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Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

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Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#81

Post by sytse »

trashcan wrote: post #30
sqs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sourcegraph CEO here. Unfortunately, GitHub makes this impossible. It's closed source and offers limited ways to integrate—primarily via external, rate-limited external API clients on their proprietary platform. It's too bad the most popular code platform is closed. We believe developers deserve to have a hackable, extensible platform for their code, so it can be more deeply integrated with the best other dev tools.…

Have you considered integrating with Gitlab?

Please let me know if we can help in any way with GitLab integration.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#82

Post by davexunit »

dragonwriter wrote: post #77
davexunit wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it’s often practical matters that attract users and developers to open source software. But the (un)Fair Source License is not an Open Source license.

> A glance at fair.io shows an interesting attempt to provide OSS under a proprietary model. I'm not sure that that is the case: its clearly not Free, but it might be that rare example of a license that meets the OSI Open Source definition but not the FSF Free Software definition. (It clearly violates the spirit of Open Source, and if OSI were to review it, the Open Source definition might be explicitly amended to pr…

I can't speak for the OSI, but this seems in clear violation of the Open Source definition. I'll await their word.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#83

Post by sytse »

sqs wrote: post #53
0x0 wrote: post #26

Is it an unwritten rule that the CEOs of companies focusing on git hosting solutions prefix all their HN posts with " CEO here," :)

Sourcegraph CEO here. :) I saw the GitLab CEO doing it and liked it a lot! (I hope he doesn't mind.) Of course, I just want to make sure people know I am affiliated with Sourcegraph when I comment on it.

Of course I don't mind! Congrats on the work, there are some awesome idea's in your product. I especially like the create issue from line comments https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3659

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

davexunit wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A glance at fair.io shows an interesting attempt to provide OSS under a proprietary model. I'm not sure that that is the case: its clearly not Free, but it might be that rare example of a license that meets the OSI Open Source definition but not the FSF Free Software definition. (It clearly violates the spirit of Open Source, and if OSI were to review it, the Open Source definition might be explicitly amended to pr…

I can't speak for the OSI, but this seems in clear violation of the Open Source definition. I'll await their word.

> I can't speak for the OSI, but this seems in clear violation of the Open Source definition.

The only part of the definition that seems to be close to being violated is criteria 7 on license distribution (since the license is not sublicensable, but allows redistribution), but since the license from the original copyright holder applies to every recipient of the software, including recipients by redistribution, it seems to be met.

EDIT: Actually, I think I may have misread; its not clear that the "Fair Source License" allows redistribution of modified versions (it allows modification and redistribution, but not clearly distribution of modified versions. So that would be fatal.)

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#85

Post by nickpsecurity »

dragonwriter wrote: post #74
nickpsecurity wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is about the source being open plus certain benefits. Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates. A glance at fair.io shows an interesting attempt to provide OSS under a proprietary model. Many businesses are fine with whatever gets the job done with main benefits of OSS being reviewing, extending, or just fixing things…

> Open source is about the source being open plus certain benefits. Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates. This is all wrong. One: Stallman only advocates Free Software, not Open Source, and not "Free and open source". Open Source Software and Free Software are defined very similar in substance (by the OSI and FSF, respectivel…

Another commenter countered me on that and I agreed with the modification here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10623006

Any suggestion for what to call (a) software with source included in general that doesn't meet OSI & FSF definitions or (b) paid software w/ key benefits of OSI?

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#86

Post by dragonwriter »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #85
dragonwriter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open source is about the source being open plus certain benefits. Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates. This is all wrong. One: Stallman only advocates Free Software, not Open Source, and not "Free and open source". Open Source Software and Free Software are defined very similar in substance (by the OSI and FSF, respectivel…

Another commenter countered me on that and I agreed with the modification here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10623006 Any suggestion for what to call (a) software with source included in general that doesn't meet OSI & FSF definitions or (b) paid software w/ key benefits of OSI?

> Any suggestion for what to call (a) software with source included in general that doesn't meet OSI & FSF definitions

"Source disclosed" or "Shared source".

> paid software w/ key benefits of OSI?

Since Open Source (and, for that matter, Free -- which means libre, but not necessarily gratis) software can be paid, if paid software actually has the "key benefits" of Open Source, it is probably because it is Open Source.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#87

Post by davexunit »

coherentpony wrote: post #67
davexunit wrote: post #65

Wow, the "Fair Source License" is just terrible. Please, no one use this license!

Well, the Sourcegraph page links to another page describing the benefits of a Fair Source Licence. In the interest of a balanced discussion, would you care to provide a list of points describing the drawbacks of using such a licence? As it stands, your comment may successfully describe your opinion but it doesn't attempt to contribute to a healthy discourse.

It's a sneaky license, and I think deliberately so. It's meant to look as much like a free license while still being proprietary. When you read the title, the "Fair Source License", it's only natural to think that it's a new FOSS license, and then once you start reading the terms you realize that it's misleading. Sure, the authors say that it isn't a free license, but the comments in this thread show that many people are completely confused about it. Many people don't seem to be familiar with the Open Source definition and think that this license is somehow "open." It's yet another case of open-washing and deliberate corporate confusion around Open Source.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#88

Post by davexunit »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #76
davexunit wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect. "Open Source" is a well-defined term. http://opensource.org/osd

The phrase itself originally came from the free software movement. The practice pre-dated it. Former is philosophical meaning with strings attached, the latter is a literal definition with many forms. I'm using the latter. I'd be up for considering a new term to avoid confusion. Paid, non-profit or for-profit, models allow for most benefits of OSS if structured correctly. So, the new phrase must allow for that. I've…

>Former is philosophical meaning with strings attached, the latter is a literal definition with many forms. I'm using the latter.

You can't just change the meaning of the term and expect everyone to know you mean this alternate definition. "Open Source" is as defined by the OSI, and not whatever loose definition that you use that includes proprietary software.

>I've been calling it "proprietary OSS" or "paid OSS."

"Proprietary OSS" does not make sense given the definition of OSS! The phrase you should be using is "proprietary software."

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #72
davexunit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Free and open source software, a la Richard Stallman, is a totally different thing with a philosophy akin to how a virus operates. Copyleft is not a virus. I'm pretty damn tired of this meme.

It replicates once it attaches to things. This is true even of distributing a large amount of non-free code while someone in organization unknowingly included a tiny amount of copyleft code. Now, FSF etc are usually more reasonable about enforcement and I doubt most would do more than ask it be removed if whole isn't GPL'd. The image fits the behavior of the code, though. Hence the meme. More accurate description is…

> It replicates once it attaches to things.

No, it doesn't.

> This is true even of distributing a large amount of non-free code while someone in organization unknowingly included a tiny amount of copyleft code.

If a single work is distributed that is based on copyleft code (not a mere aggregation that includes copyleft code and other code), then not licensing the resulting work as specified in the copyleft license is a violation of the license of the copyleft code. But the license doesn't attach on its own to the work.

Re: Sourcegraph: self-hosted Git service with semantic code navigation/search/review

#90

Post by ultramancool »

sqs wrote: post #63
ultramancool wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the ope…

Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original auth…

According to fair.io:

> Fair Source License functions just like an open-source license

with the only restriction being that I can't use it with over X employees in my company.

If what you're saying is true then I'd highly suggest you reword that, in reality it functions just like a proprietary license except that I can look at the source and maybe send patches to you.

More similar to that of the proprietary JIRA (which will give you source when you buy it) than the open source Gitlab.

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