4 ms·

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of la

At the end of the day, open source projects need developers... and developers need to eat. These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. Who deserves the value created by Redis? Antirez and the Redis Labs developers? Or Jeff Bezos?

vorpalhex 8y ago
If you want to publish open source and not have cloud companies use it for their own profit without contributing back, there's a license for that called the GPL. If you want to write software and get paid for it, then ask for money for your software instead of handing it out as open source then changing your mind once it's popular. In common parlance that's called a bait and switch.
- kryptiskt 8y ago
  Cloud companies can use GPL code without contributing back as they're not distributing it.
- detaro 8y ago
  GPL does nothing of the sort. If AGPL is a worthy tradeoff overall is debated a lot.
emersion 8y ago
This is not the point. The point is: stop calling open-source stuff that isn't. You shouldn't lie to your users.
- rocqua 8y ago
  So this is just a very harsh discussion of semantics? Moreover, one where the argument is based on common understanding of a term, rather than a literal interpretation of the term. Because a literal interpretation of open-source is a system where the 'source'(code) is open (to read). Indeed many people understand it to mean more, but that doesn't make that understanding indisputably correct.
  - emersion 8y ago
    "Open" doesn't mean "read", it means "freedom". If I look up the definition of "open-source" for instance on Wiktionary [1], it says "permit modifications and redistribution" (and refers to the OSI definition). [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/open%2Dsource https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/open%2Dsource
- thrower123 8y ago
  Open-source doesn't necessarily imply everything that the FOSS and GPL folks think it does outside of their semantic bubble. It's one of those bastardized terms that has become so mangled and situationally-dependent as to be almost meaningless. For a significant number of people "open-source" just means, "I found this on GitHub"
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Do you consider Microsoft Windows, or Oracle database to be open source software? Because the source code is viewable (albeit under an NDA). Open source does have a specific meaning, and twisting it like this does nobody any favors.
    - thrower123 8y ago
      No, I'm well aware of what open-source is supposed to mean, as opposed to shared-source or whatever the proper term is for that type of arrangement. I just try to deal with the world as it is, and the damage has been done already to the popular meaning of the term. I don't have the energy or interest to tilt at this particular wind-mill, so at this point if somebody says something is open-source, unless I have prior knowledge of what they think open-source means, I can't really infer anything in particular, and have to ask some more questions.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Sure. And plenty of companies have stretched thin the definition of "free" or "unlimited". But that doesn't mean we have to accept that as OK.
  - pfooti 8y ago
    It hasn't, though. There's at least two different organizations that work to concretely operationalize what "open source" means. People may be confused about the term, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying to educate about it, and it definitely doesn't mean we should let other people go on polluting the ontological space with garbage that seems intentionally designed to confuse.
huzy 8y ago
As the Red Hat model dies, and SaaS becomes more and more relevant, people have to get used to these new terms. Ranting won't work (or feed anybody).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 8y ago
> These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. No, they haven't, because the “big industry players capture the revenue, while open source devs mostly work for those players, either directly or through sponsored projects” isn't something that started with the cloud; it's why Linus Torvalds isn't a billionaire. It's forced by firms wanting the economics of classic proprietary software and the PR benefits of F/OSS, in many cases, apparently, because they have investors who bought in to F/OSS-based endeavors based on expectations that were unrealistic ab initio given the economics of the industry.

vorpalhex 8y ago

If you want to publish open source and not have cloud companies use it for their own profit without contributing back, there's a license for that called the GPL. If you want to write software and get paid for it, then ask for money for your software instead of handing it out as open source then changing your mind once it's popular. In common parlance that's called a bait and switch.

kryptiskt 8y ago
Cloud companies can use GPL code without contributing back as they're not distributing it.
detaro 8y ago
GPL does nothing of the sort. If AGPL is a worthy tradeoff overall is debated a lot.

emersion 8y ago

This is not the point. The point is: stop calling open-source stuff that isn't. You shouldn't lie to your users.

rocqua 8y ago
So this is just a very harsh discussion of semantics? Moreover, one where the argument is based on common understanding of a term, rather than a literal interpretation of the term. Because a literal interpretation of open-source is a system where the 'source'(code) is open (to read). Indeed many people understand it to mean more, but that doesn't make that understanding indisputably correct.
- emersion 8y ago
  "Open" doesn't mean "read", it means "freedom". If I look up the definition of "open-source" for instance on Wiktionary [1], it says "permit modifications and redistribution" (and refers to the OSI definition). [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/open%2Dsource https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/open%2Dsource
thrower123 8y ago
Open-source doesn't necessarily imply everything that the FOSS and GPL folks think it does outside of their semantic bubble. It's one of those bastardized terms that has become so mangled and situationally-dependent as to be almost meaningless. For a significant number of people "open-source" just means, "I found this on GitHub"
- falcolas 8y ago
  Do you consider Microsoft Windows, or Oracle database to be open source software? Because the source code is viewable (albeit under an NDA). Open source does have a specific meaning, and twisting it like this does nobody any favors.
  - thrower123 8y ago
    No, I'm well aware of what open-source is supposed to mean, as opposed to shared-source or whatever the proper term is for that type of arrangement. I just try to deal with the world as it is, and the damage has been done already to the popular meaning of the term. I don't have the energy or interest to tilt at this particular wind-mill, so at this point if somebody says something is open-source, unless I have prior knowledge of what they think open-source means, I can't really infer anything in particular, and have to ask some more questions.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Sure. And plenty of companies have stretched thin the definition of "free" or "unlimited". But that doesn't mean we have to accept that as OK.
- pfooti 8y ago
  It hasn't, though. There's at least two different organizations that work to concretely operationalize what "open source" means. People may be confused about the term, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying to educate about it, and it definitely doesn't mean we should let other people go on polluting the ontological space with garbage that seems intentionally designed to confuse.

huzy 8y ago

As the Red Hat model dies, and SaaS becomes more and more relevant, people have to get used to these new terms. Ranting won't work (or feed anybody).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 8y ago

> These license changes have been forced by the business reality of larger cloud companies capturing all the value created by open source communities and leaving OSS developers to starve. No, they haven't, because the “big industry players capture the revenue, while open source devs mostly work for those players, either directly or through sponsored projects” isn't something that started with the cloud; it's why Linus Torvalds isn't a billionaire. It's forced by firms wanting the economics of classic proprietary software and the PR benefits of F/OSS, in many cases, apparently, because they have investors who bought in to F/OSS-based endeavors based on expectations that were unrealistic ab initio given the economics of the industry.