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Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

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Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#81

Post by collaborative »

qwertox wrote: post #29

Just quoting this snippet from the landing page: "No license costs, no restrictive licenses. Being open source, PLC4X is free of charge. Start experimenting without worrying about license costs or shady license agreements. The Apache 2.0 is one of the worlds most trusted and adopted open source licenses out there." Big companies need to grow up and start contributing with serious amounts. I wonder how this could get…

Some solutions:

1. "Regulate". Create an official body that charges a flat fee for any use of any OSS and then pays a % to developers based on some obscure metric. This would likely lead to corruption within the newly created body

2. "Ads". Display ads on every platform that distributes software. Then, pay part of the revenue to each software based on # of downloads/etc (this is similar to how Youtube pays content creators). This would require cooperation from distributors (Github, NPM, etc). In my opinion, it would be good for both devs and platforms, as devs would prefer platforms that pay fairly over platforms that make them give stuff up for free. But it will never happen because it would hurt capital and the platforms are controlled by capital

3. "Become unionized". Collectively remove content from traditional platforms and move it to a cooperative platform that charges $ and fairly distributes it

I think #3 is the most realistic one. There is a "museum of the working class" (forget the name now) in Manchester where they have the banners of the first industrial revolution secret guilds and societies. The new tradesmen were being abused by capital so they organised under secret oaths such as "never help a tradesman that doesn't belong to the society" or "never undercut a fellow's price". Capital will always try to make workers work for less, the only way to stop this is to get organised

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#84

Post by [deleted] »

mason55 wrote: post #72
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of industrial control, database tech, and other high cost fields it would be dubious to pitch an open source product and then abandon it. Why? Open source projects are released with "NO WARRANTY", which includes the possibility of dropping maintenance at any time. If you want continued support you either fork the project and DIY, or pay someone to support you.

And that is not something the companies using the software are interested in. This isn’t like a software company taking over some abandonware tool that they rely on. Building and maintaining software is not in the wheelhouse of these companies. They’d rather spend more or have fewer features in exchange for lowering risk.

[deleted]

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#85

Post by akerl_ »

rbanffy wrote: post #78
akerl_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s clear that your preference is that people do that. What’s not clear is why the MIT license and closed source software are unethical. Not everything we dislike is a violation of ethics.

> What’s not clear is why the MIT license and closed source software are unethical. Is it ethical to allow unethical behavior?

I feel like we’re in a loop. Are you saying that making software under MIT or closed source licenses allows unethical behavior in a way that makes creation of that software unethical? If so, can you back that up instead of asking rhetorical questions?

I write software personally, which I license under the MIT license. I write software professionally, which is closed source. I don’t believe either of those things is inherently unethical. There are obviously examples of any kind of software that are unethical, and there are ways that closed source licenses enable unethical behavior, but I’m not following the expansion of that to the license choice itself.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#86

Post by hda2 »

pabs3 wrote: post #54
phoronixrly wrote: post #21

Developments like this one and the faker.js and colors.js fiasco from last week have made me rethink my position about licensing. Now it seems to me that releasing code you wrote for free under a permissive open-source license is somewhere between ill-advised and unethical. On one hand it will not benefit you in any way, on the other, it will be incorporated in a company's proprietary project thus lowering the expens…

It takes a lot of effort and money to enforce copyleft open source licenses, a lot of companies just violate them regardless. Some companies even violate permissive licenses, for eg my router violates the microhttpd BSD license. The latest GPL lawsuit I saw was only possible due to a large grant from amateur radio hobbyists. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/press/qand…

Damages.

Offer two licenses. One GPL and the other commercial. Make the commercial license as costly as possible, even Oracle grade by charging per core. Include language stating that the licensing agreement falls back to the commercial license if the GPL is violated and the violation is not remedied according to the provisions set in the GPL.

Any licensing fees collected get poured back into the open source project.

If another company is stupid enough to ignore these terms, I'm sure you can find someone willing to sue on your behalf for a fraction of the damages owed to you.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#87

Post by fefe23 »

If you don't want people to rip you off without giving back, then use GPL and not Apache license.

People in favor of the Apache license are people who like to "pay you in exposure".

Turns out you can't eat exposure.

Well you wrote that code, you want people to use it, right? Then attach no strings!

Turns out I also need to pay rent and and buy food.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#88

Post by sitkack »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #39
prmoustache wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where it is not ethical. At any point you can decide to pursue or stop maintaining the code and anyone can decide to fork and take over. It is just naive to think you will always find fun in working on it or pretend you might make a living out of it unless you have a strong business plan.

> I don't see where it is not ethical. And that's the problem. Many people like the idea of 'helping' other people for free, even if these users never 'give something back' (because they can't program, don't have the time to translate something, ...). But helping other people (companies) make money for free that already have not only enough but way more than you, and you even do the less rewarding work like fixing bu…

To explain it a different way, I think, is that releasing code under a permissive license where the end user is a large corp, doesn't make the world a better place, it just reduces the labor needed to achieve an end.

OSS saves on headcount.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#89

Post by KSteffensen »

lumost wrote: post #42
prmoustache wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where it is not ethical. At any point you can decide to pursue or stop maintaining the code and anyone can decide to fork and take over. It is just naive to think you will always find fun in working on it or pretend you might make a living out of it unless you have a strong business plan.

In the case of industrial control, database tech, and other high cost fields it would be dubious to pitch an open source product and then abandon it. Getting a high adoption OSS project takes more than putting a repo on GitHub. In some cases like this one, it’s possible that the underlying cost of these activities is much closer to the licensed proprietary software than the OSS variant (aka free)

The guy has been working on this almost 25 years. That's not pitching and abandoning.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#90

Post by MattGaiser »

> In Germany a company needs to be profitable. If you run your business at a deficit for too long, you get your business closed, and then you usually even have to pay back a lot of taxes.

What is this about? The government forcibly closes companies that lose money?

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