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We Are Changing the License for Akka

lightbend.com

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Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#281

Post by croes »

s17n wrote: post #277

You don't get to say both: "FOSS is just not a good business model. But when making decisions about what libraries to use, or where to invest my time, such concerns are simply not my problem." and: "It’s morally wrong to make the product popular, by advertising it as Open Source / Free Software, and then doing a reversal later." If their business model isn't your problem, then what you think about their license isn't…

> their business model isn't your problem, then what you think about their license isn't their problem.

The problem is not the license but the switch of it after they benefited from being Open Source

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#282

Post by fweimer »

Reitet00 wrote: post #274
longrod wrote: post #263

Does DCO prevent this kind of thing from happening? I think moves like this demotivated and discourages a lot of potential contributors and spreads fear. That's not a good thing. Imagine a contributor who's first contribution to Open Source was this project. I am not sure he'd be very happy about a move such as this (or maybe he won't care).

Not having CLA or equivalent prevents this kind of thing. DCO is for projects that want minimal legal process without copyright assignment. For the record akka has CLA.

CLA is sort of neutral in this regard. You can have DCO-style CLAs with incoming == outgoing licensing, where the contributor and the project organization end up with the same rights. But like with DCO, switching to proprietary is still possible in principle if the license is sufficiently permissive. And admittedly, such symmetric CLAs are somewhat rare; DCO has mostly taken over this space.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#284

Post by zokier »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #257
a_c wrote: post #247

I had used akka several years before for a commercial project. It worked wonder for me. Personally I have no issue with their change of license. Author has authority, as simple as that. I'm willing to pay for something useful. People seem to take a moral high ground when it comes to software. If someone decide to make some useful project opensource. Full respect. If they changed their mind later to make the project p…

The "moral high ground" is a recognition of the true dynamic in open source. What really happens is: 1) Project is open source 2) People use the project because it is open source 3) People contribute bug reports and fixes, creating value and improving the open source project because it is open source 4) People spread the word about the project, free marketing because it is open source 5) Maintainers decide to relicen…

The code that community contributed remains open source, you generally can not retroactively make stuff not-open. What Akka here is doing is removing themselves from the open source project and making their further contributions closed. The open source community is free to continue as they want.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#285

Post by jarym »

res0nat0r wrote: post #273
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "moral high ground" is a recognition of the true dynamic in open source. What really happens is: 1) Project is open source 2) People use the project because it is open source 3) People contribute bug reports and fixes, creating value and improving the open source project because it is open source 4) People spread the word about the project, free marketing because it is open source 5) Maintainers decide to relicen…

I think it's simpler than that, just from their relicensing FAQ: https://www.lightbend.com/akka/license-faq > Akka requires significant investment in order to maintain its position as a preeminent distributed systems runtime. Many organizations have adopted Akka and are seeing significant benefits for their organizations. > However, in recent years an increasing number of those organizations have elected to self-supp…

Yep, they couldn’t say: ‘we thought about relicensing but given a few people on HN would be upset about it we just decided it’s better to shut shop.’

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#286

Post by naniwaduni »

s17n wrote: post #277

You don't get to say both: "FOSS is just not a good business model. But when making decisions about what libraries to use, or where to invest my time, such concerns are simply not my problem." and: "It’s morally wrong to make the product popular, by advertising it as Open Source / Free Software, and then doing a reversal later." If their business model isn't your problem, then what you think about their license isn't…

The key word here isn't "license", it's "advertising".

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#287

Post by Dylan16807 »

josephcsible wrote: post #252
Dylan16807 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you give an example of GPL'd software that actually has such restrictions?

Cryptographic libraries might be okay right now but traditionally have had very widespread export controls. So, linux kernel and basically anything doing crypto. Anything with german authors has irrevocable control tied to that. If there's a GPL program that decrypts blurays it's likely a violation of the DMCA, not sure if one exists right now.

For patents, there's tons. x264 is an easy one.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#288

Post by sieabahlpark »

colordrops wrote: post #235
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.

No post body was provided.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#289

Post by sieabahlpark »

croes wrote: post #281
s17n wrote: post #277

You don't get to say both: "FOSS is just not a good business model. But when making decisions about what libraries to use, or where to invest my time, such concerns are simply not my problem." and: "It’s morally wrong to make the product popular, by advertising it as Open Source / Free Software, and then doing a reversal later." If their business model isn't your problem, then what you think about their license isn't…

> their business model isn't your problem, then what you think about their license isn't their problem. The problem is not the license but the switch of it after they benefited from being Open Source

No post body was provided.
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