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Open Source Maintenance Fee

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Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#161

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

robmensching wrote: post #131
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #91

>While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee. Surprised downloading releases is in there, I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure this goes against it's own license on the source code, specifically: >each contributor gra…

Absolutely true, but that isn't what happened (at least, not yet). Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.

>Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.

You must have incredibly good analytics to know exactly what companies are using your nuget package. Did you embed a phone home?

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#162

Post by robmensching »

shthed wrote: post #160
mellosouls wrote: post #60

Here's the consumers FAQ of the underlying initiative (the Open Source Maintenance fee): https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/consumers/faq/

Do any other projects use this too? Is this just Wix Toolkit?

I have seen some other projects show interest and a few have adopted it. I've not checked in with any of them. The Open Source Maintenance Fee is pretty new, and I've not been promoting it for use by other Open Source projects (yet) because I want to resolve any "OSMF bugs" using my project (WiX Toolset).

After the bugs are worked out, then I'll recommend it more widely and we'll see if it catches on then. I've had a number of maintainers express interest and inquire about how it is going.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#163

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

robmensching wrote: post #162
shthed wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any other projects use this too? Is this just Wix Toolkit?

I have seen some other projects show interest and a few have adopted it. I've not checked in with any of them. The Open Source Maintenance Fee is pretty new, and I've not been promoting it for use by other Open Source projects (yet) because I want to resolve any "OSMF bugs" using my project (WiX Toolset). After the bugs are worked out, then I'll recommend it more widely and we'll see if it catches on then. I've had a…

Some licenses might allow you to distribute binaries with extra restrictions, but the one you chose almost certainly doesn't.

>For any file you distribute that contains code from the software (in source code or binary format), you must provide recipients the source code to that file along with a copy of this license, which license will govern that file.

So your nuget package and github release would be a binary distribution, what license applies? It's the reciprocal license, not your attempt to attach a maintenance fee for clicking download license.

And this clause doubles down

>If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.

Your license essentially explicitly disallows you from doing what your trying to do. Will anyone test you for $10/m or just using a competitor? Maybe not.

This also goes horribly against the spirit of open source software, if every small package on a Linux distro did this it'd cost tens of thousands at least to even launch the OS. But the attempt to backdoor downloads from a package repository is what I find most heinous here.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#164

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

svieira wrote: post #54
qwery wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> > Also, if you choose to not pay the Maintenance Fee, but find yourself returning to check on the status of issues or review answers to questions others ask, you are still using the project and should pay the Maintenance Fee. 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…

I can't imagine that clause in particular is actually compatible with githubs own eula. It's hard to believe github would be okay with people attaching additional licenses to make use of any of their features. Could I throw a $10 fee to use git clone too?

Maybe it's a play like any of those license less open source projects, corporations will be so horrified to use your software they'll stay away, but hobby devs won't really worry about it.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#165

Post by notpushkin »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #161
robmensching wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but that isn't what happened (at least, not yet). Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.

>Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it. You must have incredibly good analytics to know exactly what companies are using your nuget package. Did you embed a phone home?

If this is about WiX, I think it’s easy to just spot their installers in the wild.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#166

Post by truemotive »

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…

This guy definitely has used WiX. What a nightmare!

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#167

Post by WorldMaker »

robmensching wrote: post #145
WorldMaker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The history of WiX is that it started internally at Microsoft. IIRC it was a project under the Office organization originally. It's generally considered the first big open source success of Microsoft in spinning a project out to open source community owner…

> IIRC it was a project under the Office organization originally. I worked in Office in 1999 when I created WiX but it definitely was not an "Office project". It wasn't until I left Office for project in Windows Server that Office adopted the WiX Toolset (to replace their custom system). The interaction with Office was always interesting. > I've got a feeling Microsoft doesn't want to support it anymore because they…

I appreciate the primary source corrections and expansions!

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#168

Post by optymizer »

qwery wrote: post #36
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…

> businesses would control a lot more open source software

Only because individuals would presumably open LLCs

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

I don't think the choice is between "John works on this project 11pm - 1am on the days he feels like it" and "John wants to IPO his company". I'm advocating for "John works on this project 3 days of the week because people pay him a small fee for using his project".

> Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that?

The money I gave to Lenovo went to Microsoft for an OEM license to the pre-installed Windows OS. When I download Ubuntu and install that on my laptop, Lenovo couldn't be bothered to see if closing the lid suspends the laptop or not.

Should Lenovo write drivers for my custom kernel as well? As a business, why should Lenovo bother to implement resume capabilities for an OS that is a rounding error for their consumer line of laptops?

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#169

Post by optymizer »

queenkjuul wrote: post #47
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…

Canonical and Lenovo both make lots of money already. Sucks that Lenovo doesn't think supporting Linux on your laptop is important.

> Sucks that Lenovo doesn't think supporting Linux on your laptop is important.

This is the downside of not owning both software and hardware. The integration is lacking. I already gave money to Lenovo when I bought my laptop, and clearly they're not going to support Ubuntu. Maybe if I gave money to Ubuntu, they would support this hardware. It's worth a try, because leaving it at "sucks" is not acceptable.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#170

Post by robmensching »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #161
robmensching wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but that isn't what happened (at least, not yet). Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.

>Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it. You must have incredibly good analytics to know exactly what companies are using your nuget package. Did you embed a phone home?

I was specifically talking about the companies paying the Fee and the feedback I got from others who don't use the WiX Toolset but understand Open Source and the problems facing maintainers.

But it is easy to tell when an installation package is built by the WiX Toolset (or any other tool) when you know where to look.

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