7 ms·
I would love it if more companies would get involved with FOSS communities, either by sponsoring work, or getting involved directly, but I would still argue tha
by cmsj 8y ago
I would love it if more companies would get involved with FOSS communities, either by sponsoring work, or getting involved directly, but I would still argue that it's against the spirit of FOSS (and the letter of most licenses) to try and force them to.
When we choose to put our software out in the world under permissive licenses, we can't really turn around and complain when people make use of it in ways that are beneficial to them. On that basis, I object to the use of the word "exploit" in its negative sense.
Edit: I'd like to add one thought - there are different groups of people who could benefit by greater engagement from large corporate use of FOSS. Two that come to mind easily are the funded startups trying to find viable FOSS business models; I admire their optimism and their goals, and wish them luck. The second is individuals and small groups who tirelessly maintain incredibly important things that the rest of us take for granted and have to fight tooth and nail for every grant, every hour of their own spare time and every hour of their employer's time, to keep those things going for us. If I have to choose a group to care about supporting, it's definitely going to be the latter, for whom I have immense respect, undying gratitude, and sadly insignificant donations.
- talkingtab 8y agoI agree your sentiment in general and especially with the last sentences ... It is one of the reasons I'm interested in trying to find some way(s) that we ensure they (the individuals and small groups) have some appropriate reward and that they are not exploited. I'm really not familiar with mongoDB and I don't use it, but I suspect that it started out as a person or small group that grew and grew and helped many people until ... But perhaps exploit is too strong a word? It certainly seems that at least Amazon is acting as a bad citizen in this case by taking more than they are giving back. And it is within the realm of possibility that they will damage this project - the EEE syndrome is one possibility. But yes to the respect, gratitude and sadly the insignificant donations as well.
- mnutt 8y agoNot to detract at all from your point, but Mongo (10gen) was very, very well-funded out of the gate, and the original idea was a platform-as-a-service built on open source apps before they pivoted to the open source database idea.