I like how the Hashicorp staff is addressing concerns here /s
HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
651–660 of 760 posts
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it curious that Microsoft doesnt get more shit for demanding a CLA, especially given that embrace, extend, extinguish is in their DNA.
Even GNU projects ask people to sign a CLA.
Assigning copyright to something like the FSF or the Free Qt Foundation is not at all like assigning copyright to Hashicorp or Microsoft or Oracle.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#653Earlier quoted context omitted.
SUSE, Canonical, Prisma (though their dashboard is closed source), Gitlab, pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space. And Hashicorp + Red Hat managed to make it work as open source companies for >10 years also There are many more "open core" companies, like TimescaleDB, Docker, etc, who then sell proprietary services on top of the open source software
> SUSE, Canonical, Prisma (though their dashboard is closed source), Gitlab, pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space. SUSE is a niche player that was bought out in various forms a number of times. Canonical is largely a billionaire's toy and hasn't published financial numbers in half a decade. They were losing money last time I looked at them. Don't know Prisma. Gitlab is losing money. For the c…
> Gitlab is losing money.
GitLab (Enterprise) is also proprietary software.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is purely a way for HashiCorp to ensure they are the only ones who can commercialize these formerly open source projects. Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. Pragmatically I would rather bsl than closed source and I am more likely to use a product that is bsl, with reasonable transfer time and license, than a 100% closed source product.
I'd rather have proprietary than "almost open source". Both aren't useful, but only one attempts to damage the common understanding of what "Open Source" means.
Source available is proprietary. Decades ago, it was not unusual for proprietary Unix software to be distributed in source form, and installed by first compiling it on the target system. Merely distributing source is not and has never been the key difference between open-source and proprietary software.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Anyone who wants to run their own instance is welcome to and people do and thus find it useful. The idea that the world would be better off if we made it closed source and prevented that... is just nonsense. How does making something closed source automatically mean someone can't run their own instance of it, even for free? Closed source does not mean 'You can only download this if you pay us', just as open source…
Closed source doesn't preclude developers distributing it for free, BSL isn't claiming to be Open Source.. but it's silly to insist that that software that is *publically available* to anyone to download and run.. describe itself as "closed source".
Enclosed-within-glass software
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't their customers get value from having source code available, even if there are restrictions on how that source code can be used? For the most part, no, the main direct customer benefit comes from the absence of lock-in with regard to maintenance and services thar results from the absence of usage restrictions. There's some potential indirect ecosystem benefit for customers from the somewhat lower friction for…
Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes. I worked for a company a lot of years ago that had BSDi licenses for some of it servers and had paid an extra fee for source access and that -did- actually come in handy to me once or twice. Later, the same went for the Radiator RADIUS server where you got source access auto…
> Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes.
Yep. I've definitely noticed this at work with some proprietary ('open-core') software that we use, and it's made me inclined to prefer source-available proprietary products over more restrictive proprietary ones as well. It's not as favorable as actual F/OSS, but it definitely makes a bit difference nonetheless.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#657All that I get from this is that HashiCorp is no longer an open source company. > However, there are other vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and the community work on OSS projects, for their own commercial goals, without providing material contributions back. We don’t believe this is in the spirit of open source. This is 100% in the spirit of open source. If this is a problem for them, why not adopt an o…
> without providing material contributions back They need more open PRs? It's not like these contributions would necessarily be welcome.
Code contributions are material when Hashicorp makes them, see, but the only contribution from others that matters is cash.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
Closed source doesn't preclude developers distributing it for free, BSL isn't claiming to be Open Source.. but it's silly to insist that that software that is *publically available* to anyone to download and run.. describe itself as "closed source".
Enclosed-within-glass software
But it's not just visible... you can submit a PR if you like, and people do.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they want it to be developed collaboratively, in the public eye, and for the good of all contributors. In other words, free as in freedom, but not free as in beer.
> In other words, free as in freedom, but not free as in beer. That's the Free Software slogan, not open source. The only relationship between the two is that open source can easily be relicensed into Free Software (or proprietary, or whatever.) There's nothing in open source about friendliness or collaborative development. I'm not forced to take your advice or contributions just because I'm open source, so how could…
> That's the Free Software slogan, not open source. The only relationship between the two is that open source can easily be relicensed into Free Software (or proprietary, or whatever.)
While you are correct that the Free Software Movement has slogans like "free as in freedom" and has a definition based on "the four freedoms," the Open Source Movement also recognizes and advocates for "Software Freedom" as well.
"We build a world where the freedoms and opportunities of Open Source software can be enjoyed by all." [1]
Software that is licensed under Apache 2.0, MIT, BSD, or any of the other so-called "permissive" licenses is labeled "Free Software" by the Free Software Movement as-is. It does not require a "relicense" to become Free Software.
Said another way: you don't have to use a copyleft license like the GPL to qualify for the "Free Software" label.
It is just a different name for the same thing, because there was a group that developed a vocabulary before another group existed.
Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License
#660Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because a lot of them were culturally anti-copyleft, but had never read the licenses or the reasons behind them. Copyleft is politically scary to some people, so they refuse to acknowledge it other than to call people zealots. Explicit licenses protect you. Open source spirits don't. Everyone should be honest: the only reason a lot of people prefer open source is because they want to preserve a rug-pull option.…
Disclosure: I work for Amazon, but I've been a copyleft advocate for a quarter century. Indeed, copyleft can be politically scary. Especially when for-profit companies co-opt copyleft to drive licensing revenue by selling alternative license arrangements [1]. If all those who adopt copyleft licenses pledged to commitment to community-oriented GPL enforcement principles [2] I think that it would be a lot less scary. U…
I've been into free software since I was a kid, so all of this is very familiar to me. You've done a great job of breaking it down! Thanks for this and similar comments on this post. I hope they clear things up for some people. I feel that GPL (and AGPL, even more so) often does not get a fair shot, and that's a shame.