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Open Source Maintenance Fee

github.com

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Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#31

Post by trjordan »

I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be:

- Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all.

- The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue.

So even if this doesn't get perfectly enforced (and it won't), that's fine! The maintainers are now free to respond to complaints with "you need to pay us for us to care." Companies that pay get some level of support; hobbyists get the same experience. Only the companies that ignore this warning will see the consequences, and it's particularly effective for reports where the author leans on "but there are a huge number of important users [to me] that are affected." Pay up if it matters!

It strikes me as a pretty clean solution to a pretty common strain of open-source headache, _especially_ as AI-generated code/reports/etc. are on the rise.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#32

Post by Arch-TK »

It seems like it would be much less complicated to write this/enforce this if they just made you pay a subscription fee for access binaries and the issue tracker.

Instead, they've generated an enforcement nightmare by solely relying on an EULA.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#33

Post by mytailorisrich »

Spivak wrote: post #6
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

Not a lawyer so confused about how requiring a fee to get the binary is in practice compatible with open source licenses, which grant the right to redistribute said binary. I.e. even if the project itself does not want to give me a copy of the binary, anyone who has obtained that binary can lawfully gice it to me. Basically, my understanding is that as long as the software is released under an open source license it…

You can sell open source software and you can charge for binaries and add additional terms on the binaries that restrict distribution. This is how RHEL works. But what you can't do is prevent someone who acquired the source from distributing the source and their own binaries. Which is how Rocky Linux works.

Thanks, I think this is my answer re. binaries. I suppose it also depends on the original license (I think something like the 3-clause BSD license does not allow restricting binaries, for instance).

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#34

Post by digianarchist »

thinkmassive wrote: post #10
yoavm wrote: post #2

This has nothing to do with Wix, the platform for building websites. It's about "WiX Toolset" - https://wixtoolset.org/

> The most powerful set of tools available to create your Windows installation experience. Open Source since 2004!

It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows.

I've had the displeasure of using Wix and it's an incredibly complicated and poorly documented platform that had us reaching for paid competitors in order to get our installer shipped.

I realized shortly after that it's not really Wix's fault. Windows is squarely to blame for the mess that is writing a workable Windows installer. The paid competitors had a lot of the same issues as the open source frameworks.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#35

Post by Applejinx »

opticfluorine wrote: post #30
maxerickson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it just a clear statement that they aren't going to give commercial users support for free? I know you are saying it isn't clear, but your quote literally includes the statement "While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE".

I personally think this last sentence from my quote makes it unclear: "In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Open Source Maintenance Fee is required." Perhaps I'm being too semantic, but I don't feel that is an accurate representation of the license terms involved here.

It could add 'and expect active support FROM US' and be more accurate.

I guess it's treating 'if you are generating revenue and need support you're gonna be demanding as hell' as implicit?

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#36

Post by qwery »

optymizer wrote: post #16

Honestly, open source software should come with a price. I think the "starving artist" approach is detrimental long-term. Sure, there is great value in having a free (in both senses) operating system, but at the same time the year of Linux desktop is a running joke. To be blunt, money motivates people to do the work they otherwise would not do. It's soul crushing to run the 400th manual test. It's not sexy to work on…

While I love the idea of a better deal for free and open source software developers, I don't think a sales/transactional model will actually solve the problem at scale.

For one thing, it will eat away at the reasons you like open solutions in the first place. If it became normal/expected to pay for open source software, businesses would control a lot more open source software.

> when there's no money in it, the work tends to focus in areas of passion and feature development.

But when there is money in it, the work tends to focus on quarterly revenue.

> funding to hire QA people and engineers to fix things like Ubuntu's suspend/resume on my Lenovo laptop, you know?

Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that? Like there must be $1 in each laptop they sell that could have gone towards even documenting the hardware so some nice developer can implement a working driver/whatever. Really, it's not the Ubuntu or Linux people that need to be paid to solve that problem, Lenovo is free to submit a patch whenever the hell they want to, they just don't want to.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#37

Post by rock_artist »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #25
rock_artist wrote: post #20

I've used WiX for a specific project in my work when I've needed MSI. TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. There are other open-source libraries that has dual-license with some kind of GPL variant and a commercial license. but there's at least some threshold. Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of…

>TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. I have terrific news! You can start your own open source project that people use to make money and don't contribute back to. >Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... I have terrific news! That indie develope…

> We see time and time again that even mission critical open source projects struggle to get people to fund it.

I think you've missed my point.

The problem (imho) is when actors that can easily pay, are avoiding it. And that's where a threshold of revenue (and also different tiers), feels more fair (again, from my perspective).

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#38

Post by majkinetor »

trjordan wrote: post #31

I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be: - Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all. - The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue. So e…

Anybody should be able pay up for the feature/support and it should be closed source until some threshold. That could take years or months depending on the interest/income. Eventually it will become open source. Otherwise, everybody will wait for someone to pay for the thing they want.

Obviously this needs to be worked up a bit so not to maintain N forks but it can work.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#39

Post by msgodel »

trjordan wrote: post #31

I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be: - Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all. - The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue. So e…

I was under the impression a number of open source projects already worked this way. There seemed to be a small industry of essentially consultants maintaining Busybox that way for example although maybe I misunderstood the situation.
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