Theme for 2024: more companies start inventing new "open source" licenses that aren't, and try to solve the freeloader problem by making "open source" mean "source available".
In the mythology of open source, programming languages are created by people who seemingly have no direct economic function. They are just really good at com...
Hello 👋 , I hope you don't mind me opening up an issue here, let me know if there's somewhere more appropriate for this discussion. I just wanted to start a conversation in how, as part of these ef...
myelf I'm the author of a FOSS lib and so far using the model where the lib is just a public demo of my skills, and hopefully a source of inbound leads to further paying work, esp on systems involving that tech mix and problem domain. so it hasnt felt like a burden on me so far. but keeping an eye on its "account balance" for sure
then do a big spiel and a blog post titled "our commitment to open source" while the marketing department spends all day thinking about how to screw over your paying customers
in the end everyone calls their software open source and the only closed source software vendors are those who lost their source code and survive by selling the last .exe
The freeloader problem is the companies, as they never give as much as they take in the first place. Imho.
I’m very fine with commercial use of open source, if it’s done honestly.
And I sadly think you are right🙁 It’s the new public API. Most will make it effectively useless to stop people from using it. And a few will do something dramatic that gets headlines.
the curious part about it all is how many people adopt/use projects without actually sitting and reading through the whole thing. The worst sin one does in front of a license is "to assume with a sense of entitlement" rather than "know and understand" what rights come with said license. (or why I don't use VS code).
@kasperd the problem where you take VC money and promise 100x returns based on your open source software... then realize the software (bits and bytes) is not a moat for your profit so you decide open source isn't actually what you wanted, so you screw with your community of users 😀
turns out, open source is not a business model, it even evolves more competitors offering „your“ product.
After thinking about it for a while, I changed my mind a bit.
A license to protect the business and releases the code as open source after a defined period may also be in the interest of those just using and contributing to the software without commercial interests
It really depends on the project, it‘s all about „cathedrals“ and „bazaars“.
Benedikt
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Jeff Geerling
in reply to Benedikt • • •Stephen De Gabrielle
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •"The Economics of Programming Languages" by Evan Czaplicki (Strange Loop 2023)
YouTubeTomSeppert
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Agreeable Analog likes this.
Dan Brown
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Recently advocated in Sentry's license-unveiling plan to get them to avoid conflating open source:
https://github.com/getsentry/fsl.software/issues/10
Which led me also write up why the distinction is important:
https://danb.me/blog/open-source-available-distinction/
TBF, they did actually listen to me and make changes to reduce confusion which was good to see.
How will "open source" be used or framed relative to this license/plan? · Issue #10 · getsentry/fsl.software
GitHubsynlogic
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •ha. might happen!
myelf I'm the author of a FOSS lib and so far using the model where the lib is just a public demo of my skills, and hopefully a source of inbound leads to further paying work, esp on systems involving that tech mix and problem domain. so it hasnt felt like a burden on me so far. but keeping an eye on its "account balance" for sure
LatLearn:
https://github.com/mkramlich/LatLearn
GitHub - mkramlich/latlearn: latency instrumentation and reporting lib for Golang
GitHubIntenseWebs
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •omg yay? Licensing is already a dumpster fire in open source.
How about Apache, Linux Foundation and FSF start ENFORCING? There's a thought...
Agreeable Analog likes this.
Julian :fedora: :freebsd: :python:
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Agreeable Analog likes this.
Lukas
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Agreeable Analog likes this.
Gen X-Wing
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •The freeloader problem is the companies, as they never give as much as they take in the first place. Imho.
I’m very fine with commercial use of open source, if it’s done honestly.
And I sadly think you are right🙁 It’s the new public API. Most will make it effectively useless to stop people from using it. And a few will do something dramatic that gets headlines.
Agreeable Analog likes this.
Becca 🏳️⚧️ 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 🇵🇸
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •The worst sin one does in front of a license is "to assume with a sense of entitlement" rather than "know and understand" what rights come with said license.
(or why I don't use VS code).
Agreeable Analog likes this.
kasperd
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Agreeable Analog likes this.
Jeff Geerling
in reply to kasperd • • •Carlos Echenique
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •Agreeable Analog likes this.
René Moser (resmo) レネ
in reply to Jeff Geerling • • •turns out, open source is not a business model, it even evolves more competitors offering „your“ product.
After thinking about it for a while, I changed my mind a bit.
A license to protect the business and releases the code as open source after a defined period may also be in the interest of those just using and contributing to the software without commercial interests
It really depends on the project, it‘s all about „cathedrals“ and „bazaars“.
Agreeable Analog likes this.
Agreeable Analog
in reply to René Moser (resmo) レネ • •As far as I know Bazaar is an Persian/Arabic word meaning "Market/Marketplace"
René Moser (resmo) レネ
in reply to Agreeable Analog • • •Book by Eric S. Raymond
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