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We Are Changing the License for Akka

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Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#231

Post by josephcsible »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #226
josephcsible wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not even locally? So much for freedom to distribute, I guess. > And even then that's mostly because the GPL won't let you. You can combine it with MIT license programs, right? How about this instead? I can't release a free derivative work of it.

If we go back to "free speech for [category of people]", then you can release a derivative that's free for most users and all individuals. That's part of why I find that wording interesting. It's not free to everyone but there are often legal restrictions even on GPL code...

> there are often legal restrictions even on GPL code

The difference is that they don't restrict freedom, but rather the power to withhold freedom from others: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#232

Post by Dylan16807 »

josephcsible wrote: post #231
Dylan16807 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we go back to "free speech for [category of people]", then you can release a derivative that's free for most users and all individuals. That's part of why I find that wording interesting. It's not free to everyone but there are often legal restrictions even on GPL code...

> there are often legal restrictions even on GPL code The difference is that they don't restrict freedom, but rather the power to withhold freedom from others: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html

No I mean like export and patent and anti-circumvention and author's rights. Things that restrict freedom.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#233

Post by seer-zig »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #20
bamboozled wrote: post #5

You'd have to pay me to use it.

Yeah, as far as actor systems went, it's no Erlang. The same "DON'T BLOCK, IT'LL DO BAD THINGS BECAUSE IT BLOCKS THE THREAD" approach that you find in things like Vert.x. Letting my actor's function block was the best bit about Erlang.

Java is getting that through project Loom.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#235

Post by colordrops »

cutierust wrote: post #229

It's easy to dictate morals for others. How about let oss be voluntary and thank people for giving what they did in the past?

Build a free bridge across a river, which allows a town to grow on the other side, then shut down free access to the bridge. The builders are entitled to do this, but doesn't make it the right thing to do.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#236

Post by homarp »

wmf wrote: post #228

Translation: "I'll never pay for software and maybe Akka should never have been created in the first place."

You forgot to translate first part: "Hey we are _giving_ this software as open-source. Build with us, build on us. Help us beat commercial libraries."

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#237

Post by shrdlu2 »

ahtihn wrote: post #189
ohgodplsno wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've built your entire company around a single library that does all the heavy lifting and you need a hundred servers with 16 CPUs to run just that, why do you think you're entitled to not pay your fair share for it ? Clearly, you chose Akka because it was valuable enough to allow you to bring your company to that scale. If half of your company is based around gluing together a bunch of things that can only run…

It's a library. I don't need hundreds of servers to run the library. I need hundreds of servers to run the applications that have it as a dependency. Imagine if something like gRPC was priced like that.

Yeah, or spring (vmware), or guava (google), or react (facebook), or dozens of other common dependencies.

Thankfully I have managed to avoid Akka in our products but the precedent being set here is worrisome.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#238

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

It seems to me that open source/ free software might be in its death throes.

Can anyone name a recent open source library or program that is widely used and community controlled beside Linux?

Open source now mainly serves as a way for trillion dollar companies to pool resources to develop software they all need and minimize how many developers they need to hire (see Linux).

We have seen again and again how open source developers and maintainers are giving the short end of the stick and have seen over and over again companies try to have make an open source business model and fail. RedHat is basically the exception that proves the rule.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#240

Post by duffpkg »

I have been a strong supporter of free software (GPL) and open source since Linux was created and remain so. The company I started and system we created, ClearHealth, was the only open source EMR to receive the necessary federal certifications and other partner certifications (SureScripts, Payers, DEA, etc) to be used in real large scale institutions. Unfortunately the fact that is was open source, the cons dramatically outweighed the pros in terms of contracts (it is difficult/complicated to get sole source contracts typical for software when you are open source) and investment (health tech investors at the time all wanted lock in).

We were fortunate to have a strong business model around our healthcare management operations that had nothing to do with the EMR but if I had to do it again speaking from a business standpoint only, I don't think I would do it as open source that way. As recently as 5 years ago open source was viewed with extreme suspicioun if not outright disdain in the largest health institutions, I think that is changing but still has 10-15 years to go.

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