Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

colatkinson.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 407 posts

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#201

Post by simias »

I agree that any aggressive towards the maintainer is unwarranted, even if I personally disagree with his move. In particular this comment quoted in TFA amused me:

>Then drop it and let someone else maintain it.

I want to reply to this person: then fork the last open source version and maintain that. That's the whole point really. Besides he apparently made the change two years ago and people only start noticing now, it's pretty clear that there's not a vibrant community of contributors ready to take the project over.

It's not entirely fair in this case because of the certificate needed to sign the kernel module but if it's really that difficult to get a certificate from Apple as an open source project that seems more like a problem with Apple than with osxfuse's maintainer. Besides what can he reasonably do? Just give the certificate to whoever asks for it? That's going to get it revoked by Apple in approximately 4 femtoseconds.

Companies benefiting from the work of opensource projects and not giving anything back is genuinely a big problem IMO. It's not illegal of course, but it is unethical in my opinion. Look at the state of OpenSSL, one of the most (if not the most) popular crypto library out there, who has to beg for scraps in order to fund the project. And when there's a critical vulnerability like heartbleed, who gets mocked online? The poor guy or gal who authored the commit, not the countless multi-billion dollar corporations who deployed their code for free without paying for a thorough audit or contributing anything back.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#202

Post by diffeomorphism »

ynx wrote: post #193
diffeomorphism wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is completely wrong. If you can _see_ the source, then it is _shared_ source ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative ). If you can _use_ and _change_ it, then it's a _open_ source. Are you going to tell me next that "free speech" means not paying for the radio? And that everything else is just one interpretation of the term? Or that freeware and free software are interchangeable terms? CC is…

I think the point is that it's not OSI open source , rather than not "open source".

> rather than not "open source"

Aka pretend it is. If you have to say that you are not actually but only "", then this is not an alternative definition but alternative facts (i.e. you are lying to deceive people).

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#203

Post by jagged-chisel »

joking wrote: post #87
deng wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I prefer the GPL This is a pretty common misunderstanding. Google is using oxfuse internally and does not distribute it, so the GPL would not change anything here.

are you sure? it's not using oxfuse on the google drive clients that the users download and install on their own machines?

Distributing it inside the client does indeed qualify as 'distribution' under the GPL and would require the client to then be licensed under the GPL.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#205

Post by jagged-chisel »

blihp wrote: post #113
tus88 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now that is not a very good thing I am still waiting for someone to explain why open-source software is harmed by people using it, if they don't contribute back.

To many developers, the main reason they contribute to open source software is for the benefit of leveraging each others work. If one is the sole author due to lack of contributions, from that perspective there is no value to the developer in providing it as open source. The problem is compounded if they look around and see companies profiting off of their work and neither contributing fixes/improvements back nor fun…

> To many developers, the main reason they contribute to open source software is for the benefit of leveraging each others work.

Then these developers need to understand copyright and licensing, and choose a license that enforces that motive. If you release under BSD, you're not encouraging companies with a profit motive to contribute back.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#206

Post by mr__y »

Is there any copyright/licence specialist here? I've come up with an idea of having a free open software library that randomly displays offensive[0] messages full screen that comes with a BSD type licence with a clause that forbids removing/disabling that message. I assume that many developers or end-users[1] at home are perfectly fine with a messagebox popping up once a month with a "f## off" message, while any corporation planning to use that library will find it not acceptable to have their software display offensive content. And here comes a dual licensing, where there would be a possibility to buy a different licence that allows to disable that message. What I'm asking here is whether this would be possible to do so and enforce in a court or a legal dispute.

[0] or otherwise inacceptable in corporate environment

[1] I'm assuming that this would also be acceptable for the derivative projects: end-users might find that acceptable while businesses would not.

edit: wording of last sentence, formatting

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#207

Post by progval »

mr__y wrote: post #206

Is there any copyright/licence specialist here? I've come up with an idea of having a free open software library that randomly displays offensive[0] messages full screen that comes with a BSD type licence with a clause that forbids removing/disabling that message. I assume that many developers or end-users[1] at home are perfectly fine with a messagebox popping up once a month with a "f## off" message, while any corp…

> with a clause that forbids removing/disabling that message

This sounds similar to the "invariant sections" clause of the GNU Free Documentation License; except you're talking about software instead of documentation.

> I assume that many developers or end-users[1] at home are perfectly fine with a messagebox popping up once a month with a "f## off" message

Some people are really angry about GNU Parallel's citation "nag", though. eg. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=884793

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#208

Post by _pmf_ »

Good, but in this case, the osxfuse maintainer expects to be paid by Apply because they derived from his work ... what about original FUSE, of which osxfuse is spiritually derived? When is it ethically OK to profit from your derived work?

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#209

Post by krageon »

pjmlp wrote: post #69
hizanberg wrote: post #23

Likely the best outcome for the project barring company sponsorship that pays him to continue working on it as OSS. He's been the sole maintainer on the project since 2012 [1] and has never been compensated for it, he says it will always be free to end users but wants companies that are financially benefiting from it to help sponsor continued development [2]: > I will never ask end users for financial support. FUSE w…

This will keep going on, until FOSS community accepts that beyond university projects, someone pumping up their CVs, having a company sponsorship, or being able to pimp it up with some kind of subscription/consulting, there is little to no money to be made and everyone has bills to pay.

> FOSS community accepts

I know a lot of FOSS contributors but have never met one IRL that seriously believes there is money in it. Outside of people on internet platforms (that by and large aren't to be taken seriously to begin with), have you encountered real zealots like this? I doubt that they exist in truly great numbers.

Re: FUSE for macOS is no longer open source

#210

Post by krageon »

DagAgren wrote: post #182
pjc50 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most people can't afford to actively maintain a FOSS project" has always been true. It has been a hobby for some, a privilege allowed by the workplaces of others, and in a few rare cases companies have been built that charge for consulting and manage to fund a distro or other project that way. Or dual-license tech like Trolltech.

Yes, and I am saying that is not a great thing for FOSS.

Why isn't it a great thing for FOSS? It is what FOSS is, and FOSS is in a pretty great place right now.
Post reply on HN