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A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

element.io

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Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#271

Post by krageon »

camgunz wrote: post #189
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #96

So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…

Much of your comment is speculation and unfounded accusations. > This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. It makes it clear they intend to ship under the AGPLv3. What's wrong with that? They can change the license at a later date? Just fork! > I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. This is bananas; the AGPLv3 is extremely open source. And again, nothing pr…

> They owe you precisely nothing.

This is true. And nobody owes them anything either, something the GP was trying to make clear to the reader (with a reminder that if they do this thing how that will be used). I think this is a reasonable stance to take when any party pulls out the lawyers. Such a move must be mistrusted, lawyers are a mistrustful tool.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#272

Post by Legogris »

gtirloni wrote: post #175
lrvick wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. If this was BSL I agree with you, but that is not the case. AGPL is about as open source as it gets. It is forced open source. I recommend AGPL to any of my clients open sourcing anything in a competitive environment these days. Free for the public, but greedy corpos that do not want to share changes and be part of the community are forced to pay to support the…

The AGPL is not the issue. The CLA is. It allows the project to change licenses at will, without going back to all contributors and asking for approval.

They would still have to go back to past contributors prior to introducing CLA.

Source: My PR was merged in 2021, the changes are still part of Synapse, and I never signed any CLA. I don't think they'd be able to get enough sign-offs from historical contributors to pull off any actual shenanigans with the Synapse license.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#273

Post by cxr »

saagarjha wrote: post #239
cxr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My claim is that my characterization of how Stallman thinks about this is an accurate characterization of how he thinks about this. > It is "immoral" to release your code under a permissive license That doesn't jibe with the FSF philosophy at all. I get the feeling that I'm interacting with someone who "knows" more about the FSF and Stallman based on what they've heard or imagined rather than actually reading what ei…

I called Stallman's point a cop out, so I quite frankly do not care very much about his position here, because I think it explicitly goes against what he espouses elsewhere.

I think the real cop-out is wading into a discussion with a comment purporting to explain/address a public figure's "point", and then when it is explained that you haven't portrayed it accurately, declaring you don't actually care about what their position is.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#274

Post by lrvick »

proto_lambda wrote: post #163
lrvick wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now they are -more- open. Did you misread their post? AGPL is just forced open source.

Forced open source for everyone but them . They retain copyright and will continue to sell proprietary adaptions, while forbidding everyone else to do the same.

I will only pay for chat servers with all public code. If they go proprietary they lose my money and support.

I would find/fork a LibreMatrix and direct myself and all my clients to use that instead.

Openness and accountability is why I use matrix, and expect many others feel the same.

It is in the best interest of Element to stay open. After all, end to end encryption is impossible to trust if a central party controls both ends.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#275

Post by cvwright »

trickstra wrote: post #253
cvwright wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I’m happy to ask them to kindly maintain my new feature along with all of their other code, so I can continue to use an up-to-date version with very little effort.

How happy would you be when they later move your contribution to a paid tier only?

Almost as unhappy as if the upstream project failed and went away completely.

And in reality it depends a lot on my level of contribution. If I have dozens of lines of code in a big project, then who cares, all I really wanted was for my pet bugs to get fixed.

If I contributed major features or thousands of lines of code there, then I would be very mad. But I would also be very capable of maintaining an open source fork of the project.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#276

Post by hoseja »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #247
taway1237 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, CLAs are not a real open source, which is why they're required by uhh FSF. I mean I dislike CLAs personally, but I understand why they can be healthy for a project growth.

If the Free Software Foundation which was started and is headed by Stallman himself betrays the free software movement, then nothing in this world can be trusted anymore.

Stallman has been browbeaten. For, uhh, being an awkward nerd. Can't have those having influence in our technological world.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#277

Post by NoGravitas »

mrob wrote: post #116
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #96

So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…

Are permissive licenses also "screwing over the community"? Those also allow third parties to use the code in proprietary software. What difference does it make to the community if Element gets paid for this?

Honestly? Yes. Permissive licenses are one of several reasons that the net effect of Open Source software has been a net negative in terms of software freedom.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#278

Post by Gigachad »

trickstra wrote: post #254
Gigachad wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically they probably do like 95% of the real work themselves so it makes sense.

Realistically, if they started as proprietary in the first place, they wouldn't ever grow to this size (just another closed chat app competing with Discord and Messenger), so they still benefited from being open-source. Now they are reaping the benefit and monopolizing it.

It’s still open source now. You can pull the repo and do whatever with it.

They just won’t merge your changes without a CLA. You are free to fork and contribute there if you want.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#279

Post by xinayder »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #96

So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…

> What they are doing is a required step to pull the same stunt as terraform.

Except that Terraform never had a strict open source license like the AGPL, they had MPL which doesn't require you to distribute your changes with the same license as the project.

I don't see this as hostile and I believe it's more targeted towards Beeper (created by the Mautrix bridge devs), who maintain a closed fork of Synapse and will eventually sell their services for other users. This way makes sure that the Beeper devs either contribute back to their upstream projects, or pay a fee to not have to contribute back.

Re: A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

#280

Post by oddevan »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #200

I'm a big fan of AGPL + CLAs. It's a perfect balance where Free Software community gets what it wants (actively maintained, quality, free software that humanity at large can benefit from), while propriety community gets what it wants too (pay and get paid). People who complain about it are naive and entitled thinking that someone can build and maintain something non-trivial for them indefinitely by just pure altruist…

Thanks for this perspective; I'm arriving at the same point (AGPL + CLA) for a project I'm hoping to launch soon.
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