8 ms·

Ah, yet another "open-source if you follow my principles" license. It should be an uninteresting fact at this point that yes, you can in fact put whatever claus

Ah, yet another "open-source if you follow my principles" license. It should be an uninteresting fact at this point that yes, you can in fact put whatever clauses you want in your software license. Note that this is a license restriction addon, not a standalone license. To use, ammend to and reference by another license. Note that this removes "open-source" status from the original license if it is open-source, according to OSI's "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups" definition.

xYTa 8y ago
Why would anyone care about a bunch of OSI apparatchiks? The people who talk loudest about Open Source always manage to get a position that profits from the labor of the actual authors.
wqedwed 8y ago
Why would anyone care about the opinion of OSI? The people who talk loudest about Open Source always manage to get a position that profits from the labor of the actual authors.
- geofft 8y ago
  Don't create new accounts to work around bans. However, since your question is one that comes up a lot (though, perhaps, only from your accounts), I'll answer it as if it's in good faith and not downvote / flag your comment. The Open Source Definition is not at all the opinion of OSI. It was taken word-for-word from the Debian Free Software Guidelines, with some minor editorial changes to make it more generic than just Debian. It has influenced the free software definition of other projects (the Ubuntu Licensing Policy, Fedora and Red Hat's list of approved licenses, etc.) The practical reason to care about the Open Source Definition is that you want your software to be in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, etc. Being able to install software as part of a distro, and having distro maintainers work with you on getting visibility for the software, is valuable, and you shouldn't give it up lightly. If you are going to give it up—which is a fine thing to do, there's lots of good non-open-source software in the world—why restrict yourself to a half-open-source license? Why not preserve your right to commercialize your software so you can profit from your labor as much as you want? Presumably you've decided that you will make more profit (or other benefit) from association with the concept of "open source," but that association only helps you if you actually satisfy the Open Source Definition.
  - captainbland 8y ago
    Well, it might also be that you actually want many people to be able to use, learn and understand your software freely but you also don't want your software to be installed on a military drone or used to enable a company that is working its employees to death. Not everything is profiteering and marketing.
    - geofft 8y ago
      That sounds great! But it's not open source. Debian, Fedora, etc. by policy do not want to prevent use of their software on military drones or by companies that work their employees to death. You will not convince them to change that policy. Therefore, you need to decide which of those two desires is more important to you: is it more valuable to have people be able to apt install / dnf install your software at the cost of letting it be usable by the military and exploitative employers? It's totally legitimate to decide no, I care more about restricting use of my software, so I'll make packages (or a curl | sh script, or whatever) available on my website and guide people to do that. By all means, go do that, if that's what you want to do. (If your'e actually considering doing this, I would like to try to convince you that a software license is the wrong tool for the job, here. But reasonable people can disagree on whether that's true.)
      - zzzcpan 8y ago
        Still open source, but I guess you think Debian, Fedora, etc. are willing to ignore a lot of new open source software with more restrictive licenses and sacrifice some or a lot of their user base in favor of more full featured distros. I don't think this is going to happen. They will change policies and accept the new world.
        geofft 8y ago
        I do strongly think that will not happen. Debian, for instance, constitutionally requires a 3-to-1 supermajority for a change to its "foundation documents," which include the Debian free software guidelines. The people who would have to vote on this are project members who have already pledged agreement with the existing free software guidelines. There are a lot of people who work on Debian precisely because they personally value the DFSG as it exists today. There have been a lot of attempts at sort-of-free-software-but-not-really licenses over time: see, for instance, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#NonFreeSof... . There has been a lot of important software previously released under such licenses, from JSON to code drops from Sun (Java), Microsoft (.NET), and Apple (Darwin). The Linux distros have not included them. Remember that Debian doesn't even ship the gcc man page in the default distribution because it doesn't believe the FSF's own license for that man page is free software. I don't see what is different about today that would make things change. There isn't actually that much new "open source" software under non-OSD-compliant/non-DFSG-compliant licenses. And most of it comes from software that was previously under a compliant license, so for instance Debian and Fedora maintainers have forked the most recent OSD-compliant release of the Redis modules: https://goodformcode.com https://goodformcode.com Remember that every new license - even a new free software license - has an uphill battle because if it's incompatible with existing licenses you can't link software under those licenses or incorporate code under those licenses. There is a strong natural pressure to move to a standard license (or set of mutually-compatible licenses like MIT/BSD/etc.), and we've seen OSD-compliant licenses that are fine but uncommon be dropped in favor of more common ones. That pressure applies much more strongly to code that tries to set itself out as "open source" and is incompatible with every open source license.
- vortico 8y ago
  >Why would anyone care about the opinion of OSI? Their opinion is not relevant. What is relevant is whether their definition of open-source (https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd) is close to the ideals of developers. And it suffices for me and many others. Your second sentence is nonsense.
  - xnn 8y ago
    > Your second sentence is nonsense. No it is not. But I see that you are a "founder" and thus profiting from my work. Your opinion is self-serving and meaningless.
    - vortico 8y ago
      Please use your main HN account. Temporary accounts for the purpose of hiding will continue to be banned.
fao_ 8y ago
Well of course, because open source is about ignoring the ability of software developers to do good in the world, their abilities to change things, so instead companies can make money off the backs of software developers who are almost always working for free in their spare time. All in the hope that a software developer might get hired to maintain a project that they thought up. The point of open source is to not be political, but that is an inane statement. Choosing to 'not be political', is itself a choice for the status quo. Choosing to 'not discriminate against any particular group, either positively or negatively' in a world where there is implicit, mostly-unspoken discrimination, is an implicit choice to continue that forward. So why should those values be something to aspire towards? The status quo is a world in which the majority of people are not being payed what they are worth, so the people doing the paying can further inflate their ridiculously large bank balances. I am probably the last person to quote MLK in common conversation, because a lot of his quotes have been misused or mispurposed to argue for something that he personally did not support. But, right now this one feels incredible pertinent: "" I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; ""
- geofft 8y ago
  Right, but MLK would not have identified himself as a "white moderate except ___," nor said "I like order, but also ___". His point was he had a different worldview from the white moderate, and tacking on to the white moderate would not have accomplished his goals. Open source is definitely political, but it's also a very specific political movement. There can be other political movements with other goals. The reasons that open source advocates dislike licenses with restrictions on use are not just "we don't want to be political" or "we don't want to rock the boat." Some have a moral/ethical opinion that you should not restrict use via copyright, usually that you should not be able to restrict use via copyright. Some have a pragmatic opinion that attempts to restrict use will lead to worse outcomes. The 996.ICU folks seem like they would be better served with their own movement that doesn't go by the name of "open source." We don't need to add that label to them.
zzzcpan 8y ago
It removes the status of OSI approved license if it used such license, because it becomes a different license, but it's still what people usually call open source. And it doesn't matter if you don't like the common meaning of open source, which has nothing to do with OSI's own definition.
- vortico 8y ago
  What bullet points does your "common meaning of open source" disagree with in https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd?
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    It's irrelevant if you don't want to recognize, that people usually don't use OSI's definition when they talk about "open source".
    - geofft 8y ago
      "People"? Most people I know do actually mean the OSD. Most of my friends do, and certainly all my employers that have had open-source processes do—I can't necessarily use that process to release code to a weird non-OSD-compliant license just because the source is visible under some conditions. (Also, "people" use the word "copyright" when they mean "trademark", and post "No copyright intended" on their YouTube video when they mean "no copyright infringement intended" and absolutely unequivocally are infringing copyright. The fact that some people don't know the meanings of words doesn't change whether the words have meanings.)
      - zzzcpan 8y ago
        You are assuming they do, but they likely don't. Counter example for this is SQLite. Almost everyone considers it open source, presumably even you. Lots of projects that embed it are considered open source. SQLite, however, is not OSI open source and none of the projects that embed it can be OSI open source either. And it's ok, because people generally don't think of open source as something with OSI approved licenses.
rqs 8y ago
> Note that this removes "open-source" status from the original license if it is open-source From what I can read, that's the plan. After all "open-source" or not is pointless when developers are on the bed inside of ICU :D
jes5199 8y ago
all open source licenses are “follow my principles” licenses. We’vr just had a monoculture of software principles for the last few decades.
- vortico 8y ago
  I disagree because the OSI definition explicitly states that the software must not limit groups of people of any kind from using the software, regardless of how evil they may be or whether they comply to whatever monoculture you speak of. That's the point. By writing open-source software, you are explicitly allowing people with completely opposite ideals to use, review, and derive the software. And that's the beauty of it.

xYTa 8y ago

Why would anyone care about a bunch of OSI apparatchiks? The people who talk loudest about Open Source always manage to get a position that profits from the labor of the actual authors.

wqedwed 8y ago

Why would anyone care about the opinion of OSI? The people who talk loudest about Open Source always manage to get a position that profits from the labor of the actual authors.

geofft 8y ago
Don't create new accounts to work around bans. However, since your question is one that comes up a lot (though, perhaps, only from your accounts), I'll answer it as if it's in good faith and not downvote / flag your comment. The Open Source Definition is not at all the opinion of OSI. It was taken word-for-word from the Debian Free Software Guidelines, with some minor editorial changes to make it more generic than just Debian. It has influenced the free software definition of other projects (the Ubuntu Licensing Policy, Fedora and Red Hat's list of approved licenses, etc.) The practical reason to care about the Open Source Definition is that you want your software to be in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, etc. Being able to install software as part of a distro, and having distro maintainers work with you on getting visibility for the software, is valuable, and you shouldn't give it up lightly. If you are going to give it up—which is a fine thing to do, there's lots of good non-open-source software in the world—why restrict yourself to a half-open-source license? Why not preserve your right to commercialize your software so you can profit from your labor as much as you want? Presumably you've decided that you will make more profit (or other benefit) from association with the concept of "open source," but that association only helps you if you actually satisfy the Open Source Definition.
- captainbland 8y ago
  Well, it might also be that you actually want many people to be able to use, learn and understand your software freely but you also don't want your software to be installed on a military drone or used to enable a company that is working its employees to death. Not everything is profiteering and marketing.
  - geofft 8y ago
    That sounds great! But it's not open source. Debian, Fedora, etc. by policy do not want to prevent use of their software on military drones or by companies that work their employees to death. You will not convince them to change that policy. Therefore, you need to decide which of those two desires is more important to you: is it more valuable to have people be able to apt install / dnf install your software at the cost of letting it be usable by the military and exploitative employers? It's totally legitimate to decide no, I care more about restricting use of my software, so I'll make packages (or a curl | sh script, or whatever) available on my website and guide people to do that. By all means, go do that, if that's what you want to do. (If your'e actually considering doing this, I would like to try to convince you that a software license is the wrong tool for the job, here. But reasonable people can disagree on whether that's true.)
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      Still open source, but I guess you think Debian, Fedora, etc. are willing to ignore a lot of new open source software with more restrictive licenses and sacrifice some or a lot of their user base in favor of more full featured distros. I don't think this is going to happen. They will change policies and accept the new world.
      - geofft 8y ago
        I do strongly think that will not happen. Debian, for instance, constitutionally requires a 3-to-1 supermajority for a change to its "foundation documents," which include the Debian free software guidelines. The people who would have to vote on this are project members who have already pledged agreement with the existing free software guidelines. There are a lot of people who work on Debian precisely because they personally value the DFSG as it exists today. There have been a lot of attempts at sort-of-free-software-but-not-really licenses over time: see, for instance, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicenses https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#NonFreeSof... . There has been a lot of important software previously released under such licenses, from JSON to code drops from Sun (Java), Microsoft (.NET), and Apple (Darwin). The Linux distros have not included them. Remember that Debian doesn't even ship the gcc man page in the default distribution because it doesn't believe the FSF's own license for that man page is free software. I don't see what is different about today that would make things change. There isn't actually that much new "open source" software under non-OSD-compliant/non-DFSG-compliant licenses. And most of it comes from software that was previously under a compliant license, so for instance Debian and Fedora maintainers have forked the most recent OSD-compliant release of the Redis modules: https://goodformcode.com https://goodformcode.com Remember that every new license - even a new free software license - has an uphill battle because if it's incompatible with existing licenses you can't link software under those licenses or incorporate code under those licenses. There is a strong natural pressure to move to a standard license (or set of mutually-compatible licenses like MIT/BSD/etc.), and we've seen OSD-compliant licenses that are fine but uncommon be dropped in favor of more common ones. That pressure applies much more strongly to code that tries to set itself out as "open source" and is incompatible with every open source license.
vortico 8y ago
>Why would anyone care about the opinion of OSI? Their opinion is not relevant. What is relevant is whether their definition of open-source (https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd) is close to the ideals of developers. And it suffices for me and many others. Your second sentence is nonsense.
- xnn 8y ago
  > Your second sentence is nonsense. No it is not. But I see that you are a "founder" and thus profiting from my work. Your opinion is self-serving and meaningless.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Please use your main HN account. Temporary accounts for the purpose of hiding will continue to be banned.

fao_ 8y ago

Well of course, because open source is about ignoring the ability of software developers to do good in the world, their abilities to change things, so instead companies can make money off the backs of software developers who are almost always working for free in their spare time. All in the hope that a software developer might get hired to maintain a project that they thought up. The point of open source is to not be political, but that is an inane statement. Choosing to 'not be political', is itself a choice for the status quo. Choosing to 'not discriminate against any particular group, either positively or negatively' in a world where there is implicit, mostly-unspoken discrimination, is an implicit choice to continue that forward. So why should those values be something to aspire towards? The status quo is a world in which the majority of people are not being payed what they are worth, so the people doing the paying can further inflate their ridiculously large bank balances. I am probably the last person to quote MLK in common conversation, because a lot of his quotes have been misused or mispurposed to argue for something that he personally did not support. But, right now this one feels incredible pertinent: "" I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; ""

geofft 8y ago
Right, but MLK would not have identified himself as a "white moderate except ___," nor said "I like order, but also ___". His point was he had a different worldview from the white moderate, and tacking on to the white moderate would not have accomplished his goals. Open source is definitely political, but it's also a very specific political movement. There can be other political movements with other goals. The reasons that open source advocates dislike licenses with restrictions on use are not just "we don't want to be political" or "we don't want to rock the boat." Some have a moral/ethical opinion that you should not restrict use via copyright, usually that you should not be able to restrict use via copyright. Some have a pragmatic opinion that attempts to restrict use will lead to worse outcomes. The 996.ICU folks seem like they would be better served with their own movement that doesn't go by the name of "open source." We don't need to add that label to them.

zzzcpan 8y ago

It removes the status of OSI approved license if it used such license, because it becomes a different license, but it's still what people usually call open source. And it doesn't matter if you don't like the common meaning of open source, which has nothing to do with OSI's own definition.

vortico 8y ago
What bullet points does your "common meaning of open source" disagree with in https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd?
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  It's irrelevant if you don't want to recognize, that people usually don't use OSI's definition when they talk about "open source".
  - geofft 8y ago
    "People"? Most people I know do actually mean the OSD. Most of my friends do, and certainly all my employers that have had open-source processes do—I can't necessarily use that process to release code to a weird non-OSD-compliant license just because the source is visible under some conditions. (Also, "people" use the word "copyright" when they mean "trademark", and post "No copyright intended" on their YouTube video when they mean "no copyright infringement intended" and absolutely unequivocally are infringing copyright. The fact that some people don't know the meanings of words doesn't change whether the words have meanings.)
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      You are assuming they do, but they likely don't. Counter example for this is SQLite. Almost everyone considers it open source, presumably even you. Lots of projects that embed it are considered open source. SQLite, however, is not OSI open source and none of the projects that embed it can be OSI open source either. And it's ok, because people generally don't think of open source as something with OSI approved licenses.

rqs 8y ago

> Note that this removes "open-source" status from the original license if it is open-source From what I can read, that's the plan. After all "open-source" or not is pointless when developers are on the bed inside of ICU :D

jes5199 8y ago

all open source licenses are “follow my principles” licenses. We’vr just had a monoculture of software principles for the last few decades.

vortico 8y ago
I disagree because the OSI definition explicitly states that the software must not limit groups of people of any kind from using the software, regardless of how evil they may be or whether they comply to whatever monoculture you speak of. That's the point. By writing open-source software, you are explicitly allowing people with completely opposite ideals to use, review, and derive the software. And that's the beauty of it.