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> The maintainers of open source projects have the responsibility of keeping the source distribution open to everyone and not changing the rules midstream > we

> The maintainers of open source projects have the responsibility of keeping the source distribution open to everyone and not changing the rules midstream > we believe that maintainers of an open source project have a responsibility to ensure that the primary open source distribution remains open and free of proprietary code I disagree. Nobody has the responsibility to do anything for free. Amazon is free to take that responsibility for itself though. The fact that this comes from a company that in more than one case has modified an open source project and kept the changes hidden behind a SaaS only adds insult to injury.

sqrt17 8y ago
> Nobody has the responsibility to do anything for free. In general, yes. If you call something an Open Source project, however you take on certain responsabilities that you wouldn't otherwise have, such as not playing bait-and-switch, and can hope for people sending in bug fixes and patches (and even signing copyright assignments if required for dual licensing). If it were just "doing things for free" and not receiving anything in return, FOSS would not interest anyone and we'd get back to the shareware world of the 90s where (as a user) you got an evaluation license but no stake. Some developers prefer the shareware model to going full OSS, which is fine. Playing bait-and-switch by turning an Open Source project (with the community and the help and credibility that potentially come out of it) into a Shareware product will, like any bait-and-switch, irritate people.