Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode • Hacker News Board

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#111

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Nov 06, 2017, 10:05 PM UTC

ralmidani wrote: post #62

jrochkind1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the relation. Copyleft licenses and what the faircode license are attempting to do are pretty different things. I don't see any relation between them, other than that they are both licensing terms. They are different licensing terms. I do think the terms of this new license are going to be confusing and make it difficult to figure out how to use it legally. As with most if not all "non-commercial use only…

I understand that "Faircode" is not trying to protect downstream users from non-free software. That's my point; It's not about principle, it's about extorting money while appearing to be principled. Copyleft licenses force people to release their modifications as source code, or pay the copyright owner for an exception (if the owner is open to providing the exception) Non-Copyleft licenses say "do whatever you want,…

> Non-Copyleft licenses say "do whatever you want, just give us credit."

Wrong. "Non-copyleft licenses" are, well, anything that is not a copyleft license. It doesn't have to say "do whatever you want." A standard commercial license is one kind of license that is obviously _not_ a copyleft license.

I'm not really following what point you are trying to make.

Selling software is selling software. Do you consider any kind of selling software to be 'extorting money' (I think that could be a reasonable position honestly, I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand), or something special about the 'faircode' license that gives the software free to some entities but sells it to others that makes it 'extortion'?

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#112

Post by alien_ » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 11:09 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #72

59nadir wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am trying to avoid the word "shakedown", but this strikes me as exactly that. Yes, the $90/month cost is going to hurt all the companies that have revenue greater than $1,000,000/year. This will put them out on the streets, I'm sure. Let's be real: This does not apply to you, and on the off chance that it does, why are you complaining about paying $90 per month for something you should probably already be donatin…

What if the company makes contributions to open-source through other projects - for which no one is paying them? Is it ‘fair’? Who is the leech? Even a $1m/y company (which is not big at all) will be hard pressed to pay 1k/year for a git wrapper. The whole idea of OSS is that everyone benefits from the exchange and costs are distributed. This won’t scale at all - count your current open source dependencies and imagin…

If they do have a problem paying $90 or even $1000 for a piece of software they really need, they are free to ask one of their developers to write one in house from scratch and see how much this sunken time would cost them.

The sad reality is that costs are not distributed, most companies just grab whatever open source software they can and only contribute the least they can get away with, most of the times nothing at all.

Many projects survive just because of dedicated individual developers and maintainers spending their limited spare time, who end up being burned out.

In an ideal world open source software that brings significant value for companies should be considered as part of their stack, they should either hire or assign someone for supporting it, or pay the existing maintainers, and ideally this should be somewhat proportional to the value they get out of it.

Unfortunately donations as method of payment rarely work(usually end up being paid by individual employees from their own pocket), so the only option to get money from the company itself is to somehow get it charged.

They usually have no problem with being charged money, as long as the price is reasonable for the value it brings and less than would cost to write the same code in-house or to even have a meeting about acquiring it. It also should be significant, they wouldn't go through the bureaucratic procedures for a 10€ one off payment.

Developers don't expect to become rich out of this, they often would settle for less than their full time job, as long as they can work full time on the project they care about and still make a living. But because so few companies share the costs, they tend to be significant for those who do pay, so the prices will be higher at first but should decrease quickly as more companies share the burden.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#113

Post by ralmidani » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 11:28 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #111

ralmidani wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that "Faircode" is not trying to protect downstream users from non-free software. That's my point; It's not about principle, it's about extorting money while appearing to be principled. Copyleft licenses force people to release their modifications as source code, or pay the copyright owner for an exception (if the owner is open to providing the exception) Non-Copyleft licenses say "do whatever you want,…

> Non-Copyleft licenses say "do whatever you want, just give us credit." Wrong. "Non-copyleft licenses" are, well, anything that is not a copyleft license. It doesn't have to say "do whatever you want." A standard commercial license is one kind of license that is obviously _not_ a copyleft license. I'm not really following what point you are trying to make. Selling software is selling software. Do you consider any ki…

By "non-copyleft" I mean licenses like MIT, BSD, etc. I thought this was obvious from the context, but I should have used clearer language.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#114

Post by INTPenis » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 10:50 AM UTC

hannob wrote: post #59

INTPenis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing open source software with free software. I'm on your side in principle but the distinction is important in this case.

> You're confusing open source software with free software. No, I'm not. Please read the open source definition: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated In practical terms there's very little difference between free software and open source. It's mostly a "philosophical" difference - free software advocates put an emphasis on "freedom", while open source advocates see it more as a business model. But the requirements fo…

I see what you mean but that doesn't make sense to me.

Open source is by definition of the phrase, as well as in practical cases, a program whos source is available. Nothing more.

There are many prominent open source programs that also exist as a licensed product.

That's why I have always believed free software (FOSS) to be the other definition where the software cannot be licensed or sold for a profit.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#115

Post by FredrikNoren » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 2:05 PM UTC

roblabla wrote: post #41

I just learned about faircode[0] and I've got to say, I like the idea. I like that right on the frontpage, it shows that I have the choice to keep using the current license, and have it work like a Patreon, or use their own Faircode License (which seems what this story is about). It makes them look honest. I like that they are honest about the cost of using the faircode service, right on the frontpage (5% on top of a…

Your wish has been heard; I just added a dual licensing option to the platform :) Enjoy!

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#116

Post by roblabla » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

FredrikNoren wrote: post #115

roblabla wrote: post #41

I just learned about faircode[0] and I've got to say, I like the idea. I like that right on the frontpage, it shows that I have the choice to keep using the current license, and have it work like a Patreon, or use their own Faircode License (which seems what this story is about). It makes them look honest. I like that they are honest about the cost of using the faircode service, right on the frontpage (5% on top of a…

Your wish has been heard; I just added a dual licensing option to the platform :) Enjoy!

Wow, that's awesome ! You have no idea how happy this makes me ! Thanks for your hard work, I'll definitely be using this and suggesting it to the people around me :D

EDIT: Just tried to sign up, and I triggered an internal error :<

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#117

Post by FredrikNoren » Sat, Nov 11, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

roblabla wrote: post #116

FredrikNoren wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your wish has been heard; I just added a dual licensing option to the platform :) Enjoy!

Wow, that's awesome ! You have no idea how happy this makes me ! Thanks for your hard work, I'll definitely be using this and suggesting it to the people around me :D EDIT: Just tried to sign up, and I triggered an internal error :<

Whoopsie, the error messages are still a bit rough but it looks like the recaptcha wasn't clicked? I've improved the errors on the frontend so should give you a nicer error message if it isn't now! Lmk if that doesn't fix the problem.