enriquto »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #16
iso1210 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft spent a lot of money and energy in the late 90s and 00s to convince the world - especially business and legal people - that the GPL was a "cancer" The GPL is one of the cleanest licenses out there. Use the code in your project, give the source of your project to anyone you give the binaries to, job done.

This is a naive view. Most companies try to limit or restrict the scope of what they must open source. With the GPL, depending on the version, how the code interacts with your project (static linking, dynamic linking, IPC, etc.) you may or may not have to release your code under the same license. In particular Google's strong anti-AGPL stance has caused a chilling effect for adoption of AGPL projects at companies, he…

> Lawyers don't like GPLv3 and they don't like AGPL.

Whose lawyers? Why would the lawyers at your company object that your choice of license for the free software that you publish is the AGPL or the GPL?

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#42

Post by BossingAround »

systemvoltage wrote: post #17

I always see FOSS to get super fast traction (Elastic) and userbase - hey, because its free - and then later the same people complain that their lunch got stolen. Elastic could have grown (or not) organically with closed source software but that's hard without community help and being able to hire top developers to build your product. FOSS seems like a great way to market/PR your name out there because free is popula…

> Elastic could have grown (or not) organically with closed source software but that's hard without community help and being able to hire top developers to build your product.

Yea I don't know. If I saw claims made at [1] by a startup that made proprietary SW, I'd think "yea right".

[1] https://www.elastic.co/elasticsearch/service

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#43

Post by Sebb767 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #21
tptacek wrote: post #5

This is unusually insightful for a LinkedIn post. One question, though: towards the end, it suggests that GPL/AGPL products, which are more defensible against commercial competitors who simply resell the open source project, are "legally murky" and might be rejected by customer legal teams. But does that matter? Can't you just do what Sleepycat did, and offer commercial customers a clean commercial license?

> One question, though: towards the end, it suggests that GPL/AGPL products, which are more defensible against commercial competitors who simply resell the open source project, are "legally murky" and might be rejected by customer legal teams. But does that matter? Can't you just do what Sleepycat did, and offer commercial customers a clean commercial license? It isn't an issue of "clean"; GPL/AGPL aren't "legally mu…

> It isn't an issue of "clean"; GPL/AGPL aren't "legally murky".

Yes and no. I'd agree that, in general, they're legally safe and clear, but when you're talking to the legal department of a company, it is not about whether they're clearly defined. The actual worry is whether a patent troll or a more litigious competitor can sue the s out of your company and extract millions upon millions of either legal costs or settlements. Yes, you _might_ win, but it will still cost you and courts are known to not always be deterministic in their decisions. So once your out of the "thrown out without a second thought"-cleanliness, corporate legal will not be happy.

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#46

Post by the-dude »

Alekhine wrote: post #38
mrkurt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL variants are more defensible but make open-source-as-a-marketing-tool way less effective. Developers know they can't use GPL software for work, and OSS companies need them to use tooling at work so they become leads.

Wait, why can't devs use GPL software at work? How is code compiled with GCC any different from code compiled with Clang, legally speaking?

He obviously means software ( libraries, tools ) which become part of your product. Not tools to build your product ( compilers, bug trackers, operating systems and the like ).

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#47

Post by Rochus »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #34
Rochus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we've paid a high price. What price?

Everyone using BSD and Apache licenses - so any changes or improvements they make aren't contributed back to the source repo.

Well, there are also many who want to contribute code back to GPL and LGPL projects, but can't because the companies that control these projects want them to sign contributor agreements with unacceptable terms.

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#48

Post by dragonwriter »

softwaredoug wrote: post #3

The sad thing is so few companies really invest in participating in FOSS software. That’s one reason these “open source companies” came to exist. It really should be a community of contributors, backed by a diverse set of companies. At best, employers will allow contributing bug fixes or small patches. Not the in depth dedication these projects really need. We’re heading towards a handful of giant companies that can…

> We’re heading towards a handful of giant companies that can afford to pay large teams to build and maintain FOSS

“Heading toward”?

I remember people talking about that as the existing state...in the 1990s. If anything, we’re heading away from that, with a much wider array of companies actively investing either cash or employee time in open source.

What's actually changed, IMO, is that it's a lot harder to get traction with commercial software than it used to be, so even forms that have no open-source-compatible business model in mind launch as open source, meaning that they have to figure out a unexpected business model or pivot out of open source at some point.

And, for PR reasons, they want someone else to blame for the pivot out of open source, so we get all the AWS-blaming and “the market has become radically less favorable to open source” stories, neither of which is grounded in reality.

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#49

Post by moksha256 »

tptacek wrote: post #5

This is unusually insightful for a LinkedIn post. One question, though: towards the end, it suggests that GPL/AGPL products, which are more defensible against commercial competitors who simply resell the open source project, are "legally murky" and might be rejected by customer legal teams. But does that matter? Can't you just do what Sleepycat did, and offer commercial customers a clean commercial license?

Well this is why the Commons Clause [0] was created, but many people seem to trash it for violating the original spirit of FOSS.

So there have been attempts to deal with this issue, but there's a lack of consensus on what the "right thing to do" is in such scenarios.

[0] https://commonsclause.com/

Re: I wouldn't invest in open-source companies, even though I ran one

#50

Post by the-dude »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #2

For standalone software like databases or CLI tools AGPL isn't an issue, if legal departments would object against using such software those companies couldn't run Linux/GNU tools either. For libraries it's a different story of course. The other points are mostly true, I think if open-source is just a marketing strategy to you it's not worth it.

Uhh, wasn't this what the Elastic license change was all about?
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