Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd The original stance of the open source crowd was more along the lines of the GPL -> GPLv3 -> AGPL, which expressly prevents this kind of thing. The proliferation of "give everything away for free" MIT/BSD/Apache licenses seems to me to have been an intentional campaign by corporate interests to undermine free software ideals
> The original stance of the open source crowd was more along the lines of the GPL -> GPLv3 -> AGPL, which expressly prevents this kind of thing. Not wanting to further widen the schism but wasn't that the free software people rather than the open source people? cf [0], particularly the "not as strict" part. > In the late 1990's Eric Raymond and others developed the term "open source" as a more business friendly term…
Bear is now source-available
211–220 of 509 posts
Re: Bear is now source-available
#212As far as I understand it, the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd is that if Amazon can't make it one of their AWS offerings then it isn't true open source, and they'll get very upset at you if you claim it is. I'd like to see some recognition from this crowd of the "free-ride competition" problem as this author puts it. What Herman is doing is a service to us all, and we should find a term (better than 'source-availa…
> the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd The original stance of the open source crowd was more along the lines of the GPL -> GPLv3 -> AGPL, which expressly prevents this kind of thing. The proliferation of "give everything away for free" MIT/BSD/Apache licenses seems to me to have been an intentional campaign by corporate interests to undermine free software ideals
s/open source/free software/
None of those licenses prevent Amazon-style freeloading though.
Re: Bear is now source-available
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It feels mostly in the spirit of FOSS to me From the license at https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/998e87263248... >: " You may not provide the Software as a hosted or managed service that offers users access to substantial features or functionality " Given that the exclusive purpose of the Software in question is to implement a managed service for its users' hosting needs, I'm having trouble understan…
It’s saying that you can use Bear for your own blog, but you can’t launch a service that hosts other people’s blogs using it.
Re: Bear is now source-available
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people have no problem with non-open source software. The gnashing of teeth comes in when projects like Terraform become successful specifically because they're open source , and then the maintainer changes to a closed source license that would have prevented the project from being successful in the first place. Doubly so when they relicense outside contributors' work with a closed source license because those c…
Sounds like we need a "forever open source" license. A commitment that any significant derivative retain the original (or some later version) of the original license. "Free to do whatever as long as it retains this license. A commitment that this license will not change, even by the original author". No special cases, just a blanket license for all derivatives. If it exists, what are the barriers to adoption? Why don…
(What I'm given to understand does work is using a copyleft license and taking code from multiple parties without a CLA, because then relicensing requires all the copyright owners to agree, which for a large enough project is impractical.)
Re: Bear is now source-available
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The original stance of the open source crowd was more along the lines of the GPL -> GPLv3 -> AGPL, which expressly prevents this kind of thing. Not wanting to further widen the schism but wasn't that the free software people rather than the open source people? cf [0], particularly the "not as strict" part. > In the late 1990's Eric Raymond and others developed the term "open source" as a more business friendly term…
No, open source was definitely more leaning toward the GPLv2 than the BSD-style licenses.
Re: Bear is now source-available
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent a little time looking into it, and it turns out that Microsoft owns an outfit named GitHub, which apparently offers free hosting for open source projects and is used by a lot of open source software makers. And Microsoft has around 4k employees with contributions to OS projects on GitHub. So maybe "biggest" is a lie in light of their anti-OS efforts, but it is at least arguable. Can you propose a bigger one?
Microsoft is the biggest supporter of Microsoft gaining market share.
I'm not claiming Microsoft is a good actor (and they certainly produce a whole lot of derpy trash along the way), but the argument itself is not particular sound.
Re: Bear is now source-available
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's one of four licenses linked on the front page of the FSF.
And it's the most abused license in the history of open source [0] [1]. [0]: https://keygen.sh/blog/weaponized-open-source/ [1]: https://keygen.sh/blog/whither-open-source/
People are welcome to use and host AGPLed software under its own FOSS terms. If people don't want to do that, and want to pay for alternative terms, that is also a sign that the license is effective. There's no point in restricting things people don't want to do. The GPL restricts something people want to do: make proprietary software. The AGPL restricts something people want to do: host software without distributing the source at all.
Re: Bear is now source-available
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the license would, like practically all open source licenses, be irrevocable. You aren't guaranteed new versions will be issued under the same license (short of a contract saying otherwise, just like every other piece of open source software) but the existing license that did not list you as a jerk can't be revoked...
True, but that's still a risk that adds to the risk of the authors switching the license. BTW, if the jerk list is tied to the license, if the project had external contributors, they all need to agree to add or remove someone from the list, like any license change…
Re: Bear is now source-available
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like we need a "forever open source" license. A commitment that any significant derivative retain the original (or some later version) of the original license. "Free to do whatever as long as it retains this license. A commitment that this license will not change, even by the original author". No special cases, just a blanket license for all derivatives. If it exists, what are the barriers to adoption? Why don…
I'm really not a lawyer, but I'm skeptical that such a thing is even possible; is it legally possible to say that you as the copyright owner will never relicense something? (What I'm given to understand does work is using a copyleft license and taking code from multiple parties without a CLA, because then relicensing requires all the copyright owners to agree, which for a large enough project is impractical.)
Re: Bear is now source-available
#220IANAL, but does the above limitation prevent users from hosting bear for their own (or your company’s own) needs?
If so, doesn’t that defeat the whole reason why it’s MIT licensed.
https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/master/LICEN...