51–60 of 260 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahh, thank you! I assumed it was Wix. They produce a ton of really high quality React Native libraries.
Huh, they were talking about https://www.wix.com/
I came across this a few months ago when I was evaluating open source installer options for my own open source project. I have no issue with charging for binaries while the source is available under an OSI license, but this from the README rubbed me the wrong way: "To ensure the long-term sustainability of this project, use of the WiX Toolset requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee. While the source code is freely av…
feels like a pay to interect iff one of the parties interacting is a profit making entity
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…
For one thing, I don't think they think they have a silver bullet here. I think they want some financial support and if some users of the project pay the fee that will be some success. To the specifics, it's not a software license fee -- they aren't selling access to the software. It's a "maintenance fee", to fund the project . So the license of the code isn't a problem, you can (still) choose to license that under w…
I think this is going to hard against the "economy of gift" and isn't going to play well in the end. If they were hosting their own forum / mailing list, charging to access the community would make sense. But the forum is hosted by a company that gives it away for free. The people posting are posting freely (and may not be associated with the project). Some of the people posting answers are members of the project, but some are not. If the maintainers get an answer from someone else are they obligated to pay the answerer a maintenance fee?
I would limit this to "if you find yourself asking about an issue or posting an issue", since those are points where you are looking for help not just from the community at large, but from the maintainers in particular.
https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix?tab=License-1-ov-file#read...
Also, the exact wording is:
"a EULA on binary releases (including those published to GitHub and NuGet.org) requires payment of the Maintenance Fee"
I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that mean that I can compile the code myself to circumvent the Maintenance Fee, and give the binaries away for free?
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 have mixed feelings about this. I’m not a Wix user so this is a general comment on the substance of this. As an open source project no one is forcing you to maintain it. Every fix you put in is something that you do of your own volition. No company can force you to accept a PR or work on it. I think FOSS developers often get stressed about this but unless you personally have financial motivations around what you’ve…
It looks a bit similar to the RedHat model: they release open-source software (Linux kernel is GPL2), but you may want to buy their binary releases and support.
Not so rarely companies would not mind paying a small amount to help support the OSS projects they depend on. This may give CTOs an easy way to expense such support, even though becoming a GitHub sponsor is more involved than many would like; I hope Wix will introduce even easier options (Open Collective, its own non-profit, etc).
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…
This doesn't seem terribly innovative to me, they've gone from giving away a product to selling a product. In other words, they're operating like a normal business.
And famously WinRar which will nag you to upgrade every time you open it but doesn't actually force you to buy it, but expect enterprises will if they don't want to risk lawsuits.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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).
I came across this a few months ago when I was evaluating open source installer options for my own open source project. I have no issue with charging for binaries while the source is available under an OSI license, but this from the README rubbed me the wrong way: "To ensure the long-term sustainability of this project, use of the WiX Toolset requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee. While the source code is freely av…
Start-ups and smaller companies that are extremely cash strapped are willing to take an opensource project, compile it themselves, turn it into deployment artifacts and manage that whole lifecycle. There is a threshold where paying someone to manage and certify the lifecycle of tools is more valuable than keeping it in house. This is pushing those enterprise customers that are just using and updating binary releases…