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It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

drewdevault.com

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Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#11

Post by stevenacreman »

People are upvoting the title because I guess they agree to some extent.

It seems everyone starting an open source project nowadays needs to protect against the cloud providers.

The topic on here about the new CI tool from the creator of Ansible also had an element of this. But I actually quite liked his solution. He gives everything away for free and the source is open. You just cannot profit from his work unless you join a partner system.

Maybe I'm being naive but that seemed like it may work. Although not sure how you qualify not being used for commercial benefit if the software you're building with the CI tool produces a paid product. I think the software creator would only really enforce the license if you started a business up doing hosted CI with it or offering it as a cloud service.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#12

Post by dedsm »

staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

I think the main issue is that you state something that's not true, https://github.com/antirez/redis-doc/pull/984 shows that, Redis Labs is claiming license is OSI-approved, when it's not.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#13

Post by myWindoonn »

At least non-free licensing gives us an easy way to tell which software is not worth using. It's funny how these recent packages in the news all have FLOSS alternatives:

* Mongo? Why not Pg?

* GitLab? Why not Fossil?

* Redis? Why not better architecture?

* Vespene? Why not Nix tools?

You may see each of these as flamebait. I see each of these as a discussion that, here on HN, usually ends in stalemate. What I'm suggesting, then, is that we simply allow these package authors to tip the scales decisively for us: Reject non-FLOSS and the path is clear.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#14

Post by 99052882514569 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #8
staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

>These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies!

Don't buy them, don't eat them.

>"Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product" -> See? Done, easy, nobody upset. Don't pretend "Hey, this is open source, except it isn't, and please give me your money."

None of that makes any sense. Creative Commons simply restricts selling the software itself. The software is still distributed free, and you can still sell a derivative.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#15

Post by [deleted] »

huzy wrote: post #2

What an empty, ranting, and rage-fueled post. >They’re in for a long wait - we’re not going to forget about shady, dishonest, and unethical companies like Redis Labs. We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew DeVault. Are you going to add antirez (or anteriz as you call him) to that list?

[deleted]

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#16

Post by staticassertion »

vorpalhex wrote: post #8
staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

I won't address your analogy since I think it's obviously quite different.

Ultimately, people want to keep their code open, develop in the open, bring in contributors, make it easy to adopt and audit their code, etc. They also want to eat and have a home.

The extreme hostility I've seen over the years to every OSS project that tries some new way of monetizing is just absurd and damaging to the concept.

> "Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product" -> See? Done,

Confusing since what you've just described sounds very much like what is being railed against? You're just talking about taking an open source license and adding a restriction around monetizing the code - this is not open source, as it violates one of the 10 or so requirements to be Truly Open Source (by some organization's standards).

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#17

Post by wlesieutre »

Semaphor wrote: post #3
huzy wrote: post #2

What an empty, ranting, and rage-fueled post. >They’re in for a long wait - we’re not going to forget about shady, dishonest, and unethical companies like Redis Labs. We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew DeVault. Are you going to add antirez (or anteriz as you call him) to that list?

> We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew. Care for a background link for those out of the loop?

Also apparently out of the loop, but a new account created specifically to trash the author of the blog post has me skeptical...

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#18

Post by vorpalhex »

hendzen wrote: post #7

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. Who deserves the value created by Redis? Antirez and the Redis Labs developers? Or Jeff Bezos?

If you want to publish open source and not have cloud companies use it for their own profit without contributing back, there's a license for that called the GPL.

If you want to write software and get paid for it, then ask for money for your software instead of handing it out as open source then changing your mind once it's popular. In common parlance that's called a bait and switch.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#19

Post by vertline3 »

staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

The language hijacking of the word 'commons' is unethical (a point mentioned in the essay). Congress does it all the time with the names of their bills though.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#20

Post by myWindoonn »

Semaphor wrote: post #3
huzy wrote: post #2

What an empty, ranting, and rage-fueled post. >They’re in for a long wait - we’re not going to forget about shady, dishonest, and unethical companies like Redis Labs. We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew DeVault. Are you going to add antirez (or anteriz as you call him) to that list?

> We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew. Care for a background link for those out of the loop?

I've operated in a community with him, many years ago. He was toxic, but he was also a teenager.

Everybody that you'll meet on HN is some sort of manipulative narcissist; those who aren't don't share their faces.

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