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Single vendor is the new proprietary

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Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#91

Post by hodgesrm »

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…

> It's worth people revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You".

Thank you for the reference to Rich Hickey's note. I used to subscribe to his view more or less completely, which is essentially that open source creators owe their users nothing and that if you want something fixed it's your responsibility to do it.

Over time, however, I have come around to think that Richard Stallman put his finger on the core issue, which is user rights regarding the code: to understand the code, to make changes to it, to make copies, and to propagate changed versions. [0, 1] This is different and more fundamental than the question of the obligations between members of the open-source community, which are much more amorphous than licenses for code.

In the original GNU manifesto, Richard Stallman made a prediction that succeeded beyond all expectation.

  Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, 
  just like air.

  This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix license. It 
  means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be
  avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art.
Not all code needs to be open source. But conferring user rights like the four freedoms on the basic building blocks of software system has unleashed enormous human creativity. I want to work on those building blocks and I'm willing to trade that privilege for other things like making more money. In doing do I acknowledge we do owe users rights to use the code as they please. And I want to live in a society where those rights are upheld, at least for certain types of software.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#92

Post by margorczynski »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #17
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the article was arguing that say Redis was while “open” the codebase is owned by one company and hence that’s no different to proprietary. To which I say, yeah we know. I mean I can fork Linux kernel tonight and announce my big new plans, and there will be zero installs. Big FOSS software is there because they built a reputation of constant quality over years (as successful proprietary companies should and…

There are tons of forks of the Linux kernel. For example, Debian ships their own, and Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, ships a different one. These are kept mostly in sync with upstream but it's completely plausible that if upstream made a change they didn't like they'd just revert it. The actual problems are with things like systemd, which are enormous and lack standardization but get integrated into numerous parts…

The thing is most of those changes are minimal and it is completely unrealistic for any non-megacorp to maintain their own implementation of it. The example here would be Google and Android.

Another great example is Redis - where the main competing product is now not a fork of the original but a new thing by none other than MS, as they have the cash and resources like Google to pull something like this off.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#94

Post by AnthonyMouse »

margorczynski wrote: post #92
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of forks of the Linux kernel. For example, Debian ships their own, and Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, ships a different one. These are kept mostly in sync with upstream but it's completely plausible that if upstream made a change they didn't like they'd just revert it. The actual problems are with things like systemd, which are enormous and lack standardization but get integrated into numerous parts…

The thing is most of those changes are minimal and it is completely unrealistic for any non-megacorp to maintain their own implementation of it. The example here would be Google and Android. Another great example is Redis - where the main competing product is now not a fork of the original but a new thing by none other than MS, as they have the cash and resources like Google to pull something like this off.

The general problem here is monorepo disease. Instead of composable components with standard interfaces, you get a single huge project which is too big for anyone to replace as a whole but also has shifting internal interdependencies that prevent you from replacing only a part of it.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#95

Post by imtringued »

amarshall wrote: post #79
SpecialistK wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/forks 27,000 people seem to have done so.

That repo is not actually VS Code. What you get when you download compiled VS Code releases includes proprietary, closed-source components. If you build “VS Code” from OSS components, you do not end up with VS Code.

So you're saying Microsoft should share their brand with you?

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#96

Post by dwaite »

tensor wrote: post #48
paulgb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

IMHO that is because the argument is generally about free vs open source, when really what people often want is more of an open and reciprocating community.

The ability for multiple vendors to coexist as peers is a strong signal that it is possible for anyone to come and both give and take to the level of their desires and needs (within generally fair ground rules).

Foundations like Apache will often push for incubated projects to be maintained by participants from more than 1-2 companies before they will accept them as full-fledge, "graduated" projects.

Commercial vendors may also change their terms from time to time, such as at contract renewal. However when you have a public-facing project, you may be affecting more than than your relationship with your individual customers, but relationships with the community as a whole.

The multi-vendor forks of Terraform and Redis do illustrate these other vendors see tremendous value in that community, to the point where they'll try to move the existing community over to a new project. And why not? Companies like Amazon doesn't rely on renting out key/value data stores as their primary revenue source, but a community around that data store makes the corresponding product much more valuable.

This is why creating a company around making an open source product is so hard - it is easy (via maintained control) to have a symbiotic relationship with the project you created and corresponding community turn parasitic.

> 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.

Projects like Terraform do not work without massive community involvement in building providers and providing guidance and samples around manifests. In some cases, products have even built API around the need to write a Terraform provider. That sort of community growth and involvement around a closed source platform is exceedingly rare. The alternative to an open source Terraform would have most likely have been a failed Terraform project.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#97

Post by amarshall »

imtringued wrote: post #95
amarshall wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That repo is not actually VS Code. What you get when you download compiled VS Code releases includes proprietary, closed-source components. If you build “VS Code” from OSS components, you do not end up with VS Code.

So you're saying Microsoft should share their brand with you?

No, and I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Re: Single vendor is the new proprietary

#98

Post by devdao »

devdao wrote: post #55
Centigonal wrote: post #54

Single-vendor is not proprietary because I can fork VSCode and I can't fork Microsoft Word. Single-vendor open source is the balance some companies have found between sharing their software with the community and capturing the value of their employees' labor. It's less free than openly developed FOSS and more free than proprietary software. It's unrealistic to expect all software to be openly developed FOSS with toda…

You can't forkvscode...

Thank you, downvoters, for freeing me from ever taking votes here seriously. Downvote a man for being right? About an on topic technical matter? In a technical forum?

Thanks ;)

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