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Do you not see any problem with that? Companies who are good at commercialisation gets all the dough for work created by small group of inventors. Is protecting

Do you not see any problem with that? Companies who are good at commercialisation gets all the dough for work created by small group of inventors. Is protecting inventors interest not important? Isn't this negatively affecting the ecosystem where there's less motivation for inventors to create open source software in the first place? > it's not open source because it forbids redistribution of the source. This can be solved easily. The "View and Internal Use License" can allow redistribution under the same license (verbatim).

the_af 8y ago
I'm not going to debate open source with you, because as you can imagine this is a topic that's been debated for decades, and as any debate that mixes philosophical and technical issues, it's definitely neither easy nor clear cut. Open source is mostly about user rights (making things more confusing, a user is sometimes also a developer!). By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of your software, you are effectively making it not open source. If you think an open source license is not in your best interest because of these rights, it'd be totally understandable if you decide not to use one. > This can be solved easily. The "View and Internal Use License" can allow redistribution under the same license (verbatim). I think you'll find once you add all the necessary provisions for adding users rights, you'll end up with an open source license :) I'd be wary of saying "this can be solved easily": if you follow any kind of debate about software licenses, proprietary or otherwise, you'll see there's nothing easy about them. Any license that is more complex than "do whatever you want with this" is probably not easy.
- amirathi 8y ago
  > By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of your software, you are effectively making it not open source. Then the discussion Open Source ecosystem needs to have is whether "protecting users' right to resell" is net positive or net negative for the ecosystem. And answer could go either ways but that dialogue needs to happen. Last major update amongst any of the popular OSS license was in 2007 to AGPL. It's been 11 years and SaaS/Cloud world has changed a lot in this time. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to review and see if we need an additional license that's net positive for the ecosystem. Just accepting current textbook definitions of Open Source and abiding by it all our life seems too pedantic.
  - the_af 8y ago
    It's not the "current textbook definition" but a living consensus. This "dialogue" you want begun decades ago and is still ongoing. I'm not sure why you think otherwise. (If you want an even more difficult debate, there's the "open source" vs "free/libre software" thing: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....) > Then the discussion Open Source ecosystem needs to have is whether "protecting users' right to resell" is net positive Well, reselling is not the most important aspect; it's a side-effect of unrestricted users' rights. If you restrict users' rights (e.g. you forbid reselling), open source becomes less appealing and not particularly different to Microsoft's Shared Source and similar proprietary-but-you-can-see-the-source licenses. By the way, "net positive" is a tricky concept. Open source is in my opinion a "net positive", but it involves some trade-offs. Proprietary licenses like the one you seem to favor also have trade-offs. > it's time to review and see if we need an additional license that's net positive for the ecosystem. Which ecosystem is that? To be honest, it seems to me you don't want an open source license. And that's fine. Not sure why you want open source to change its meaning to what you propose (which isn't new either), instead of simply accepting the license you want/need is not open source.

the_af 8y ago

I'm not going to debate open source with you, because as you can imagine this is a topic that's been debated for decades, and as any debate that mixes philosophical and technical issues, it's definitely neither easy nor clear cut. Open source is mostly about user rights (making things more confusing, a user is sometimes also a developer!). By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of your software, you are effectively making it not open source. If you think an open source license is not in your best interest because of these rights, it'd be totally understandable if you decide not to use one. > This can be solved easily. The "View and Internal Use License" can allow redistribution under the same license (verbatim). I think you'll find once you add all the necessary provisions for adding users rights, you'll end up with an open source license :) I'd be wary of saying "this can be solved easily": if you follow any kind of debate about software licenses, proprietary or otherwise, you'll see there's nothing easy about them. Any license that is more complex than "do whatever you want with this" is probably not easy.

amirathi 8y ago
> By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of your software, you are effectively making it not open source. Then the discussion Open Source ecosystem needs to have is whether "protecting users' right to resell" is net positive or net negative for the ecosystem. And answer could go either ways but that dialogue needs to happen. Last major update amongst any of the popular OSS license was in 2007 to AGPL. It's been 11 years and SaaS/Cloud world has changed a lot in this time. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to review and see if we need an additional license that's net positive for the ecosystem. Just accepting current textbook definitions of Open Source and abiding by it all our life seems too pedantic.
- the_af 8y ago
  It's not the "current textbook definition" but a living consensus. This "dialogue" you want begun decades ago and is still ongoing. I'm not sure why you think otherwise. (If you want an even more difficult debate, there's the "open source" vs "free/libre software" thing: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....) > Then the discussion Open Source ecosystem needs to have is whether "protecting users' right to resell" is net positive Well, reselling is not the most important aspect; it's a side-effect of unrestricted users' rights. If you restrict users' rights (e.g. you forbid reselling), open source becomes less appealing and not particularly different to Microsoft's Shared Source and similar proprietary-but-you-can-see-the-source licenses. By the way, "net positive" is a tricky concept. Open source is in my opinion a "net positive", but it involves some trade-offs. Proprietary licenses like the one you seem to favor also have trade-offs. > it's time to review and see if we need an additional license that's net positive for the ecosystem. Which ecosystem is that? To be honest, it seems to me you don't want an open source license. And that's fine. Not sure why you want open source to change its meaning to what you propose (which isn't new either), instead of simply accepting the license you want/need is not open source.