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Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

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Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#51

Post by fergie »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #20

I don't understand this sentiment. The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return. If you don't want others to have that right, then choose a different license. But don't grant the right and then complain when people exercise it.

Right. I think it’s a bit rich of companies such as Elastic to extend existing open source projects, surf on the goodwill of open source, and then turn around and complain when other companies use elasticsearch as open source.

The real issue with OS today is that it is too difficult to reward authors and contributors with actual cash money. Until this is fixed, “open source” is doomed to be a bunfight between well funded companies and self appointed governing bodies.

Let’s find a way to pay hackers!

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#52

Post by badsectoracula »

adamson wrote: post #34
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #20

I don't understand this sentiment. The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return. If you don't want others to have that right, then choose a different license. But don't grant the right and then complain when people exercise it.

I don't think it's that hard to understand. To some degree, Amazon's behavior is exploiting an idealism that has given us software such as Linux that we're all benefitting from today, and it's easy to see why a starry-eyed engineer would want to carry on that legacy and create a project such as Redis with a permissive license. What you say ("The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to…

> What you say [...] is obvious in hindsight

It was also widely known for many years before Redis was a thing, i remember Slashdot comments from early 2000s about how BSD proponents are taken advantage of and they seem to like that whereas GPL proponents are taken advantage of as much as they take advantage those who take advantage of them (weird phrasing because the original quote i remember was a bit more explicit).

So it isn't really something you only knew in hindsight, it is also something that comes by ignoring people who were warning you about the consequences of your choice (royal you here).

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#53

Post by danShumway »

mavelikara wrote: post #46
adamson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that hard to understand. To some degree, Amazon's behavior is exploiting an idealism that has given us software such as Linux that we're all benefitting from today, and it's easy to see why a starry-eyed engineer would want to carry on that legacy and create a project such as Redis with a permissive license. What you say ("The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to…

Amazon is, in effect, bringing attention to this issue and I am glad that they are. > What you say ("The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return.") is obvious in hindsight, and should go without saying if you start a project with the express intent of commercializing it. Even if you do thoughtfully choose a licens…

> some competing project elsewhere - student projects, in your example - will eat your market.

If a student somewhere is willing to do the same thing as your company for free and release their work under MIT, why is that a problem?

This smacks to me of Microsoft complaining that projects like Linux shouldn't be allowed to exist, because its unreasonable to expect them to compete with free.

If eventually we get into a state where Open Source development really isn't viable, then people will stop doing it, fewer people will be eating your market, and then Source Available projects will become commercially viable.

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#54

Post by xeeeeeeeeeeenu »

jchw wrote: post #36
webmaven wrote: post #3

> "It hijacks open-source APIs and places them on top of its own proprietary solutions, thereby siphoning off customers from the open-source project to its own proprietary solution, as it did with the MongoDB APIs." Basically, there is no such thing as an "Open Source API". APIs are not software, and we've already seen the damage that treating APIs as software (for copyright purposes) can do. The proper abstraction f…

It's certainly an interesting point of view. Take something that's commercial, for example, like Microsoft's docx format. If Open Office/Libre Office implements support for docx, is it hijacking proprietary formats, and siphoning customers off of proprietary projects? (edit: as it has been pointed out, .docx is a bad example, because it was standardized, but the point stands, I believe.) I hate that this stuff hits H…

.docx (Office Open XML) isn't propertiary, it's an open standard.

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#55

Post by infinity0 »

momokoko wrote: post #50
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #20

I don't understand this sentiment. The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return. If you don't want others to have that right, then choose a different license. But don't grant the right and then complain when people exercise it.

I think you might want to look into, if you have not already, a topic referred to as "gift culture"[1] The hard reality, that someone like myself believes, is that open source works because most actors try to be considerate of others. It falls apart when everyone acts selfishly. I personally believe the world is better off because we have open source software(as generally defined by the OSI and other groups). So my c…

The SSPL "debate" was indeed a shit-show hijacked by people either abusing permissive-license ideologies with a corporate interest in mind, or so blinded by that ideology that they are unable to grasp the idea that freedom is an inherently contradictory concept, and that to maximise overall freedom across space and time it is necessary to restrict freedoms that result in a restriction of more freedoms.

Good on these guys, I hope they build a licensing model or some other thing that can stand up to Amazon. I still consider SSPL to be "free software" very much within the ideals that movement, regardless of what the OSI says.

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#56

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #9
webmaven wrote: post #3

> "It hijacks open-source APIs and places them on top of its own proprietary solutions, thereby siphoning off customers from the open-source project to its own proprietary solution, as it did with the MongoDB APIs." Basically, there is no such thing as an "Open Source API". APIs are not software, and we've already seen the damage that treating APIs as software (for copyright purposes) can do. The proper abstraction f…

This. If the only thing keeping customers on my platform is an incompatible API, what does that say about me as a vendor?

That you are not Microsoft? How is this any different from vendor lock in?

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#57

Post by skybrian »

sheetjs wrote: post #29
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #20

I don't understand this sentiment. The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return. If you don't want others to have that right, then choose a different license. But don't grant the right and then complain when people exercise it.

The article title is actually "Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses", OP was editorializing. In fact, your sentiment is explicitly stated in the article: > Amazon’s behavior toward open source is self-interested and rational. Amazon is playing by the rules of what software licenses allow.

The article talks about people switching to source-available licenses as if it were a bad thing. I'm unconvinced. If you have commercial ambitions and are uncomfortable with Amazon using your software, maybe open source is the wrong choice for you?

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#58

Post by jchw »

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #54
jchw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly an interesting point of view. Take something that's commercial, for example, like Microsoft's docx format. If Open Office/Libre Office implements support for docx, is it hijacking proprietary formats, and siphoning customers off of proprietary projects? (edit: as it has been pointed out, .docx is a bad example, because it was standardized, but the point stands, I believe.) I hate that this stuff hits H…

.docx (Office Open XML) isn't propertiary, it's an open standard.

True, that was a bad example, but honestly it's irrelevant. Same point could be made about .doc when it was reversed back when. I thought there was even a court case about someone reverse engineering .doc a while back, but I can't find it right now.

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#59

Post by pacala »

nostrebored wrote: post #14
benologist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that data belongs to the merchants, just like an S3-buckets logs belong to the developer. It has to be that way or who else has a claim on the data? HP for printing it? Microsoft because it was sent by email in Office? The EU suspects it is anti-competitive to allow Amazon as a vendor to cherrypick items to clone based on data Amazon collect as a platform. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/am…

So Amazon shouldn't be allowed to create any products, or must ignore the data it needs to plan logistics?

Amazon should ignore other people data. Amazon has plenty of its data from its own products, no need to create false dichotomies.

Re: Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

#60

Post by paulryanrogers »

mavelikara wrote: post #46
adamson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that hard to understand. To some degree, Amazon's behavior is exploiting an idealism that has given us software such as Linux that we're all benefitting from today, and it's easy to see why a starry-eyed engineer would want to carry on that legacy and create a project such as Redis with a permissive license. What you say ("The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to…

Amazon is, in effect, bringing attention to this issue and I am glad that they are. > What you say ("The whole point of choosing a permissive license is that you want others to have the right to profit off of your work and give you nothing in return.") is obvious in hindsight, and should go without saying if you start a project with the express intent of commercializing it. Even if you do thoughtfully choose a licens…

Are you saying that choosing a permissive license is like "pissing-in-the-pool"? As if do so contaminates the market for everyone?
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