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Gumroad’s source is available

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Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#61

Post by DetroitThrow »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #49
moe_sc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, HN is a technical audience, not an average person in this regard. People here know the difference or are easily able to understand it if they haven't been confronted with it.

>People here know the difference or are easily able to understand it if they haven't been confronted with it. No. They're trying to force a definition of open-source that does not exist to make it FOSS because FOSS people want everything to be FOSS so try to pressure people into it. The definition is defined by dictionaries and it's different from what is said on here. Quite simply, they're wrong. They want it to mea…

>It is open-source!

No, it's not. Please read number 5, it might enlighten you to what people colloquially consider open source, which didn't have a dictionary definition until technical people started using this definition: https://opensource.org/osd

>And the fact, people on here don't know that shows people on here don't know the difference.

..What? Do you know what OSS vs FOSS is?

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#62

Post by krzrak »

b3lvedere wrote: post #50
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license is actually pretty restrictive: you can only use this if you own a small company or work for government / non-profit. Most average human's (including myself) can't use the source code in any way: > You may use the software under this license only if (1) your company has less than 1 million USD (2024) total revenue in the prior tax year, and less than 10 million USD (2024) GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), or…

Must be awesome to use this software in a country that does not use the US Dollar as its currency :)

let me tell you about currency exchange rates...

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#63

Post by lolinder »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #40
clcaev wrote: post #24

Could we please change the title to say : "Gumroad is source available"? This license is clearly fails OSD and is not open source by the industry standard; perpetuating a false statement is unhelpful. https://opensource.org/osd

[flagged]

> open source as the average person would understand it ... and it's quite clear to nearly everyone except pedantic people that you can now go and fetch the Gumroad code and modify, run, etc.

The average person would also assume that "open source" means "I can legally use this for my business", especially given that Gumroad is a tool that only makes sense if you're running some kind of business.

Unfortunately, this is true here only with a very large asterisk that says "as long as you never make more than $1 million in revenue". Anyone who attempts to treat this software as Open Source in the way they would treat, say, Postgres, will find that the instant they cross the $1 million threshold they have to rebuild their entire e-commerce setup or be in violation of copyright.

For some people maybe $1 million in revenue (not profits, revenue) is legitimately not possible and not worth worrying about. But for others it is, and that's why definitions matter.

(There's also the fact that, intentionally or unintentionally, the license assumes that you either have a business with some amount of revenue or are a government entity or nonprofit. Which means technically a strict reading of the license would suggest running the software without a business is not authorized.)

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#65

Post by troymc »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #49
moe_sc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, HN is a technical audience, not an average person in this regard. People here know the difference or are easily able to understand it if they haven't been confronted with it.

>People here know the difference or are easily able to understand it if they haven't been confronted with it. No. They're trying to force a definition of open-source that does not exist to make it FOSS because FOSS people want everything to be FOSS so try to pressure people into it. The definition is defined by dictionaries and it's different from what is said on here. Quite simply, they're wrong. They want it to mea…

People who develop software have to understand what "open source" means (technically, not just some sloppy interpretation), because using a non-open-source package in an otherwise open source project can contaminate the whole thing. License violations can pose high risks, both financial and reputation losses.

Because of that, a lot of effort goes into helping make sure that software stacks are using consistent licenses. There's a whole industry of standards, audit processes, software and companies to help with this; for example, see:

https://licensehawk.com/software-license-compliance-audits/

https://spdx.org/licenses/

https://www.flexera.com/products/flexnet-manager

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#66

Post by Tomte »

desdenova wrote: post #53
Tomte wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Has anyone ever found a case of a license that not one or the other? The Free Software Definition and the Open Source Definition are structured differently, but pretty obviously map from one to another.

There's plenty of OSD licenses that don't fit the FSD, but a free software license is necessarily open source, so the opposite can't happen.

I’d really be interested in an example of such a license. Where is the difference in the two definitions?

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#67

Post by lolinder »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #57
desdenova wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of OSD licenses that don't fit the FSD, but a free software license is necessarily open source, so the opposite can't happen.

No there cannot be an OSD license that violates the FSD

GNU has a helpful chart where they clearly show that there is a sliver of "nonfree open source" licenses that are available [0].

> The term “open source” software is used by some people to mean more or less the same category as free software. It is not exactly the same class of software: they accept some licenses that we consider too restrictive, and there are free software licenses they have not accepted. However, the differences in extension of the category are small: we know of only a few cases of source code that is open source but not free.

I was able to find one example, the NASA Open Source Agreement, which is accepted by the OSI [1] but rejected by the FSF [2]:

> The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3, is not a free software license because it includes a provision requiring changes to be your “original creation”. Free software development depends on combining code from third parties, and the NASA license doesn't permit this.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html

[1] https://opensource.org/license/nasa1-3-php

[2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NASA

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#68

Post by Tomte »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #40
clcaev wrote: post #24

Could we please change the title to say : "Gumroad is source available"? This license is clearly fails OSD and is not open source by the industry standard; perpetuating a false statement is unhelpful. https://opensource.org/osd

[flagged]

> Dictionaries outrank everything else when it comes what something means.

Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.

As is the whole field of linguistics, as you will learn in the very first lecture in such a program. If the grammar rules you learned in school disagree with (any!) native speaker, the rules are wrong.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#69

Post by lolinder »

Tomte wrote: post #66
desdenova wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of OSD licenses that don't fit the FSD, but a free software license is necessarily open source, so the opposite can't happen.

I’d really be interested in an example of such a license. Where is the difference in the two definitions?

Not OP, but I linked to some details here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43581484

The NASA Open Source Agreement is the one I found.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#70

Post by Tomte »

lolinder wrote: post #69
Tomte wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d really be interested in an example of such a license. Where is the difference in the two definitions?

Not OP, but I linked to some details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43581484 The NASA Open Source Agreement is the one I found.

Thank you!
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