It's not okay to pretend your software is open source • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#21

Post by Klathmon » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

cameronhowe wrote: post #10

_wmd wrote: post #4

If you don't like software with these new style licenses, then don't use software with these new style licenses. Explain what it is that apparently so deeply violates your right to exist, but puritanical screaming and finger-pointing black & white contrasts never really convinces people of anything. All these rants are lame. The best comment I've heard so far w.r.t. CC is how it complicates acquisition of software by…

His problem with them is in the title of the post. If you want to do something that is non-free, don't call it open source or free software, both words have accepted definitions, by osi and fsf/gnu respectively. Your reply is entirely off-topic.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but why does "free software" only apply to some licenses with restrictions?

why are the restrictions that the GPL or AGPL puts on you okay to still be called "free", but Apache 2 + Common Clause has restrictions that aren't "free"?

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#22

Post by emersion » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

hendzen wrote: post #7

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. Who deserves the value created by Redis? Antirez and the Redis Labs developers? Or Jeff Bezos?

This is not the point.

The point is: stop calling open-source stuff that isn't. You shouldn't lie to your users.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#23

Post by huzy » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

hendzen wrote: post #7

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. Who deserves the value created by Redis? Antirez and the Redis Labs developers? Or Jeff Bezos?

As the Red Hat model dies, and SaaS becomes more and more relevant, people have to get used to these new terms. Ranting won't work (or feed anybody).

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#24

Post by vntok » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:42 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #15

huzy wrote: post #2

What an empty, ranting, and rage-fueled post. >They’re in for a long wait - we’re not going to forget about shady, dishonest, and unethical companies like Redis Labs. We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew DeVault. Are you going to add antirez (or anteriz as you call him) to that list?

[deleted]

It's not whataboutism.

Harassing people was not okay then, and it's not okay now either.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#25

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

myWindoonn wrote: post #13

At least non-free licensing gives us an easy way to tell which software is not worth using. It's funny how these recent packages in the news all have FLOSS alternatives: * Mongo? Why not Pg? * GitLab? Why not Fossil? * Redis? Why not better architecture? * Vespene? Why not Nix tools? You may see each of these as flamebait. I see each of these as a discussion that, here on HN, usually ends in stalemate. What I'm sugge…

Mongo and PG are not quite alternatives. That make different kinds of consistency promises. One FOSS alternative to Mongo that offers similar consistency behaviors is RethinkDB.

An alternative to Redis if you don't need persistence is plain old Memcache.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#26

Post by IggleSniggle » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #8

staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

To be fair, “brownies with a sprinkling of horseshit” is extremely descriptive yet concise. I understand what this is faster than reading the recipe for what this thing is.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#27

Post by api » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #8

staticassertion wrote: post #5

I believe I'm in the minority when I say this. Ultimately, if I choose to, I will license my project however I want. If I want to restrict others from selling my product I will do so. Calling it Apache 2.0 + Common Clause makes sense, it's an extremely well known license and it's easier to start there and then say "but with some restrictions". That said, I do see the issue that people may use this software and not un…

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

The Commons Clause might be clunky, but its an attempt to address the changes that have happened in the world since the late 1990s.

For those who don't know, the FOSS revolution came about in the late 1990s and as a popular movement was largely fueled by concern over the extent to which Microsoft was dominating the PC and (then) PC-based server industries. MS was moving to embrace-extend-extinguish the web at the time too. The Free part of FOSS was critical to competing with Microsoft in the late 1990s, since MS's Achilles heel in the market was its costly and cumbersome licensing schemes.

Times have changed quite a bit since then. Today's behemoths are not based in software but in services with network effects. The bad behavior of those behemoths revolves more around exploitation of network effects to lock people into services (not software), and of course the mass surveillance and manipulation of public discourse that becomes possible when everyone is working in a closed silo.

FOSS is utterly worthless as a strategy to resist network effect oligopolies and surveillance capitalism. In fact it might be worse than worthless, since many of these surveillance honeypots run on open source software. If you write and release FOSS today you're likely giving free labor to people who will use your tools to spy on you and manipulate you.

The difficulty we face now is finding a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism as a way to fund software. The Commons Clause is an experiment in that direction. It may not work, but experiments are welcome.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#28

Post by kryptiskt » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #18

hendzen wrote: post #7

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. Who deserves the value created by Redis? Antirez and the Redis Labs developers? Or Jeff Bezos?

If you want to publish open source and not have cloud companies use it for their own profit without contributing back, there's a license for that called the GPL. If you want to write software and get paid for it, then ask for money for your software instead of handing it out as open source then changing your mind once it's popular. In common parlance that's called a bait and switch.

Cloud companies can use GPL code without contributing back as they're not distributing it.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#29

Post by amyjess » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

99052882514569 wrote: post #14

vorpalhex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

>These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! Don't buy them, don't eat them. >"Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product" -> See? Done, easy, nobody upset. Don't pretend "Hey, this is open source, except it isn't, and please give m…

> Don't buy them, don't eat them.

Consumer protection laws say otherwise. We live in a society with rules and punishments for breaking those rules for a reason.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#30

Post by kabes » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

Semaphor wrote: post #3

huzy wrote: post #2

What an empty, ranting, and rage-fueled post. >They’re in for a long wait - we’re not going to forget about shady, dishonest, and unethical companies like Redis Labs. We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew DeVault. Are you going to add antirez (or anteriz as you call him) to that list?

> We also won't forget about how you've harassed so many people throughout the years Mr. Drew. Care for a background link for those out of the loop?

Drew is known to be a bit of an asshole. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18156980