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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

by 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.
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    > 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. There's no such thing as a "copyleft lawyer". Even if there were, there wouldn't be many of us, even if you counted every one, worldwide. I personally don't agree with the reading you referred to. But if Mongo's SSPLv2, which they've submitted to OSI, is any indication, it won't be tenable much longer.
antt 8y ago
I'm free to modify the source code. That's a lot different to never seeing it. Calling these licenses proprietary strains the word past its breaking point.
- cyphar 8y ago
  A licence is proprietary if it restricts any if your four freedoms. The Confluent licence restricts freedom 0, the freedom to use it for any purpose. It is therefore proprietary. JSON's license (with the "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." clause) is proprietary too. Now, we can have a discussion over the degree of proprietary-ness, but I disagree with the statement that it isn't proprietary. Of course it is different to some other proprietary licenses, but I believe that discussion is secondary to the discussion over whether it is proprietary.
  - slavak 8y ago
    No, I'm sorry, that's not how things work. You can say the license isn't "open source." The term has a well-defined meaning provided by the OSI, and they arguably have the right to define what it means and which licenses meet the definition, being the ones who pretty much invented the term. You DO NOT, however, get to also define the meaning of the word "proprietary." The English language is not your plaything, and you have not been given dictatorial rights to re-define words as you wish. "Proprietary" does not suddenly mean "restricts any of the four freedoms" just because you said so. When antt calls this instance a misuse of the word, [s]he is relying on the common English meaning of the term, which very much supports their point. Your rebuttal is pretty much "nuh-uh because we're now using a different definition."
    - cyphar 8y ago
      > The term has a well-defined meaning provided by the OSI, and they arguably have the right to define what it means and which licenses meet the definition, being the ones who pretty much invented the term. Funnily enough, many people would argue the exact opposite -- that "open source" has a common meaning that is separate from the "Open Source" which the OSI defines. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. > "Proprietary" does not suddenly mean "restricts any of the four freedoms" just because you said so. I am using the term in the same manner as the FSF. Maybe you disagree with their definition, but it's hardly something I've just come up with in this argument -- this definition in the context of software licenses has been in use since the 80s. If you disagree with that definition, complain to the FSF about their subversion of language instead of me.

by cyphar 8y ago

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.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  > 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. There's no such thing as a "copyleft lawyer". Even if there were, there wouldn't be many of us, even if you counted every one, worldwide. I personally don't agree with the reading you referred to. But if Mongo's SSPLv2, which they've submitted to OSI, is any indication, it won't be tenable much longer.

antt 8y ago

I'm free to modify the source code. That's a lot different to never seeing it. Calling these licenses proprietary strains the word past its breaking point.

cyphar 8y ago
A licence is proprietary if it restricts any if your four freedoms. The Confluent licence restricts freedom 0, the freedom to use it for any purpose. It is therefore proprietary. JSON's license (with the "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." clause) is proprietary too. Now, we can have a discussion over the degree of proprietary-ness, but I disagree with the statement that it isn't proprietary. Of course it is different to some other proprietary licenses, but I believe that discussion is secondary to the discussion over whether it is proprietary.
- slavak 8y ago
  No, I'm sorry, that's not how things work. You can say the license isn't "open source." The term has a well-defined meaning provided by the OSI, and they arguably have the right to define what it means and which licenses meet the definition, being the ones who pretty much invented the term. You DO NOT, however, get to also define the meaning of the word "proprietary." The English language is not your plaything, and you have not been given dictatorial rights to re-define words as you wish. "Proprietary" does not suddenly mean "restricts any of the four freedoms" just because you said so. When antt calls this instance a misuse of the word, [s]he is relying on the common English meaning of the term, which very much supports their point. Your rebuttal is pretty much "nuh-uh because we're now using a different definition."
  - cyphar 8y ago
    > The term has a well-defined meaning provided by the OSI, and they arguably have the right to define what it means and which licenses meet the definition, being the ones who pretty much invented the term. Funnily enough, many people would argue the exact opposite -- that "open source" has a common meaning that is separate from the "Open Source" which the OSI defines. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. > "Proprietary" does not suddenly mean "restricts any of the four freedoms" just because you said so. I am using the term in the same manner as the FSF. Maybe you disagree with their definition, but it's hardly something I've just come up with in this argument -- this definition in the context of software licenses has been in use since the 80s. If you disagree with that definition, complain to the FSF about their subversion of language instead of me.