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The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

drewdevault.com

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Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#101

Post by ehnto »

DannyBee wrote: post #54
djsumdog wrote: post #40

I wish there were more publications on how open source is really funded. Earlier Linux and BSD kernels were made by a combination of researchers, people with spare time, volunteers as well as big companies who paid people full time. We see much more of the latter. Intel has an entire OSS division in Portland, OR that writes most of the drives, works on Linux kernel patches, etc. Nintendo and Sony both use big parts o…

"What changed? Do developers no longer have the time to volunteer to work on this stuff? The desire? Is the demand for tech in The Valley/West Cost changing the dynamics of how much time people have to contribute. Were the earlier efforts way less commercial and new efforts moving much faster and requirement more maintenance/resources? " What's changed is that once open source started getting serious VC's, people bel…

Some are seeing that corporations are the ones making all the money on the back of open source software. It's hard to want to contribute to something like open source infrastructure tooling, when it's use case is purely commercial, for example. I imagine some also feel that it's setting an unrealistic value on digital products, at least I do. Why would I want to build a tool for corporate infrastructure if they take it and make millions while I run support for free? They aren't about to Open Source my rent.

I would much rather an honest transactional relationship for commercial software. That also includes consumer commercial software, like phone apps and websites. If we had honest expectations about the cost of software we wouldn't see so much aggressive advertising and tracking.

There are fantastic use cases for the generosity of open source. Education software is something I whole heartedly agree should be driven by open source. But I feel open source has been taken advantage of in commercial settings.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#102

Post by dragonwriter »

dwheeler wrote: post #90

There are several challenges here. One challenge is the name "Commons" is very misleading. It's not creating a commons, and it's also confusingly similar to the term "Creative Commons" which has been around for a really long time. Also, the Commons website says that the Commons license is not OSS "at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD". Yet that is the official generally-accepted definition.

> One challenge is the name "Commons" is very misleading. It's not creating a commons

“Commons” isn't the thing the clause creates, it's the problem it aims to solve. Naming contract or license clauses after the problem they address is not uncommon.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#103

Post by peterwwillis »

eahman06 wrote: post #33

No it won't. You know what will destroy open source? Lack of money to develop it.

Yeah, I remember back when the Linux kernel was written by some Finnish nerd in university and given away for free. Thank goodness Google hired him back in 1995 to develop it or it would have died in infancy.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#104

Post by mindcrime »

XiZhao wrote: post #87
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Kevin, Drew here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your response, but I find it frustratingly vauge. What kinds of bad things happen to open source projects that drive them to this? If you are fearful of open source becoming more closed, why are you promoting that very approach? Did you consider promoting alternatives like AGPL first? Before I see an option violating one of the four essential freedom…

The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contributes to FUD around open source, etc.

And if one is going to create a new license, they should just create a complete license, in it's entirety. Creating an "add-on" that can be tacked on the the ALv2 or other licenses, which goes completely against the nature of Open Source, is absurd.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#106

Post by paulddraper »

rectang wrote: post #95
kup0 wrote: post #77

Regardless of whether or not it is harmful to open source, I find the choice to use two words beginning with C (thus CC as an acronym) flawed, as that abbreviation is typically used to refer to Creative Commons, and Commons Clause and Creative Commons sound quite similar too since they both use the word Commons. I would hope this was not an intentional choice to sow confusion. Edit: obvious spelling error :)

Between the name, the abbreviation, and the suggested usage of "Apache + Commons Clause" for a proprietary offering, this "Commons Clause" project has severe problems with deceptive messaging. If it was unintentional it was incredibly foolish; if it was deliberate.... Either way it should be junked.

Apache + Commons...Apache Commons...how confusing can you be?

https://commons.apache.org/

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#107

Post by mindcrime »

zzzcpan wrote: post #52

Maybe open source is just not keeping up with the real world, a few things could destroy it: lack of open source license choices restrictive enough and clear enough and enabling openness so much that most businesses can't profit in any significant way from software under those licenses; lack of standardized proprietary licenses for dual-licensed open source project; lack of standardized open source CLAs and CLA integ…

lack of open source license choices restrictive enough and clear enough and enabling openness so much that most businesses can't profit in any significant way from software under those licenses;

A license like that would, by definition, not be an Open Source license. Asking projects to switch to such a license is basically asking them to stop being Open Source.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#108

Post by paulddraper »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #105

It drives me nuts how much people talk about OSS when they need to at least mention the difference between FOSS and OSS. One more reason to stick to FOSS instead, as OSS proponents seem increasingly disingenuous.

Help me understand. Which of the following are FOSS licenses and which are OSS licenses?

- Apache

- Apache + Common Clause

- BSD

- MIT

- GPLv2

- GPLv3

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#109

Post by mindcrime »

foundry27 wrote: post #37
vinceguidry wrote: post #6

This argument is theological in that it's arguing against an idea, labeling it heresy. His ideal 'solution' is to just fold it all up and try to forget it ever happened. But you can't fight ideas, ideas provide solutions to problems that people have and if you want people to stop rolling their own solutions, then the orthodoxy needs to make their solutions actually work for actual people, not just the faithful. Not e…

I don’t usually post here (more interested in the articles than the discourse over them), but this is something that really resonated with me. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, the suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of engineering. We don’t know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about…

It's not being "censored". A lot of us are just saying it's a fucking stupid idea, that's all.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#110

Post by binomialxenon »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #93
XiZhao wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/

>The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors Still frustratingly vauge. Without this information I can't assume The Commons Clause is working in good faith. At least you can speak to the types of behaviors, rather than the specific actors, which led to this? >See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other quest…

I share your concern, if the "Commons Clause" (misleading name, IMO) became widespread enough, it could be somewhat of a virus that people may add to their Github projects, possibly causing a lack of clarity what license terms it's really under. It's even worse than a distinct new license in my opinion, as software might be advertised as "being under the Apache license" when it really has additional non-libre terms on it.
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