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CodeCov is now Open Source

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101–110 of 179 posts

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it's better, but if you do that and then call yourself a vegetarian people are still going to call you a liar. Nobody's objecting to the change, just the dishonesty.

Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. If you feel that the term "open…

> Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful.

...terms like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software , OTOH, are exactly useful for describing what you seem to want, and are perfectly clear. As opposed to muddying the waters by trying to redefine an existing term.

> I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used.

Right, which is why everyone in the comments here agrees with that. Are you sure your definition is the one that society is using?

> If you feel that the term "open source" has become meaningless as a result, I'd recommend using the term "free software" instead to mean software that is both source-available and licenced in a way that supports software freedom.

LOL - you think it's fine to redefine Open Source because of how you think most people read the term and "shared source" is confusing, but you think we should call Open Source "free software"? A term that every single non-techie will read as "gratis software"? That's a non-starter if ever I heard one.

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#102
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Restricting the hosting monopolist's freedom appears to make some people extremely angry. That's not why anyone is angry. They're angry because it's labeled "Open Source" in the title, and then turns out to be not actually Open Source.

It's the same thing. Theyre angry because they agree with big tech's gatekeeping of open source. You may think it's purely an apolitical question of definition but it's about as apolitical as saying "Crimea is part of Russia".

[deleted]

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#103
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be nicer but in practice that’s really impossible to accommodate in a commercial context. The only alternative I know is where you keep the interesting pieces closed (eg: open core). "impossible", huh? Wow, that must make Zulip the company really mad to hear they're going to close up shop tomorrow morning, and those GitLab folks are never going to go public I mention GitLab as a n…

Everything is always fine until someone comes along and starts selling hosting of Open Source SaaS projects. I cannot talk for Zulip and I truly hope they will succeed with not relicensing or closing part of the software.

This strawman argument gets trotted out every time and every instance that I've heard thus far is exactly that. It's the "otherwise the terrorists win" of my profession

Ordinarily I would have gladly used Sentry's community and my good experience with its hosting and customer service as rebuttals but now ...

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#104
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Restricting the hosting monopolist's freedom appears to make some people extremely angry. That's not why anyone is angry. They're angry because it's labeled "Open Source" in the title, and then turns out to be not actually Open Source.

It's the same thing. Theyre angry because they agree with big tech's gatekeeping of open source. You may think it's purely an apolitical question of definition but it's about as apolitical as saying "Crimea is part of Russia".

> It's the same thing.

Let's see how committed you are to that stance: just have them change it to the proposed wording. Should be no problem, since it's the same thing, right?

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#105

After a couple of decades of development I must say I personally find integration tests more useful than unit tests I mostly only do unit tests for things which are very "logic intensive" like a parser and such things. I think a good rule of thumb is if writing unit tests during development actually helps me with development the tests are probably also useful during the development cycle.

I agree, and with integration tests I find coverage reports even more useful, because it's not always immediately obvious what is and isn't tested from a high level.

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#106
post #40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BSL is not open source. No, but Apache 2.0 is, which is what we revert to after three years. The better analogy would be, "I've decided to become vegetarian, starting in three days." But then actually legally guaranteeing that you'll follow through vs. always pushing it off into the future which is what it sounds like with the vegetarian example, I know I wouldn't believe myself if I said that. :D [disclosure: I'm…

Open source has meaning, and you're polluting that meaning. It would be one thing if you were honest about it, but by continuing to call closed source software open you're proving that this isn't just a mistake but is actually maliciousness on your part. Just say "We're making our source public, and after three years our legacy code will automatically become open source". Don't claim you're making something open sour…

Feels like a spirit vs. letter conflict. When we say "Codecov is now Open Source" we sincerely mean it at face value. We think we're embodying the spirit of open source. If the letter doesn't jibe then let's change it together.

Also feels like we'd have to take this conversation to a video call or something to make any further progress.

[disclosure: I'm Head of Open Source at Sentry, which owns Codecov.]

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#107
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have rather see CodeCov stay completely closed than see them pollute and damage the open source community like this. That seems highly irrational. As of today, CodeCov is scheduled for full, OSI compliant Open Source. In a few years people can fully fork and do what they want with it under the Apache 2 license. How is this not an improvement over closed source CodeCov? Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be…

> Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be nicer but in practice that’s really impossible to accommodate in a commercial context. The only alternative I know is where you keep the interesting pieces closed (eg: open core). "impossible", huh? Wow, that must make Zulip the company really mad to hear they're going to close up shop tomorrow morning, and those GitLab folks are never going to go public I mention GitLab as a n…

Do you disagree the Apache licensed version of Sentry doesn’t provide real value?

What about all the supporting tech that we have released as MIT, BSD, or Apache?

All of that is funded by our ability to stop companies like your beloved GitLab from being the ones who commercialize the other parts. Our goal is not to argue about proper nouns, but to maintain the spirit of open source, and to do that we need to move the conversation forward.

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#108
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have rather see CodeCov stay completely closed than see them pollute and damage the open source community like this. That seems highly irrational. As of today, CodeCov is scheduled for full, OSI compliant Open Source. In a few years people can fully fork and do what they want with it under the Apache 2 license. How is this not an improvement over closed source CodeCov? Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be…

> Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be nicer but in practice that’s really impossible to accommodate in a commercial context. The only alternative I know is where you keep the interesting pieces closed (eg: open core). "impossible", huh? Wow, that must make Zulip the company really mad to hear they're going to close up shop tomorrow morning, and those GitLab folks are never going to go public I mention GitLab as a n…

GitLab is a good example of not actually opensource. They are open corse which is much worse than BSL. There are tons of features they don't allow you to use even if you self-host unless you purchase a license.

BSL lets you use all features and self-host as long as you aren't a reseller. It is the best model I've seen.

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. If you feel that the term "open…

> Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. ...terms like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software , OTOH, are exactly useful for describing what you seem to want, and are perfectly clear. As opposed to muddying the waters by trying to redefine an existing term. > I think the constructive…

In my experience, most engineers have barely any understanding of the licencing side of open-source, but all of them use GitHub for "open-source".

To me that indicates a change in the societal meaning, as much as I agree that it is incorrect.

You're right that people would and do mistake "free software" for "gratis", and sure that's something we need to work on. I just think the battle is lost with "open-source" and has been for a number of years now, and I can't fault a company, and specifically a marketing department, for getting on board with the way the term has changed rather than taking a principled stance.

Re: CodeCov is now Open Source

#110
post #108
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, Apache 2 straight away would be nicer but in practice that’s really impossible to accommodate in a commercial context. The only alternative I know is where you keep the interesting pieces closed (eg: open core). "impossible", huh? Wow, that must make Zulip the company really mad to hear they're going to close up shop tomorrow morning, and those GitLab folks are never going to go public I mention GitLab as a n…

GitLab is a good example of not actually opensource. They are open corse which is much worse than BSL. There are tons of features they don't allow you to use even if you self-host unless you purchase a license. BSL lets you use all features and self-host as long as you aren't a reseller. It is the best model I've seen.

I would enjoy seeing the specific features of the MIT codebase that they "don't allow" you to use
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