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Single vendor is the new proprietary

opensource.net

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Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#21

Post by worldsoup »

This article is dramatically simplifying the state of software markets.

>Single vendor isn’t a reasonable way to do Open Source and resist evil proprietary software. It’s just another way to do proprietary software.

>proprietary software is not evil. It’s just inferior.

Based on these statements the author would have you believe there is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we should just never develop it. All software should be open and collaborative. That is obviously silly. While open source software is great, many incredible software innovations and truly valuable software comes from proprietary companies. In fact, these companies are typically the ones that make the large open source ecosystem possible by making massive donations in developer hours as well as cash to orgs like linux foundation.

The interesting discussion is in whether commercial software should be closed source or source available with restrictions. The days of building propriety, VC backed infrastructure software with a traditional permissible license are over and likely never coming back.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#22

Post by worldsoup »

bee_rider wrote: post #15

I somehow still don’t get what single vendor open source code is, even after reading the article. Is it code that is open source but the license says “no forking.” And maybe the license says they are allowed to fork it and chance the license to proprietary? Or is it code that is open source, but nobody has ever bothered to fork it. With the potential spin that sometimes code is just so specific that nobody would both…

I think they are basically saying an OS project with a single commercial entity as the maintainer.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#23

Post by rglover »

> You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what is, essentially, proprietary software: like the proprietary software companies of the 80s, they very much consider the software being produced as their exclusive property. They still intend to capture all the value that derives from it. And thanks to copyright aggregation or permissive licensing, they still can change the license any time they want. So it’s still proprietary: they just choose, for now, to release their software under an Open Source license.

This brings to mind two questions: why does open source need to "win" (why can't there be multiple options) and re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property (unless they choose to release it otherwise).

Sadly, a lot of the arguments I hear around OSS sound like the "you didn't build those roads" argument when they should be "thank you for making your work accessible to me." It's no surprise that most OSS work gets abandoned due to developer burnout when "open source" is often misinterpreted as "100% free for me to do literally anything I want, whenever I want, and you're evil if you disagree with my entitlement to your efforts."

The ideology around OSS has serious NPD vibes. It's worth people revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You" [1].

[1] https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95...

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#24

Post by linuxftw »

bee_rider wrote: post #15

I somehow still don’t get what single vendor open source code is, even after reading the article. Is it code that is open source but the license says “no forking.” And maybe the license says they are allowed to fork it and chance the license to proprietary? Or is it code that is open source, but nobody has ever bothered to fork it. With the potential spin that sometimes code is just so specific that nobody would both…

Take Hashicorp's Terraform as an example. Until recently, the code was completely open source with a permissive license. You could do exactly as you like with it. The 'single vendor' decided that was no longer in their best interests.

What's the problem? Now you have 1000's of companies that rely on this software, and if they want to continue to receive security updates, they need to comply with the new license. Of course, people are free to fork projects, and that has been done in the case with terraform, but it's something that a foundation-led project most likely wouldn't do (change the license).

There's another flavor of single vendor open source IMO. I call it 'look but don't touch open source.' Modern software projects have become some complex, and the build and dependency systems so customized, you could have the source code available, and be free to modify it, but wholly unable to do so because of the build-time complexity. A foundation-led project would, ostensibly, ensure that the entire lifecycle of the software is approachable by end users (docs, tooling, etc).

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#25

Post by coloneltcb »

worldsoup wrote: post #21

This article is dramatically simplifying the state of software markets. >Single vendor isn’t a reasonable way to do Open Source and resist evil proprietary software. It’s just another way to do proprietary software. >proprietary software is not evil. It’s just inferior. Based on these statements the author would have you believe there is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we should just never develop it.…

yes it's puzzling how simplistic this framing is. I would expect more from the Vice-Chair of the OSI.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#26

Post by simoncion »

worldsoup wrote: post #21

This article is dramatically simplifying the state of software markets. >Single vendor isn’t a reasonable way to do Open Source and resist evil proprietary software. It’s just another way to do proprietary software. >proprietary software is not evil. It’s just inferior. Based on these statements the author would have you believe there is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we should just never develop it.…

>> proprietary software is not evil. It’s just inferior.

> Based on these statements the author would have you believe there is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we should just never develop it.

Do you believe that there is no value in inferior products and that they should never be developed?

I certainly don't, and it's clear to me that the Carrez does not, either.

If I have the option, and can afford to do so, I will select the superior product. But if there is no option, or I cannot afford the superior product, I will accept the inferior one and be better off than if I had no product at all.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#27

Post by paulgb »

rglover wrote: post #23

> You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what is, essentially, proprietary software: like the proprietary software companies of the 80s, they very much consider the software being produced as their exclusive property. They still intend to capture all the value that derives from it. And thanks to copyright aggregation or permissive licens…

The author is not so much against proprietary software, as bait-and-switch tactics that present software as open source.

> Anyone who truly thinks that software developed by a diverse set of actors working in an open collaboration is not better should just adopt the proprietary model. But they should be honest about it.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#28

Post by linuxftw »

rglover wrote: post #23

> You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what is, essentially, proprietary software: like the proprietary software companies of the 80s, they very much consider the software being produced as their exclusive property. They still intend to capture all the value that derives from it. And thanks to copyright aggregation or permissive licens…

For me, neither side needs to 'win' but people should understand the facts on ground when they adopt a project for their needs. "Open Source" isn't the full story, you need to consider the motivations or potential motivations of a project's backers.

I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. Maybe those people were ill-informed, and shouldn't have contributed in the first place, and this article is trying to publicize the ramifications of a projects stewardship.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#29

Post by Retric »

Spivak wrote: post #13
Retric wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSI is from 1998 so it’s much younger than the open source movement. BSD was approaching 20 and Linux was what 7 years old at that point?

The free software movement is for sure older than that but I can't find any verifiable source of "open source" being used in its current form earlier than the 90's.

The term still predates OSI, but more importantly than the name than what was going on.

The specific transition from sharing as public-domain software vs free, open, shared, and permissivly licenced software dates to ~1953 with A-2 being provided for free and requesting updates be sent back to UNIVAC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System Others might point to IBM SHARE from 1955 as being closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)

Followed by many similar arrangements before the term open source was coined with OSI only showing up much later.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#30

Post by transpute »

FOSDEM 2024 talk by the author, https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2190-sing...

> explain the origin and value of the permissionless innovation that we currently all enjoy, and reassert the virtue of software developed in open collaboration, compared to single-vendor software

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