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Kevin Wang here. Thanks Drew for the thoughtful post. I can accept that you might not appreciate my work on the Commons Clause, but I'm glad to see you acknowl

by XiZhao 8y ago

Kevin Wang here. Thanks Drew for the thoughtful post. I can accept that you might not appreciate my work on the Commons Clause, but I'm glad to see you acknowledge why funding OSS is so difficult. I think it's okay to fear the world of open source becoming a bit more closed. I do too. Whether that's a better world or not is up to debate, but I certainly don't think so. I think where we might disagree is what the greatest threat to "open-ness" is. Sometimes people do bad things to open source projects, and force them to go closed. The license choice will inevitably follow -- and when they do, they can choose to close the source entirely or choose a licensing scheme that makes it available. Licensing follows intent, and I certainly don't think the Clause inspires people to close their source. But sometimes people need to change their license -- and I think it's unrealistic to say that this doesn't happen.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Can you at least change the name, to something that's not CC? It's going to be confused with Creative Commons otherwise.
- etatoby 8y ago
  That's their purpose. This entire endeavor is quite evil IMHO.
  - sebazzz 8y ago
    We haven't read anything about their intentions yet. Have they addressed this confusion?
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      It's been asked several times to him on this topic, and quite frankly, he's had ample time to respond to someone.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        Is it possible he could be sued over trademark issues?
      - rmc 8y ago
        Sometimes you can tell what someone means by what they don't say, especially if saying the thing is embarrassing/bad for them.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
Hi Kevin, Drew here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your response, but I find it frustratingly vauge. What kinds of bad things happen to open source projects that drive them to this? If you are fearful of open source becoming more closed, why are you promoting that very approach? Did you consider promoting alternatives like AGPL first? Before I see an option violating one of the four essential freedoms I would really like to see a detailed exposition on why the AGPL or other approaches discussed in my article are not suitable. I don't think that the brief summary on AGPL on your website is detailed enough - it doesn't have any specific criticisms of AGPL. The problem with "needing to change their license" is that it's really just a few people who "need" to change it. In reality, open source projects are community works, and even the maintainers don't have the (certainly moral, and usually legal) right to change the license. I think your Commons Clause gives vulnerable people (open source maintainers struggling to make ends meet) an easy but despicable option for their projects. Especially in cases like Redis, where a company has ulterior motives and employs the maintainers, they can strongarm maintainers into making choices which are not in the best interests of the project.
- XiZhao 8y ago
  The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    >The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors Still frustratingly vauge. Without this information I can't assume The Commons Clause is working in good faith. At least you can speak to the types of behaviors, rather than the specific actors, which led to this? >See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions I specifically refered to your website in my comment and called out the summary there as insufficient. Can you elaborate on it here on HN?
justinjlynn 8y ago
My fundamental issue with the clause is that it fundamentally changes the nature of the licences it infects. It is just as disingenuous to say "we're an Open Source plus Common Clause project (Apache + Common Clause)" as it is to say "We host Redis (we mean Redis + Proprietary add-ons we use under the AGPL from Redis Labs, that you can't have, which make us incompatible with Open Source Redis)". There's nothing new or controversial about relicensing your project. I'd bet what most people have a problem with is the "open sources but not open source" angle the clause pulls. Given the confusion it creates by piggy backing on existing well-known licence brands, I see why they have a problem with it.
- XiZhao 8y ago
  I don't think the Clause is necessarily the most elegant end-all solution, but there are often broad business, timing and legal requirements that make it really hard to draft a full license to satisfy everyone. In fact, I'd love to see a v2 standalone license. One of the design constraints was size and readability. I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form. More broadly, the average OSS license is far from robust.
  - justinjlynn 8y ago
    > More broadly, the average OSS license is far from robust. Care to elaborate? That is an extremely broad claim. The GPL has been upheld a number of times. The MIT/BSD licences are about as simple and solid as they get. > I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form. Yes, but to your point above, courts rarely appreciate schizophrenic agreements which say one thing in one place and an entirely different thing elsewhere. How is X Open Source + Common Clause any different than the Redis^e + X hosting/brand piggybacking others have been doing to RedisLabs?
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    Most OSS licenses are actually very robust, but they all support the four essential freedoms - which you are specifically attempting to undermine.
  - 8y ago

by XiZhao 8y ago

s73v3r_ 8y ago

Can you at least change the name, to something that's not CC? It's going to be confused with Creative Commons otherwise.

etatoby 8y ago
That's their purpose. This entire endeavor is quite evil IMHO.
- sebazzz 8y ago
  We haven't read anything about their intentions yet. Have they addressed this confusion?
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    It's been asked several times to him on this topic, and quite frankly, he's had ample time to respond to someone.
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      Is it possible he could be sued over trademark issues?
    - rmc 8y ago
      Sometimes you can tell what someone means by what they don't say, especially if saying the thing is embarrassing/bad for them.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

Hi Kevin, Drew here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your response, but I find it frustratingly vauge. What kinds of bad things happen to open source projects that drive them to this? If you are fearful of open source becoming more closed, why are you promoting that very approach? Did you consider promoting alternatives like AGPL first? Before I see an option violating one of the four essential freedoms I would really like to see a detailed exposition on why the AGPL or other approaches discussed in my article are not suitable. I don't think that the brief summary on AGPL on your website is detailed enough - it doesn't have any specific criticisms of AGPL. The problem with "needing to change their license" is that it's really just a few people who "need" to change it. In reality, open source projects are community works, and even the maintainers don't have the (certainly moral, and usually legal) right to change the license. I think your Commons Clause gives vulnerable people (open source maintainers struggling to make ends meet) an easy but despicable option for their projects. Especially in cases like Redis, where a company has ulterior motives and employs the maintainers, they can strongarm maintainers into making choices which are not in the best interests of the project.

XiZhao 8y ago
The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors (I'll leave that to the users of the Clause), but our job was to open up an option that isn't quite "screw this, let's go full closed source". See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions: https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  >The Clause was drafted as a reactionary move to solve against specific bad behavior. I'm not entirely sure it's my place to call out these actors Still frustratingly vauge. Without this information I can't assume The Commons Clause is working in good faith. At least you can speak to the types of behaviors, rather than the specific actors, which led to this? >See the commons clause FAQ for answers to your other questions I specifically refered to your website in my comment and called out the summary there as insufficient. Can you elaborate on it here on HN?

justinjlynn 8y ago

My fundamental issue with the clause is that it fundamentally changes the nature of the licences it infects. It is just as disingenuous to say "we're an Open Source plus Common Clause project (Apache + Common Clause)" as it is to say "We host Redis (we mean Redis + Proprietary add-ons we use under the AGPL from Redis Labs, that you can't have, which make us incompatible with Open Source Redis)". There's nothing new or controversial about relicensing your project. I'd bet what most people have a problem with is the "open sources but not open source" angle the clause pulls. Given the confusion it creates by piggy backing on existing well-known licence brands, I see why they have a problem with it.

XiZhao 8y ago
I don't think the Clause is necessarily the most elegant end-all solution, but there are often broad business, timing and legal requirements that make it really hard to draft a full license to satisfy everyone. In fact, I'd love to see a v2 standalone license. One of the design constraints was size and readability. I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form. More broadly, the average OSS license is far from robust.
- justinjlynn 8y ago
  > More broadly, the average OSS license is far from robust. Care to elaborate? That is an extremely broad claim. The GPL has been upheld a number of times. The MIT/BSD licences are about as simple and solid as they get. > I think part of the goal here was to start with something extremely short-form. Yes, but to your point above, courts rarely appreciate schizophrenic agreements which say one thing in one place and an entirely different thing elsewhere. How is X Open Source + Common Clause any different than the Redis^e + X hosting/brand piggybacking others have been doing to RedisLabs?
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  Most OSS licenses are actually very robust, but they all support the four essential freedoms - which you are specifically attempting to undermine.
- 8y ago