5 ms·

you're creating a false dichotomy neither open source nor proprietary represents a single thing and there's a continuum between the two extremes this license

by nqzero 8y ago

you're creating a false dichotomy neither open source nor proprietary represents a single thing and there's a continuum between the two extremes this license is clearly somewhere near the middle

WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
Why are you assuming there is a middle ground? Many things in life have no real middle ground. These "middle ground" licenses have yet to show a useful non-toxic instance that actually served their communities. You have the burden of proof here.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Middle ground exists because it is ultimately for a court to decide whether or not something is a copyright violation. These things aren't black and white. A license is a piece of legal advice which suggests the decision a court might make if it were to be taken to one, based on past judicial decisions. When it comes to new technologies and new distribution methods (or distribution loopholes), there's not much precedent to go off. The uncertainty here is the middle ground.
  - WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
    You are focused on enforcement which (might be interesting in an internet lawyering way) is irrelevant if noone uses the codebases in the first place because of the license makes it unuseful for users and coders. Almost all of these "middle ground" license cannot be combined with the normal licenses that have huge functioning communities.
- nqzero 8y ago
  > You have the burden of proof here. even transistors, the basic underpinning of our digital worlds, have middle ground - it's the norm, not the exception, and dichotomies are almost entirely a human fiction to make things more computationally tractable the burden is yours
  - WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
    So we can go down rabbit holes like this I guess? I mean whats the middle ground between believing the earth is flat and the center of the universe vs a modern scientific view? Metaphors aren't really a good thinking tool here. Instead maybe asking (as I suggested you do) if EVEN ONE of these LICENSE schemes is actually working for the community its supposed to serve vs the pr blahblah we see in their announcements?
cyphar 8y ago
It would be more accurate to describe it as proprietary than it would be to describe it as free software or open source. Proprietary software is software which restricts your freedoms when it comes to the usage, modification, or distribution of said software. If you prefer, you can also use the term source-available to distinguish the degree of restrictions -- but the point is the same. There are restrictions on your freedom in the software and thus it is proprietary. Not everything has a middle ground. Software is either proprietary (restricts your freedom) or it isn't -- and discussions about how proprietary it is (how many restrictions it imposes on users) are secondary.
- sparkie 8y ago
  I could argue a completely different case. The only "restriction" it is placing on you is that you may not restrict anyone else from exercising the same rights that you yourself were granted by the license, which I believe is the original spirit of the 4 freedoms and the GPL family of licenses. The software is "effectively free," because for every user who simply uses it for personal use, research, or even many forms of commercial use, they have all of the same abilities that they would have with any other free software license. The restriction only comes in when you make a derived work of the software and do not pay forward that derived work under equivalent licensing terms as the work on which it was based. And this is where the real disagreement is. What exactly is a "derived work", and where do you draw the line in the sand? If I'm essentially selling access to somebody else's software, I have little doubt that access software constitutes as a derived work. I think it's fair that a license like the SSPL asks me to release the code which provides access to the free software as free software itself. Suggesting that "My freedoms are being restricted" because a licensing term prevents you from restricting the freedom of others is the same argument that "permissive" license proponents argue against strong copyleft licenses. If I release something as SSPL, it isn't because I'm trying to "restrict your freedoms". It's that I'm trying to prevent you from restricting other's freedoms by selling them proprietary work based on it.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    The license being discussed here is not the SSPL. It's the Confluent Community License, which does not have any of the GPL-like aspects you refer to. Instead it simply denies the use of the software (freedom #0) for an "Excluded Purpose" (creating a competing product to Confluent). I'm sure you'll agree this is not in any way in the original spirit of the four freedoms. > What exactly is a "derived work", and where do you draw the line in the sand? This is mostly determined by copyright law, since "derived work" is a legal term of art. > If I release something as SSPL, it isn't because I'm trying to "restrict your freedoms". It's that I'm trying to prevent you from restricting other's freedoms by selling them proprietary work based on it. This is the justification, but due to the design of the license it is de-facto impossible to actually comply with its requirements. Therefore it acts as a de-facto proprietary license. Many copyleft lawyers have stated that the license would likely require you to re-license Linux under the SSPL if you run SSPL code on a Linux server. This is not possible to do, and thus you are forced to pay MongoDB to get a business license. Maybe there is a place for a license like the SSPL, but given how there would be effectively no company that could comply with it (even if it didn't require relicensing to SSPL, many companies have contracted code that they cannot relicense to a free software license) I fear it would have the same effect.
grumpydba 8y ago
However those unproven license are toxic. I've cancelled the mongodb standardization in the big company I work for specifically to avoid them. The only sane way for a cautious company to use those vaguely licensed software is the proprietary one. That's the intent of this artificial grey area. And as a consumer I try to avoid proprietary software whenever possible. License management is a huge pain.

by nqzero 8y ago

you're creating a false dichotomy neither open source nor proprietary represents a single thing and there's a continuum between the two extremes this license is clearly somewhere near the middle

WhatIsDukkha 8y ago

Why are you assuming there is a middle ground? Many things in life have no real middle ground. These "middle ground" licenses have yet to show a useful non-toxic instance that actually served their communities. You have the burden of proof here.

sparkie 8y ago
Middle ground exists because it is ultimately for a court to decide whether or not something is a copyright violation. These things aren't black and white. A license is a piece of legal advice which suggests the decision a court might make if it were to be taken to one, based on past judicial decisions. When it comes to new technologies and new distribution methods (or distribution loopholes), there's not much precedent to go off. The uncertainty here is the middle ground.
- WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
  You are focused on enforcement which (might be interesting in an internet lawyering way) is irrelevant if noone uses the codebases in the first place because of the license makes it unuseful for users and coders. Almost all of these "middle ground" license cannot be combined with the normal licenses that have huge functioning communities.
nqzero 8y ago
> You have the burden of proof here. even transistors, the basic underpinning of our digital worlds, have middle ground - it's the norm, not the exception, and dichotomies are almost entirely a human fiction to make things more computationally tractable the burden is yours
- WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
  So we can go down rabbit holes like this I guess? I mean whats the middle ground between believing the earth is flat and the center of the universe vs a modern scientific view? Metaphors aren't really a good thinking tool here. Instead maybe asking (as I suggested you do) if EVEN ONE of these LICENSE schemes is actually working for the community its supposed to serve vs the pr blahblah we see in their announcements?

cyphar 8y ago

It would be more accurate to describe it as proprietary than it would be to describe it as free software or open source. Proprietary software is software which restricts your freedoms when it comes to the usage, modification, or distribution of said software. If you prefer, you can also use the term source-available to distinguish the degree of restrictions -- but the point is the same. There are restrictions on your freedom in the software and thus it is proprietary. Not everything has a middle ground. Software is either proprietary (restricts your freedom) or it isn't -- and discussions about how proprietary it is (how many restrictions it imposes on users) are secondary.

sparkie 8y ago
I could argue a completely different case. The only "restriction" it is placing on you is that you may not restrict anyone else from exercising the same rights that you yourself were granted by the license, which I believe is the original spirit of the 4 freedoms and the GPL family of licenses. The software is "effectively free," because for every user who simply uses it for personal use, research, or even many forms of commercial use, they have all of the same abilities that they would have with any other free software license. The restriction only comes in when you make a derived work of the software and do not pay forward that derived work under equivalent licensing terms as the work on which it was based. And this is where the real disagreement is. What exactly is a "derived work", and where do you draw the line in the sand? If I'm essentially selling access to somebody else's software, I have little doubt that access software constitutes as a derived work. I think it's fair that a license like the SSPL asks me to release the code which provides access to the free software as free software itself. Suggesting that "My freedoms are being restricted" because a licensing term prevents you from restricting the freedom of others is the same argument that "permissive" license proponents argue against strong copyleft licenses. If I release something as SSPL, it isn't because I'm trying to "restrict your freedoms". It's that I'm trying to prevent you from restricting other's freedoms by selling them proprietary work based on it.
- cyphar 8y ago
  The license being discussed here is not the SSPL. It's the Confluent Community License, which does not have any of the GPL-like aspects you refer to. Instead it simply denies the use of the software (freedom #0) for an "Excluded Purpose" (creating a competing product to Confluent). I'm sure you'll agree this is not in any way in the original spirit of the four freedoms. > What exactly is a "derived work", and where do you draw the line in the sand? This is mostly determined by copyright law, since "derived work" is a legal term of art. > If I release something as SSPL, it isn't because I'm trying to "restrict your freedoms". It's that I'm trying to prevent you from restricting other's freedoms by selling them proprietary work based on it. This is the justification, but due to the design of the license it is de-facto impossible to actually comply with its requirements. Therefore it acts as a de-facto proprietary license. Many copyleft lawyers have stated that the license would likely require you to re-license Linux under the SSPL if you run SSPL code on a Linux server. This is not possible to do, and thus you are forced to pay MongoDB to get a business license. Maybe there is a place for a license like the SSPL, but given how there would be effectively no company that could comply with it (even if it didn't require relicensing to SSPL, many companies have contracted code that they cannot relicense to a free software license) I fear it would have the same effect.

grumpydba 8y ago

However those unproven license are toxic. I've cancelled the mongodb standardization in the big company I work for specifically to avoid them. The only sane way for a cautious company to use those vaguely licensed software is the proprietary one. That's the intent of this artificial grey area. And as a consumer I try to avoid proprietary software whenever possible. License management is a huge pain.