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Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

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Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#101

Post by devsda »

radlad wrote: post #48
TheRealPomax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read me as saying making and selling proprietary software was wrong, you read a very different text from what I wrote. Making and selling software is perfectly fine, and building that software on top of libraries specifically released for that purpose is equally fine. Open source licenses that in perpetuity lock you out of any form of gains from your own work , even when that work is the very backbone of someo…

I believe the parent is responding primarily to this point: > The idea that you just mark your work as MIT/GPL/CC0 may have made open source more popular, but it also ruins lives when that thing you worked on for years and never made you anything makes a random drive-by asshole more than your annual salary. There's no reason this should ruin your life - your quality of living didn't suddenly decrease. If you are unha…

It is possible that someone wanted to share their work with others without any payment expectations (but not realize the value of their work) and chooses to license it permissively.The product becomes successful, but the only ones earning money through the product are big companies. ( One may argue that project became successful because of its license or because it was used by the said company, but they are difficult arguments to prove and accept).

I won't fault them for expecting to get paid if they later realize the value of their work and know that it is generating significant commercial money. It is natural to feel like being taken advantage of by the commercial entity when they don't get compensated (even if that was their initial choice).

When someone says "you should have chosen to make it proprietary or use a more restrictive license from beginning", it might come across as a polite way of saying "Too bad, no backsies! You were foolish enough to chose a permissive license. So, accept the consequences".

If a developer wants to get paid for their work with something other than "feel good OSS points", I don't see many options out there. They need to solicit donations(which doesn't have good track record) or re-license.

I think as more products go through this cycle of permissive license, monetization by third-party and re-licensing, we'll be seeing a significant number of projects erring on the side of caution and use restrictive licenses from the start.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#103

Post by margorczynski »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #27
TheRealPomax wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's why things like Captura no longer exist. You make something fantastic with an open source license, someone else renames it and sells it in app stores, and the people running the app stores go "the license allowed for this, we see nothing wrong". It's well past time for getting rid of licenses that say "you can do what you like with this software", and replace them with licenses that allows you to sell as long as…

> Why I (A/L)GPL https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co... > I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made. > Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.

This is the correct approach - double license, if you're non-commercial then you'll get GPL/AGPL/etc. and if you're a company and want to use it to make money this way or another then pay up.

A fair approach that provides a way of supporting the people making it and further development.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#104

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

calibas wrote: post #55
1oooqooq wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux foundation was never about Linux or open source. quite the contrary. the foundation started as a way for companies to band Against gpl. and they won the day Linus have up and allowed tainted kernel be the default and every device distributor moved their proprietary code to modules and rejoiced. their focus then was on gpl3 fud because google et al have much more money than modem vendors.

The resistance to GPL isn't just companies, I think you'll find the average programmer prefers using libraries licensed under MIT when given the choice. It seems like there's a kind of political ideology over what "open source" even means and how it should be practiced.There's a school of thought that says we should switch everything over to viral copyleft licenses. This will "protect" the code and ensure all derivat…

What about LGPL? It used to be everywhere when people were using SourceForge - but post-GitHub it seems to have dropped-off in popularity.

When libs are distributed as binaries (.NET, Java, etc) it feels LGPL vs MIT/Apache is moot as hardly anyone actually modifies libraries, it seems. I wonder how different it is for Go and C/C++…

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#105

Post by davisr »

jcheng wrote: post #88
davisr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a post about it, but the equation is pretty simple: good cross-platform software + good documentation + responsive development = good product. The trick is to write good software -- the license doesn't matter so much. But, making it free/libre is competitively advantageous, all else considered. Some customers have told me they would not have considered paying for a proprietary option. My project is calle…

There's nothing to stop any of your paying customers from setting up their own site and giving away (or selling for cheaper) copies of RCU, right? I'm guessing you understand that and figure the downside risk is low--small numbers, low stakes, consumer focused, good vibes?

That's right, and they have, but I still earn enough income to develop and maintain the program. Free redistribution does not hurt my sales because people who would have paid for the program do, and those who wouldn't can end up trying it, a fraction of whom go on to become customers because they want updates and support from the most-trusted source (me).

You'll see a very similar thing elsewhere: illicit file sharing increases box office revenue and increases album sales.

Anyone who wants a no-fee copy of RCU can find it many places by searching. If someone ever extends my program with a cool new feature, their version must be released as AGPLv3+, and that means I can re-incorporate their improvements into my own offering. The market dynamics of free/libre software are such that since I have the reputation, the first-mover advantage, and the top search engine rankings, then anyone looking to compete needs to do so on quality of features -- which I have the license to copy, just as they copied from me. Anyone who wants to compete with me needs to compete with all that.

Anyone who shares my program ends up promoting it in the best way possible, by talking about it and telling others it's good and worth using.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#106

Post by sangnoir »

Pannoniae wrote: post #79

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. Hyperscalers like Amazon exploit OSS projects by reselling them as a cloud service and they earn a gigantic sum in the process. But this is not a neutral thing to do - the OSS project is still responsible for maintenance!…

> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it...

Should OSS solve that "problem"? Free software predates billion-dollar OSS / open-core companies, it also doesn't require the maintainer directly earn a living from it. Perhaps the era of OSS megacorps and the concomitant VC/startup dreams is setting, as these large, formerly OSS companies are rejecting OSS licenses in favor of bigger profits. To that, I say good riddance, not every useful git repository has to be incorporated.

> ...and prevent others from exploiting you in the process.

The whole point of free and open source software is anyone can use it and improve it - including Amazon and the person you hate. An OSS license is not a growth-hack for adoption: if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL. If you're worried others won't use your AGPL software, then you're growth-hacking.

FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React).

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#107

Post by 8organicbits »

bsnnkv wrote: post #87

I recently re-licensed a large open source project from MIT to a source-available license which restricts redistribution after someone decided to fork it, completely rearrange the code and introduce subtle breaking interface changes, and then package it up with basic Electron UI for sale on a platform digital store. I don't know what the answer is, but the OSI definition is clearly not built to withstand this era of…

Trademark law should handle this (at least in some countries). Register a trademark and then send a cease and desist to the fork as they are creating confusion in the marketplace by distributing something they created using your registered name.

Perhaps consider using Apache 2.0 license, section six has language that specifically addresses trademarks.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#108

Post by matheusmoreira »

layer8 wrote: post #96
matheusmoreira wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't give things away That's exactly the point I was making. My whole point was: DO NOT just give things away. That's just irrational. It brings you no profit and doesn't actually create long lasting wealth and freedom in the form of copyleft software. All it does is enable your exploitation. All it does is enrich billionaire corporations who are free to take the work of others, use it to make a killing and then l…

You cut off “if you care about what happens to them afterwards”. It’s perfectly fine for somebody to just give software away as long they’re fine that someone else will make money off it. You don’t seem to be fine with it, but others are.

I've seen quite a few of these people become very bitter over the years. Taken for fools and exploited. They were supposedly "fine" with it at first. At some point it must have hit them.

I don't blame them. Their reaction is understandable. I blame whoever came up with this "permissive licensing" psyop.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#109

Post by jahewson »

kevingadd wrote: post #38
kube-system wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it depressing? It was your choice to share it.

I think at this point it's undisputed that modern society relies on a lot of permissively licensed software, and the people who maintain that software aren't getting paid enough (or at all) to do it. xz is only the most recent example, NTP and OpenSSL come to mind. I used to do OSS development full time, but it wasn't financially sustainable for me.

A great many open source maintainers are employed by a corporation that pays them well, if not fantastically well, for maintaining it. Over time, the trend has been increasingly in that direction.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#110

Post by Pannoniae »

sangnoir wrote: post #106
Pannoniae wrote: post #79

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. Hyperscalers like Amazon exploit OSS projects by reselling them as a cloud service and they earn a gigantic sum in the process. But this is not a neutral thing to do - the OSS project is still responsible for maintenance!…

> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it... Should OSS solve that "problem"? Free software predates billion-dollar OSS / open-core companies, it also doesn't require the maintainer directly earn a living from it. Perhaps the era of OSS megacorps and the concomitant VC/startup dreams is setting, as these large, forme…

>Should OSS solve that "problem"?

If you don't want a cyberpunk-like dystopia of megacorps controlling everything, yes. This is not just affecting the VC-funded startups' profitability but it also affects ordinary software developers' lifestyle businesses too. Sure, the core principles of OSS don't require that you'd be able to earn money from your work, but then perhaps it is OSS which is not fit for purpose, not the desire to earn money from creating software.

>if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL.

The AGPL is still not restrictive enough because you can resell the software without contributing anything back if you don't modify it. Stuff like the SSPL or the Commons Clause are much better to prevent that kind of exploitation.

>FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React).

I find the xz example especially funny because that shows how it is very much not fine. Single developer, burnt out, not getting paid a penny for his thankless work, a bunch of state-sponsored actors pressure him to hand his project over -> backdoor injected. If Lasse Collin could get support for his project, this almost certainly would not have happened.

https://xkcd.com/2347/ is very relevant here.

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