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A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

element.io

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Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#261

Post by thiht »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #96

So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…

> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more.

It’s literally AGPL. Do you believe a project must not be sustainable to be considered true open source?

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#262

Post by pabs3 »

zzzeek wrote: post #131
tommiegannert wrote: post #58

> We believe in open source because it encourages innovation Sorry, but I was not amused when Dendrite decided to stop accepting PRs because they are a small team. That is far from encouraging innovation. To me, it seemed like lacking in sustainable FOSS management. PRs I sent were rewritten, squashed and merged by the Dendrite team, instead of them just doing reviews and asking me to fix what they considered unfitti…

> PRs I sent were rewritten, squashed and merged by the Dendrite team, instead of them just doing reviews and asking me to fix what they considered unfitting(substandard/wrong. Core devs rewriting and fixing up PRs typically saves a ton of development effort. We field lots of PRs and while I make my best effort to hold their hand to get tests written and such, at some point it's intensely wasteful of everyone's time…

A lot of folks will just walk away from the project after such an experience. Its in the long term interests of a community to bring new contributors up to speed rather than alienating them.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#263

Post by tommiegannert »

zzzeek wrote: post #131
tommiegannert wrote: post #58

> We believe in open source because it encourages innovation Sorry, but I was not amused when Dendrite decided to stop accepting PRs because they are a small team. That is far from encouraging innovation. To me, it seemed like lacking in sustainable FOSS management. PRs I sent were rewritten, squashed and merged by the Dendrite team, instead of them just doing reviews and asking me to fix what they considered unfitti…

> PRs I sent were rewritten, squashed and merged by the Dendrite team, instead of them just doing reviews and asking me to fix what they considered unfitting(substandard/wrong. Core devs rewriting and fixing up PRs typically saves a ton of development effort. We field lots of PRs and while I make my best effort to hold their hand to get tests written and such, at some point it's intensely wasteful of everyone's time…

You're absolutely right that sometimes holding hands takes longer, and as a project maintainer it's up to you to decide where the right tradeoff point is.

However, the alternative side is to simply ignore the PR until the contributor is actually helping you. As a maintainer, you shouldn't feel you have to drive the PR. You should guide it, and spend most of your time on whatever else makes sense.

(Again with the caveat that I don't know what caused the Dendrite devs in particular to make the decision to close down contributions.)

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#264

Post by tommiegannert »

YoshiRulz wrote: post #252
zzzeek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PRs I sent were rewritten, squashed and merged by the Dendrite team, instead of them just doing reviews and asking me to fix what they considered unfitting(substandard/wrong. Core devs rewriting and fixing up PRs typically saves a ton of development effort. We field lots of PRs and while I make my best effort to hold their hand to get tests written and such, at some point it's intensely wasteful of everyone's time…

I second this. As a maintainer, I have a very good understanding of how long it would take (someone familiar with the codebase) to make certain changes. It's far from disrespectful to push before merging when the alternative is to waste both the contributor's time and my own on at least 1 round of purely code style feedback. As a drive-by contributor, I always leave the box checked—the parent commenter seems to be un…

You mean PR edits? Yes, for small touchups, certainly. Anything that makes the life of maintainers easier. I'm talking about changes that requires maintainers to check out code. You shouldn't feel you have to do that, and if there are many PRs, you shouldn't feel you have the time to do so.

> Tangentially, I'm finding that with Nix it's now feasible to apply fixes and customisations to packages even if they have "hostile maintainers"

I have that same feeling with Docker/K8S. I don't know how many images I've modified to make them runnable as non-root, but quite a few.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#265

Post by CuriousCosmic »

bruce511 wrote: post #248
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but then you have non CLA-ed code in the original codebase which in the context of an AGPL+CLA project, now it's just AGPL and their upstream has to be maintained separate from their proprietary offering. So in that sense, it's no different than if the maintainers was just a collection of open source contributors rather than a corporation. They can integrate your changes as long as they comply with the license b…

You are completely correct, but I think it's worth clarifying one part. >> they can't meaningfully profit off of them To be clear that can absolutely profit off the code, as long as they do do under the same license. ("Meaningful" being in the eye of the beholder.) Implying that you can't "meaningfully profit" from an AGPL license is not technically true (although, of course, finding examples that do is tricky.)

Yeah I intended that note as one unit like below.

> they can't meaningfully profit off of them outside of any service you yourself code be providing as well

i.e. They can't do anything with your contributions that any random user or contributor would be able to do under the rights of the license.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#266

Post by camgunz »

lmm wrote: post #224
camgunz wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the diff against the Apache version is worth money though, which doesn't seem like it will be for a while. I can think of other more likely scenarios: - Apple forks the Apache version - Microsoft contracts some Element developers - Google buys Element - Facebook makes some contributions under the AGPLv3 (okay, maybe this one isn't super likely) In any and all cases, the community still has the AGPL version. I…

> I don't know what companies are supposed to do if not this. Maybe there's not actually a viable way to be an open-source company as a business model. As much as I want Matrix to succeed, the world doesn't owe them that.

I agree the jury is out on this.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#267

Post by kuschku »

COGlory wrote: post #242

I have never seen as much negativity for an open source project on Hacker News as I have seen in every single Matrix thread . It is unbelievable. The only thing that might come even close is FlatPak. It's been going on for years and years. If anyone doesn't believe me, just click Arathorn's post history and start browsing. I've never understood what Matrix did to deserve this. It's a fantastic project - I've been usi…

You're right, it's absolutely ridiculous. While there are things worthy of criticism (e.g., the protocol based on HTTP polling isn't exactly realtime, decryption errors are mostly just a UI bug in Element, Element in general having many UI bugs, etc) these aren't even close to worth the outright hate Matrix gets here.

HN is usually a hypefest for any new technology, but as soon as the topic turns to Matrix the threads immediately become a Mad Max-style wasteland. It makes no sense whatsoever. Especially this thread – a move to AGPL with a dual-licensed option for corporate customers is absolutely fine, Stallman and the FSF support it, and it's the most sustainable way to run a truly free software project.

The only reason I can think of why HN would be so hateful towards a license change is that many people here actually used Matrix to build proprietary products and don't want to contribute to upstream (be it with code or money).

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#268

Post by lyu07282 »

The problem I have with the AGPL is some companies interpretation of the AGPL. And the FSF or the license itself doesn't help to clarify these issues. For example MinIO had this text on their compliance page:

> To "modify" MinIO means to copy from or adapt all or any part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting derivative work is sometimes referred to as a "modified version" or we say that it is "based on" the earlier work. > Passing configuration parameters to a MinIO binary instance constitutes making a modified version, as it does not produce an exact binary copy.

> Combining MinIO software as part of a larger software stack triggers your GNU AGPL v3 obligations. > The method of combining does not matter. When MinIO is linked to a larger software stack in any form, including statically, dynamically, pipes, or containerized and invoked remotely, the AGPL v3 applies to your use. What triggers the AGPL v3 obligations is the exchanging data between the larger stack and MinIO.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230320134618/https://min.io/co...

They changed this language now, perhaps understanding now how insane that made them look (or a lawsuit forced them to, no idea): https://min.io/compliance

But still, I like the AGPL too in theory, but I understand why many companies don't touch anything AGPL, its a very fuzzy, complicated license that leads to a legitimate uncertainty. For the license to be useful it actually needs to be used by companies in order for them to contribute anything back to begin with, but many are avoiding it like the plague.

/edit MinIO also still has this text on their page:

"Designed for developers who are building open source applications in compliance with the GNU AGPL v3 license and are able to support themselves. It is fully featured. If you distribute, host or create derivative works of the MinIO software over the network, the GNU AGPL v3 license requires that you also distribute the complete, corresponding source code of the combined work under the same GNU AGPL v3 license. This requirement applies whether or not you modified MinIO."

So AGPL (at least in some peoples twisted minds) goes far beyond protecting something from AWS&Co.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#269

Post by camgunz »

lannisterstark wrote: post #226
camgunz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better comment here would be a little more curious about why they're doing it (so they can run a business and fund future Matrix/Element development) or to maybe suggest some alternatives.

They're allowed to say they don't like it and people shouldn't do x or y. I'm not sure why you believe that every comment needs to sealion in some way or another, or provide alternatives. People are allowed to dislike choices made by others and state that. And just that. "I'd have preferred you didn't" is a perfectly valid comment to make. They don't have to do what the comment is asking, you don't have to agree with…

I didn't say it was invalid. I gave an example of how it could do better. I'm allowed to say I don't like their comment, to dislike it and state that. I even did better and gave them constructive criticism, walking the walk, which you are not doing for me.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#270

Post by sneak »

lrvick wrote: post #146
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #96

So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…

> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. If this was BSL I agree with you, but that is not the case. AGPL is about as open source as it gets. It is forced open source. I recommend AGPL to any of my clients open sourcing anything in a competitive environment these days. Free for the public, but greedy corpos that do not want to share changes and be part of the community are forced to pay to support the…

There are many of us who regard the AGPL as a nonfree license. It’s just the FSF zealots who regard the ability to run a services business with free software as a “loophole”.
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