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Open Source Maintenance Fee

github.com

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Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#61

Post by mikestorrent »

nine_k wrote: post #56
orochimaaru wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AFAICT, the fee applies if you're using binary releases, or if you open issues, and are also generating revenue from the project. Apparently you can grab the sources and build the binaries yourself (as per the OSS license), never ask for support (by reporting issues), and still have to pay nothing, even in a commercial setting. It looks a bit similar to the RedHat model: they release open-source software (Linux kerne…

> companies would not mind paying a small amount to help support the OSS projects they depend on

meanwhile I've been trying to find a way to give Hashicorp some money for over a decade of depending on their tools, but their products simply are too good to need the enterprise versions!

At some point we need something like a "certified B corporation" for "certified ethical fair-trade Free Software using corporation" where an independant body audits and makes sure you're donating to a sufficient % of the open source projects used in your production SaaS

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#63

Post by pino82 »

For me, Wix was never truly an OSS project (sure, technically/formally, it is). It's for me just an MS developer workplace in disguise. As MS, it looks nicer and you don't have to support so much.

I was wrong and Rob was indeed not an MS employee??

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#64

Post by liotier »

orochimaaru wrote: post #49
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 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…

Scratch your own itch. Anyone thinks you are making a mighty nice itch-scratching machine and wants to make it better ? Welcome, let's cooperate !

Others who want you to scratch their personal itch ? Offer professional services or maybe ignore them if you have anything better to do !

You may like your itch scratching device as it is - that it has a pile of CVE to its name doesn't bother you while you sip your tea, scratch your back and listen to the wind in the leaves...

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#65

Post by bgwalter »

orochimaaru wrote: post #49
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 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…

Users and companies can force you to continue to work on your project. Otherwise they'll fork it, make it worse, blame you for bugs they introduced in the fork, say that the original project wasn't that good, etc.

Basically, the fork now controls the narrative over your own work.

If you are completely immune to public opinion, it might work. But the more you invested in the project, the more famous it is, the harder it gets.

Open source started in an altruistic environment and has become slavery. Perhaps someone who was active in the 1990s will point out that it was a narrative even back then, at least it didn't feel like it.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#66

Post by jerleth »

Arch-TK wrote: post #32

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.

The worst part for me is:

> Q: How long do I have to pay the fee?

> You pay the Maintenance Fee as long as you use the project.

What does that even mean? I built one-off apps for small businesses that I never touch again or maybe every 5 years.

Okay, at least paying perpetually for something I don't use anymore is out of question but if I open a solution for a fix I have to check all 80 packages what their current license is and pay them for the month?

No thank you, I'll rather pay for a commercial solution or use something free with a sane license. With a commercial offering at least it's opt-in when I download a new version.

For me that's basically a subscription fee for one-time download.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#67

Post by liotier »

bgwalter wrote: post #65
orochimaaru wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Users and companies can force you to continue to work on your project. Otherwise they'll fork it, make it worse, blame you for bugs they introduced in the fork, say that the original project wasn't that good, etc. Basically, the fork now controls the narrative over your own work. If you are completely immune to public opinion, it might work. But the more you invested in the project, the more famous it is, the harder…

> Users and companies can force you to continue to work on your project. Otherwise they'll fork it, make it worse, blame you for bugs they introduced in the fork, say that the original project wasn't that good, etc.

How is it bad ? How does it force you to do anything ? It doesn't even interfere with your thing, which will keep scratching the itch your built it to scratch.

That is the whole beauty of free software: no one has any leverage on your project - any cooperation is voluntary !

I've heard so much "you should do this", "you should conform to this standard", "why don't you help me make this thing the way I want it ?", "your thing keeps me from making money with it" etc. Well buddy, I'm grateful for your opinion, and now I'll go do the thing with the people with whom I found shared goals.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#68

Post by jsmith99 »

calibas wrote: post #55

I thought the license was still owned by Microsoft? 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?

Yes, the repo readme says the code is open source but the fee is required for using the repo's issues and releases features.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#69

Post by bgwalter »

liotier wrote: post #67
bgwalter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users and companies can force you to continue to work on your project. Otherwise they'll fork it, make it worse, blame you for bugs they introduced in the fork, say that the original project wasn't that good, etc. Basically, the fork now controls the narrative over your own work. If you are completely immune to public opinion, it might work. But the more you invested in the project, the more famous it is, the harder…

> Users and companies can force you to continue to work on your project. Otherwise they'll fork it, make it worse, blame you for bugs they introduced in the fork, say that the original project wasn't that good, etc. How is it bad ? How does it force you to do anything ? It doesn't even interfere with your thing, which will keep scratching the itch your built it to scratch. That is the whole beauty of free software: n…

It is good for you to feel that way, others increasingly view it as a narrative endorsed by big tech to get free labor and "AI" training material.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#70

Post by tempodox »

digianarchist wrote: post #34
thinkmassive wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 squ…

> Microsoft aren't heavily involved

Be glad of that. Anything where Microsoft aren't involved is a plus. Microsoft is one of those things you don't want to depend on.

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