Fair Source

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 06, 2024, 4:28 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #6

ezekg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. You assert that because a company wants to share its source code that it's also soliciting free work. Personally, I’ve never asked for free work. I don’t want free work. I actually don’t even care if anybody contributes at all -- I didn’t make my company Fair Source to get free labor or contributions. I did it to ensure the continuity and longevity of my core product, to give back, and to o…

I think you're also looking at it from the wrong direction. Communities exist around software because they perceive collective ownership of the program. If you don't want contributions then that's fine, but you're certainly not attracting new audiences by showing current customers your source code. It's marketing, plain and simple. Spending money on marketing is fine, but don't expect developers to not call you out o…

[deleted]

Post by eclark » Tue, Aug 06, 2024, 6:27 PM UTC

One of the things that's often lost in these debates is how the current open-source company structure encourages keeping the core open source as an unusable mess.

If a company comes and gives away its core product (Nginx, Hadoop, etc.), at some point, there's a need for $$ by the developers of that core software. The core product doesn't make revenue. So, the company has to create additional software for its revenue stream.

From then on, the developers of the core open-source project are incentivized to keep a dual class of solutions. That is, the developer's livelihood depends on no one making the core open source so easy to use that the additional software stops paying the bills.

A time-bound open-source clause ensures that everyone wants the best software. Yes, it means that users have less freedom than open-source users for a while. I think that's a great long-term trade-off for the users and the developers.

Re: Fair Source

Re: Fair Source