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Single vendor is the new proprietary

opensource.net

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Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#41

Post by sanderjd »

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.…

> The interesting discussion is in whether commercial software should be closed source or source available with restrictions.

Thank you!

The author carefully uses the term "proprietary software", drawing no distinction between whether it is closed source or source available, as if that distinction is totally beside the point. But for me, as someone who makes software, there is a huge distinction between those two things!

I really hate using tools that I can't read the source of. Just recently I traced some documentation on how python garbage collection works into the implementation for that particular thing in the particular version of the language that I'm using. If python were a single-vendor source-available tool, that would be a bummer and I'd be less likely to use it, but it wouldn't actually affect my work much. But if it were closed source, that would absolutely be a deal breaker for me. I need to be able to go look and see how my tools work, otherwise I'm blind.

I do agree with the author that community-driven open source is better, and I consider projects like the Linux Foundation, BSD, GNU, Apache, CNCF, etc. to be wonderful miraculous gifts. But I also worry that a distressing proportion of the most important software I use has been built on the backs of a series of absurdly under-compensated and eventually burnt-out passionate nerds, and I can't stand that. So I'm sympathetic to a model that has a more obvious (to me) path to creating software tooling that I can use without flying blind, while compensating people adequately for their work.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#42

Post by ec109685 »

phoe-krk wrote: post #39

> On one axis, the license used is either Open Source (as defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which I would summarize as coming with all freedoms necessary to enable the permissionless innovation I mentioned earlier) or it’s not. On the other axis is the development model: it’s either developed as a commons, by a community working in open collaboration, or it’s developed (and ultimately owned) by a single en…

That’s why the fork that is more open for contributions is gaining momentum: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#43

Post by rglover »

zem wrote: post #38
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…

> 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). the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored, so they claim to be less proprietary than they actually are while trying to build mindshare

> the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored

So in order to get any interest in your project, you have to be open source (and align with the ideology absolutely)?

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#45

Post by kevingadd »

Macha wrote: post #4
Pannoniae wrote: post #2

The author completely neglects the "non-open-source/open collaboration" quadrant as if it didn't exist. Best examples are games with easily accessible modding communities. While development is centralised and you definitely don't have any kind of open source licence, collaboration is generally open in terms of releasing mods to the game. They also bash the Commons Clause purely using the definition (zero mention on w…

Note that it's subscription/service games that often have the most contentious relation with their modding scenes, as they tend to see the mods more as competition. On the other hand, people are generally more willing to develop mods for software sold with perpetual licenses, as the chances of no longer having access to the thing you are supporting is much lower than with e.g. $XXXXX/month cloud services.

Even for perpetual license games, if the game has paid DLC the developers often see mods and cheatengine as a threat to their revenues. Capcom is on the record that this is part of why they put DRM and anticheat into their single-player games now, because otherwise you can get items and cosmetics with cheatengine instead of buying them off Steam/PSN/XBL

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#46

Post by goodpoint »

Spivak wrote: post #9
RyanHamilton wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSI isn't the software industry. It's sponsored by Google, amazon then ms via github in order of sponsor donations. It's financed by the hyperscalars. https://opensource.org/sponsors

This is such a crazy retelling of history that it's hard to take seriously. Open Source was not some brainchild of megacorps but very much so a mission of the wider software industry to band together to have an alternative to hugely expensive proprietary software vendors -- namely Microsoft and Oracle, and to prevent people from imposing their will on users via software in a manner that users had no possible redress…

> Open Source was not some brainchild of megacorps but very much so a mission of the wider software industry to band together to have an alternative to hugely expensive proprietary software vendors

No, you are thinking of Free Software and copyleft, which predates Open Source.

Open Source was invented as an alternative to Free Software.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#47

Post by danenania »

worldsoup wrote: post #22
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.

If that’s the case, it seems like a very bigcorp-centered perspective. Indie devs and people who aren’t already well-connected don’t have the ability or resources to get consortiums of companies behind their projects or create open source foundations.

So I don’t know—maybe it wasn’t intended this way, but it comes across as very gatekeep-y to me. Like telling people that unless they are already established and famous enough to start a project that has tons of backing from the start, that they can’t “really” be opensource (despite a very real opensource license), meaning you as the little guy should either build your project for free with no hope of ever making a living from it, or else be excluded from the broader opensource community.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#48

Post by tensor »

paulgb wrote: post #27
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.

I don’t see how it’s bait and switch. You can still used and develop against the last open version. In fact, we’ve seen recent examples of that in Terraform and Redis.

Open source does not mean you are entitled to all future improvements unless the license says you are, like the AGPL.

Personally, I’m grateful these project made their source open for so long. The alternative would not be AGPL terraform, it would be completely closed terraform.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#49

Post by Buttons840 »

Pannoniae wrote: post #2

The author completely neglects the "non-open-source/open collaboration" quadrant as if it didn't exist. Best examples are games with easily accessible modding communities. While development is centralised and you definitely don't have any kind of open source licence, collaboration is generally open in terms of releasing mods to the game. They also bash the Commons Clause purely using the definition (zero mention on w…

Modding games seems like a legal grey area. Permission hasn't been granted, but also, game developers already have your money and they know a lot of players would be unhappy if they tried to stop the modding.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#50

Post by Pannoniae »

zem wrote: post #38
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…

> 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). the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored, so they claim to be less proprietary than they actually are while trying to build mindshare

not gonna lie this sounds like a borderline cultish view on things (only OSI-approved open source projects should get recognition, rest should be damned to obscurity and ridicule)

having the source available is a huge benefit compared to proprietary software as you can view, introspect and patch your tool - having a permissive licence is a "nice-to-have", not an entitlement.

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