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Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

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Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#121

Post by mousebirdc »

tmcw wrote: post #104
themakermark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear why. I have no problem with companies choosing not to open source in the first place, it is just the idea of taking an open source project with an active community around it and closing it up that is a tough pill to swallow.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

Oh come on Tom. Making a great, free toolkit utterly decimated the competition. Just completely destroyed any funding for a competitor. And I should know.

I believe that you believe this is well intentioned, but it had a very negative impact on open source geospatial software development. Again, I SHOULD KNOW.

Mapbox is doing what is good for Mapbox. It's a company. But let's not pretend this change is good for anyone but Mapbox.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#122

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

josephcsible wrote: post #114
anamexis wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Mapbox has been allowing us to steal the work of their developers and release it in our proprietary products up until this point.

Because if they can take all of the improvements from the fork, but the fork can't take any of their improvements, the fork will wither and die.

That's not the case. There is already a massive ecosystem around MVT (vector tiles) that needs an open source renderer. Mapbox GL can have all the bells and whistles it wants, but since it's still tied to Mapbox's SaaS pricing, it's not a viable alternative for that ecosystem.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#123

Post by mousebirdc »

infoseek12 wrote: post #106
tmcw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

An incredible ironic statement since what you’ve done is only possible because of open source. If you don’t realize that taking a huge dump on the open source community will have profound consequences for Mapbox then you’re in for a surprise.

It won't make much difference. The damage is done, Mapbox has remade the community in its image and we can only live in that world.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#124

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

josephcsible wrote: post #107
ccmcarey wrote: post #41

How are they able to change the license of code that people committed under the 3-clause BSD license without the permission of those people?

Because the BSD license is a permissive/pushover license, which let you relicense other people's work as proprietary. The reason that copyleft licenses like the GPL are better is exactly that they don't allow this sort of behavior.

99% of the code in Mapbox GL was written by Mapbox employees on company time. The GPL would have made no difference.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#127

Post by [deleted] »

tmcw wrote: post #104
themakermark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear why. I have no problem with companies choosing not to open source in the first place, it is just the idea of taking an open source project with an active community around it and closing it up that is a tough pill to swallow.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

[deleted]

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#128

Post by tuukkah »

dstaley wrote: post #117
tuukkah wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this talk about "permissive" licenses? It was open source, it's not open source any more. The Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd EDIT: The title has now changed but it was "Mapbox GL JS is no longer open source", which is the point: they didn't change from an open source license to another.

To be honest I just wanted to see a more descriptive title specifically to avoid the tired, unproductive discussion of "what is open source".

No need to discuss what is open source as there are agreeing definitions by multiple parties (OSI, FSF, Debian etc.). How is it more productive to use terms like a "permissive" and a "restrictive" license for which there is no generally agreed meaning?

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#129

Post by durkie »

tmcw wrote: post #104
themakermark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear why. I have no problem with companies choosing not to open source in the first place, it is just the idea of taking an open source project with an active community around it and closing it up that is a tough pill to swallow.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

I don't understand your last paragraph. On the one hand you're saying OSS in 2020 mostly helps companies, but on the other hand you say this dynamic of company-helping is not one that you can build a sustainable business on. Am I missing something?

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#130

Post by tuukkah »

mousebirdc wrote: post #120
tuukkah wrote: post #9

Even with just 3666 daily loads, you will pay them 10 USD/day for using the code on your site! "Beginning with v2.0.0, a billable map load occurs whenever a Map object is initialized." Under 50,001 monthly loads is free but after that it costs $5.00 per 1,000 loads: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/

Can someone confirm this? Do you need an actual Mapbox token to even run an offline map from data you've downloaded off of, say, Maptiler?

The quotes are directly from Mapbox. "Usage of v2 is billed by Map Load to the Mapbox account owner. The license terms make no distinction between data sources." https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/issues/10162

> Mapbox GL JS v1.x.x: A map load occurs whenever a Mapbox GL JS Map object is initialized on a webpage and you request a Mapbox-hosted map tile.

> Mapbox GL JS v2.x.x: A map load occurs whenever a Mapbox GL JS Map object is initialized on a webpage. https://docs.mapbox.com/help/glossary/map-loads/

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