5 ms·

OpenSSH not happy about lack of financial support from vendors

13 points by mambodog 16y ago

adambourg 16y ago
As much as I love Opensource, projects need to see the writing on the wall. Companies WILL profit off of your "free" project, you have two options. 1) Accept it and live with it or 2) Change your licensing. Eg, if used to beyond personal use x y fee will be incurred for usage of the software. Free for personal, small business & non-profit but everyone else you better pay up.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  There's a difference between being frustrated with other companies making a profit, other companies not contributing and other companies getting a free ride.
lusis 16y ago
No offense to the OpenSSH team for such an awesome product but they chose the BSD license. The companies using it are under NO obligation to do squat for OpenBSD or the OpenSSH team. At least with a GPL license they could have gotten some code out of the deal. Look, if you "do" open source regardless of license strictly for financial reasons, you'll be sorely disappointed. I'm as big a proponent of FOSS as anyone but you do it for the "love of the game".
meric 16y ago
Nothing on that page says anything about OpenSSH being not happy...
- mambodog 16y ago
  Paragraph at the bottom.
tedunangst 16y ago
Sigh, this isn't news, just another headline ripped from reddit. That text has been there for 20 months. Everybody got to have their say and pout the last time it was posted too.
- mambodog 16y ago
  Sorry, I didn't mean to imply this was new, just that I found it interesting. Was there a previous discussion on HN?
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    Most recently, just 12 hours ago. I'ts come up before too I'm pretty sure. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906613 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906613
rlpb 16y ago
Businesses simply don't work that way. They must minimize their costs, otherwise their competitors will and they'll be out of business. It's impossible to justify donating money without good reason. For small business owners the reason might be to donate out of the good of their hearts, but as soon as companies have more owners (ie. just about every large business) that reason disappears. Other reasons that can still work are publicity, advertising, support contracts, future continuity, custom development etc. Unless the team can find a win-win solution that gives businesses something that they want that they can't otherwise get for free, this situation will continue.

13 points by mambodog 16y ago

As much as I love Opensource, projects need to see the writing on the wall. Companies WILL profit off of your "free" project, you have two options. 1) Accept it and live with it or 2) Change your licensing. Eg, if used to beyond personal use x y fee will be incurred for usage of the software. Free for personal, small business & non-profit but everyone else you better pay up.

drivebyacct2 16y ago
There's a difference between being frustrated with other companies making a profit, other companies not contributing and other companies getting a free ride.

lusis 16y ago

No offense to the OpenSSH team for such an awesome product but they chose the BSD license. The companies using it are under NO obligation to do squat for OpenBSD or the OpenSSH team. At least with a GPL license they could have gotten some code out of the deal. Look, if you "do" open source regardless of license strictly for financial reasons, you'll be sorely disappointed. I'm as big a proponent of FOSS as anyone but you do it for the "love of the game".

meric 16y ago

Nothing on that page says anything about OpenSSH being not happy...

mambodog 16y ago
Paragraph at the bottom.

tedunangst 16y ago

Sigh, this isn't news, just another headline ripped from reddit. That text has been there for 20 months. Everybody got to have their say and pout the last time it was posted too.

mambodog 16y ago
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply this was new, just that I found it interesting. Was there a previous discussion on HN?
- tedunangst 16y ago
  Most recently, just 12 hours ago. I'ts come up before too I'm pretty sure. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906613 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906613

rlpb 16y ago

Businesses simply don't work that way. They must minimize their costs, otherwise their competitors will and they'll be out of business. It's impossible to justify donating money without good reason. For small business owners the reason might be to donate out of the good of their hearts, but as soon as companies have more owners (ie. just about every large business) that reason disappears. Other reasons that can still work are publicity, advertising, support contracts, future continuity, custom development etc. Unless the team can find a win-win solution that gives businesses something that they want that they can't otherwise get for free, this situation will continue.