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Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

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Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#141

Post by mlrtime »

davisr wrote: post #105
jcheng wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sharin…

fwiw, I agree with your sales model. I have bought software (non OSS) that I have tried from warez simply because it was better.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#142

Post by radlad »

devsda wrote: post #101
radlad wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think this discounts the rest of the work required in converting a technological solution into a product. That is, marketing, sales, support, strategy, operations, and oftentimes, UI/UX work.

But in general, yes, I feel that the bigger issue here is a fundamental mismatch between the author's desires and their chosen license. It's not so different from signing a contract with terms you later regret.

Maybe we need better licenses.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#143

Post by CRConrad »

downrightmike wrote: post #72
Decabytes wrote: post #62

I'm glad Jeff pointed out the RMS article on Free software > For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software. > “Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software (or nearly so), does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words convey different ideas. While a free program by any other name would give yo…

"What we advocate is not “open source,” and what we oppose is not “closed source.” I have zero idea what this means and I've been on Debian since Woody

They mean that what they advocate is “free software”, not “open source”; and that what they oppose is therefore “non-free software”, not “closed source”.

Honestly, how could that be hard to understand from the context of the discussion here?

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#144

Post by CRConrad »

goku12 wrote: post #25
iforgotpassword wrote: post #7

> By working on a project with a CLA, where you sign away your code, you're giving carte blanche for the company to take away your freedom to use their software. Ok it's been a while so I don't remember the details or how it played out, but when Linux introduced a CoC, there were people who contributed to the kernel in the past that threatened to withdraw their code from the kernel, which would've been a nightmare to…

I think that the developer can demand a withdrawal of their contribution, though I don't know what happens to the code that's already published under a FOSS license. Regardless, many projects including the Linux kernel require the developer to sign off their contributions under the terms of the 'developer certificate of origin' [1]. While the developer retains the copyright to the contribution under DCO, they acknowl…

> I think that the developer can demand a withdrawal of their contribution

I don't. And neither do you, judging from your last sentence:

> So, retracting the contribution may not be an option.

So what did you mean by the first one?

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#145

Post by jqpabc123 »

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

In other words --- developers can not live from Open Source alone.

If all software was Open Source, there would likely be a lot fewer developers. And those that remain would be spending a lot more time and effort on survival and less time creating software.

Open Source is inherently self limiting and unsustainable. It is a utopian concept that defies the basic economic reality we are all forced to contend with.

And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation. It may be noble and good for somebody --- but ultimately not for himself or others like him.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#146

Post by raxxorraxor »

Pannoniae wrote: post #110
sangnoir wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

Your solution seems to just incorporate OSS and at some point it just isn't OSS anymore. The problem was not the developer of xz, it is the people that build upon it without reflection. Although to be fair, almost every developer has a dependency like that somewhere.

I find it funny that people call to support the developer. That is true, but the scam was exactly about how the dev was pressured to hire more maintainers. The lesson here should be that if third party is nagging you about your open source project, you just hint them on the "no warranty" part. Everything else is their problem.

I wish the developer would swim in money. He did more constructive work than many, many very rich people. Problem still is that there is no entity that could be trusted to pay him. If that would be corporation, the pressure would be even higher. Because then you are essentially a freelancing developer with a corporate contract. You lose freedom and independence, something many OSS developers specifically do not want.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#147

Post by CRConrad »

busterarm wrote: post #120
matheusmoreira wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not correct though. Charity is a valid thing. Expectations-based giving should honestly always be frowned upon. Once you give something up it's no longer in your control. If somebody has a problem with that, it's actually them that's the problem. I think a lot of folks don't think through the licenses they choose before they use them. They never really thought about if they'd be mad if somebody else commercial…

> Expectations-based giving should honestly always be frowned upon. Once you give something up it's no longer in your control.

Licensing something as Free Software (i.e. under a copyleft license) isn't "giving it up", so there's no contradiction with retaining (some) control.

> If somebody has a problem with that, it's actually them that's the problem.

Or the problem is with the people who want to take control because they thought the original creator "gave it up".

> I think a lot of folks don't think through the licenses they choose before they use them.

Yup, better make sure to go with a copyleft license.

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#148

Post by CRConrad »

OJFord wrote: post #91
WJW wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird because in this case you could also read it as "Jeff Geerling says that corporate open source is dead", which just happens to be posted on his personal blog that has a domain name which is his personal name. It's not as if it's the site that called "Jeff Geerling" after all.

The title should be as posted on the blog, it would be weird if he put Jeff Geerling there (and he didn't). Rule's the same for bloggers without their name (obviously) in the domain, e.g. Julia Evans at jvns.ca is often submitted; not with a 'Julia Evans:' prefix.

> The title should be as posted on the blog

Seems the HTML attribute of his page is "Corporate Open Source Is Dead | Jeff Geerling". OK, that's not "Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead" like on this HN page, but it's certainly not "jeffgeerling.com" either. The difference between a "Jeff Geerling:" prefix and a "| Jeff Geerling" suffix is rather small in comparison. So what, exactly, is "as posted on the blog"?

>it would be weird if he put Jeff Geerling there (and he didn't).

It's not like the main title within the page is just "Corporate Open Source Is Dead" either; there's a more prominent "Jeff Geerling" above that. So yes, he did.

(Personally, I usually go with what's displayed on the browser window title / tab, i.e. the attribute. AFAICR.)

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#149

Post by Pannoniae »

sangnoir wrote: post #130
Pannoniae wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If money is not important, what's the harm in making it available as open source, but with a non-commercial clause?

Because I don't mind people using my software commercially if they are respecting the license. I wouldn't want to be charged for all my commercial usage of Linux, Git, Postgres, zsh, the rust toolchain, etc. I believe if everyone in our industry tried to capture all/most of of the economic value of their work, we'd all be poorer for it, metaphorically and literally since a huge part of high SDE salaries is due to hig…

That's entirely fair, but you can tailor the licences to target the biggest freeloaders (prohibit hosting it as a cloud service, allow everything else) while letting everyone else use it without worrying about licensing.

That's the beautiful part - you can choose vastly different approaches with differing levels of freedom/openness, depending on your and your users' needs. A game is licenced quite differently than a library which is also licenced differently than a website. And they can all coexist:)

Re: Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead

#150

Post by eadmund »

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, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process.

You’re begging the question of whether one should be able to earn a living from making free software.

Free software is not fundamentally about business or profit: it’s about ethics. It’s about the freedom of software users to use, modify and share their software.

How programmers get paid is an interesting question, but it’s not the most important question. The important one is, ‘is it ethical for a programmer to prevent his software’s users from using, inspecting, modifying and sharing modifications to the software they use?’ And the answer in my opinion is a resounding ‘no!’

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