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Such a double standard. Every time an open source project complains about the challenges of monetization (see the recent Redis controversy), people say "Don't

Such a double standard. Every time an open source project complains about the challenges of monetization (see the recent Redis controversy), people say "Don't like other companies making money off your software? Then don't license it that way!" But now that someone is actually doing that, people are not happy. My hypothesis is that people's opinion on this subject depends on what's convenient for them, and is not necessarily a reflection on whether the act itself is a good one or not. People can already get all these CLI apps very conveniently from a package manager, for free, and that is the reason why the idea of a paid app store disgusts people. Every time a GPL vs BSD conversation comes up, most people support BSD, saying that it's "more free". But I think the true reason is that people want to be able to use BSD-licensed libraries in their apps, which they profit from. Why were so many people against Redis Labs trying to protect their revenue streams? I think it's because people felt threatened that they may have to pay more in the future. We, as a community, need to make up our minds and stop being misled by our own agendas. It is fine to have one's own agenda but stop conflating that with moral issues.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
Those are different issues entirely. Right now, a party that is independent of the original developers has attempted to charge money for the work. There's no indication that the original authors consented to this, and there's no assurance besides some platitudes in a blog post that the authors will receive any part of the payment
- FooBarWidget 8y ago
  But the seller does not need consent from the original authors! That is the whole point of open source licenses and of my comment! Amazon did not have to ask for consent to make money off Redis or Linux or anything else, but that is exactly why Redis Labs was not happy. See also https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    You're responding to the legality of this store, which I addressed in the original comment. Everybody is on-board with the idea that selling other peoples' open source work is legal, and there's no particular problem with that. The ethical problem, here in particular, is presenting yourself as an official storefront for the open source community. I don't care if Amazon integrates my projects into their infrastructure (they probably already do!) -- they don't present themselves as my financial middleman.
detaro 8y ago
They are openly lying about the terms. Click the "trial license" (what?) text on any of the shop pages and read > You can try out Pandoc for free. To use it regularly, you must buy a license. They do not detail how they intent to share the money with the authors. Did they prepare with all the authors, are or they collecting money in their name without them agreeing to that? E.g. money paid to buy something is different than a donation from a tax perspective: how many authors are actually going to go to the paperwork to get the money?
- adius 8y ago
  There is a "Pricing Info" link right below the payment button where I describe meticulously where the money goes. Offering an unlimited trail for an actually commercial product is a standard (and I think very generous) licensing term. Just check out https://www.sublimetext.com https://www.sublimetext.com.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Pandoc is not a commercial product. By claiming one must buy a license, you are misrepresenting its actual license. If you're actually selling your own wrapper around it, make that clear. The pricing info link also sounds dangerously like what other projects have done in the past: "we take the money and put it in a pot, and at some point the author can ask us for the money and we'll figure out how to get it to them". This means users wanting to support the dev unwittingly put the money in a pot the dev has then to go through additional effort and potentially expense to access, which the users would have avoided if they'd known, e.g. through a direct donation. If you actually have clear agreements with authors on how this is going to work, you should emphasize that. If you don't, that should be clear too.
  - joshka 8y ago
    Unless the license of the software you're selling allows you to relicense the software (GPL doesn't, MIT does), this argument is invalid.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mikemcquaid 8y ago
> Every time an open source project complains about the challenges of monetization (see the recent Redis controversy), people say "Don't like other companies making money off your software? Then don't license it that way!" Did @woodruffw say that anywhere? Otherwise it's not really a double standard but just different people having different opinions. > We, as a community, need to make up our minds and stop being misled by our own agendas. We as a (presumably "open source" community) should accept that people within our community have a divergent range of views on monetisation and are all entitled to express those views. @woodruffw is a Homebrew maintainer and I'm the Homebrew lead maintainer. We're both surprised to learn about a project that's monetising the work of the package manager we work on (and many others) without any sort of heads up. There's no obligation to provide one, of course, but at the same time we have no obligation to make it easy for or be happy about our work being used in this way.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago

Those are different issues entirely. Right now, a party that is independent of the original developers has attempted to charge money for the work. There's no indication that the original authors consented to this, and there's no assurance besides some platitudes in a blog post that the authors will receive any part of the payment

FooBarWidget 8y ago
But the seller does not need consent from the original authors! That is the whole point of open source licenses and of my comment! Amazon did not have to ask for consent to make money off Redis or Linux or anything else, but that is exactly why Redis Labs was not happy. See also https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
- woodruffw 8y ago
  You're responding to the legality of this store, which I addressed in the original comment. Everybody is on-board with the idea that selling other peoples' open source work is legal, and there's no particular problem with that. The ethical problem, here in particular, is presenting yourself as an official storefront for the open source community. I don't care if Amazon integrates my projects into their infrastructure (they probably already do!) -- they don't present themselves as my financial middleman.

detaro 8y ago

They are openly lying about the terms. Click the "trial license" (what?) text on any of the shop pages and read > You can try out Pandoc for free. To use it regularly, you must buy a license. They do not detail how they intent to share the money with the authors. Did they prepare with all the authors, are or they collecting money in their name without them agreeing to that? E.g. money paid to buy something is different than a donation from a tax perspective: how many authors are actually going to go to the paperwork to get the money?

adius 8y ago
There is a "Pricing Info" link right below the payment button where I describe meticulously where the money goes. Offering an unlimited trail for an actually commercial product is a standard (and I think very generous) licensing term. Just check out https://www.sublimetext.com https://www.sublimetext.com.
- detaro 8y ago
  Pandoc is not a commercial product. By claiming one must buy a license, you are misrepresenting its actual license. If you're actually selling your own wrapper around it, make that clear. The pricing info link also sounds dangerously like what other projects have done in the past: "we take the money and put it in a pot, and at some point the author can ask us for the money and we'll figure out how to get it to them". This means users wanting to support the dev unwittingly put the money in a pot the dev has then to go through additional effort and potentially expense to access, which the users would have avoided if they'd known, e.g. through a direct donation. If you actually have clear agreements with authors on how this is going to work, you should emphasize that. If you don't, that should be clear too.
- joshka 8y ago
  Unless the license of the software you're selling allows you to relicense the software (GPL doesn't, MIT does), this argument is invalid.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mikemcquaid 8y ago

> Every time an open source project complains about the challenges of monetization (see the recent Redis controversy), people say "Don't like other companies making money off your software? Then don't license it that way!" Did @woodruffw say that anywhere? Otherwise it's not really a double standard but just different people having different opinions. > We, as a community, need to make up our minds and stop being misled by our own agendas. We as a (presumably "open source" community) should accept that people within our community have a divergent range of views on monetisation and are all entitled to express those views. @woodruffw is a Homebrew maintainer and I'm the Homebrew lead maintainer. We're both surprised to learn about a project that's monetising the work of the package manager we work on (and many others) without any sort of heads up. There's no obligation to provide one, of course, but at the same time we have no obligation to make it easy for or be happy about our work being used in this way.