5 ms·

If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and so on and I can sort of understand why he

If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and so on and I can sort of understand why he might not want that to happen.

slig 7y ago
Can't they use a more restricted license that prevents that?
- romantype 7y ago
  Which more restricted open source license would prevent that? There is none!
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    It can be done. If no license allows you to what you want, get your lawyer/s to draft one for you
    - gmueckl 7y ago
      Open source has a clear definition. The kind of license you want is not compatible with that. It would be a valid software license, but not open source.
      - garmaine 7y ago
        I think you are conflating “free software” with “open source.”
        gmueckl 7y ago
        No. See https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
        r-w 7y ago
        And who put them in charge? :P
        grepgeek 7y ago
        The community of free and open source software developers. Really, with the kind of license proliferation that was going on due to every Tom and Harry that wanted to publish their own license, it was difficult to understand which license was really safe to use and which wasn't. FSF and OSI stepped in to bring some sanity to this situation by categorizing all the free and open source licenses by their permissiveness and restrictions. The majority of the open source development community adopted these licenses. Any license that restricts making money would neither be considered a free license by FSF nor an open source license by OSI. The license could discourage making money without contributing back to the community and the GPL family of licenses do achieve that to some extent but they cannot outright restrict making money. The OSD has its roots in Debian Free Software Guidelines which for a long time has been the community standard for what guarantees free software must provide. FSF's four freedoms of free software are also similar. OSD adopted Debian's guidelines to create the open source definition. If a license does not allow us to run a software how we wish we lose freedom 0 to run the software how we wish. We lose the right to use the software for any field of endeavor. You might want to consider it "open source" because you can still see the source but widely accepted terms like "open source" do not get redefined so easily based on how some people feel about the term. The term's meaning still remains intact due to the meaning it holds for the vast majority of open source software developers.
      - tolmasky 7y ago
        "Open source unless you make more money than us" is what it sounds like, and might actually be worse than closed source.
    - frabcus 7y ago
      "Open source" is generally taken to mean follows the OSI's definition at https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd There are other terms for source which is available but proprietary, such as "shared source".
  - r-w 7y ago
    A license that makes source code available while restricting how it can be used: https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license
enriquto 7y ago
> If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and using an AGPL licence, there would be no danger for them!
- GordonS 7y ago
  There are ways around this. I quite like what TimescaleDB have done, with most features OSS, and the more advanced features are under an open source license that permits use for those building a product around it, but preventing TimescaleDB as a service.
  - babyloneleven 7y ago
    There is no open source license like that.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      TimescaleDB's TSL license is not "OSS", but it is open source. TimescaleDB has a good blog post about why they went this route[0] I do think that perhaps we need to stop being so snooty about OSS vs open source, and recognise that companies with open source products are allowed to make a profit while preventing the big cloud providers from scalping them. [0] https://blog.timescale.com/how-we-are-building-an-open-source-business-a7701516a480/ https://blog.timescale.com/how-we-are-building-an-open-sourc...
  - pabs3 7y ago
    A license like that discriminates against fields of endeavour (cloud companies), so it doesn't comply with the open source definition (item 6): https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
    - hoseja 7y ago
      Then maybe open source definition should update as new ways to exploit it have been found?
WorldMaker 7y ago
If Wolfram is correct in how game changing the Wolfram Language, Engine, et al are, then commoditizing it to the point that there is an "Azure Wolfram" stack and an "AWS Wolfram" stack may be vindication. (Maybe not very profitable vindication, but real bonafide "people are using it and happy with it" vindication.) Azure and AWS already have competing stacks to Wolfram, it is just various and sometimes incompatible hodgepodges of R, Python, Jupyter, and so on and so forth.
- discreteevent 7y ago
  There are a lot of poor quality open source packages in use. Some are just chaotic. But people still use them, often just keeping themselves much busier than they need to be. Of course there are a lot of high quality packages in use as well. So popularity does not correlate with quality (in many fields) If Wolfram open source their stuff and people use it, it won't necessarily be a vindication. At the moment they have people who are willing to part with cash to get what they make. That's a definite vindication for anyone who makes things.
r-w 7y ago
They’d have to use a license similar to MongoDB’s.

If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and so on and I can sort of understand why he might not want that to happen.

slig 7y ago

Can't they use a more restricted license that prevents that?

romantype 7y ago
Which more restricted open source license would prevent that? There is none!
- mhh__ 7y ago
  It can be done. If no license allows you to what you want, get your lawyer/s to draft one for you
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    Open source has a clear definition. The kind of license you want is not compatible with that. It would be a valid software license, but not open source.
    - garmaine 7y ago
      I think you are conflating “free software” with “open source.”
      - gmueckl 7y ago
        No. See https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
        r-w 7y ago
        And who put them in charge? :P
        grepgeek 7y ago
        The community of free and open source software developers. Really, with the kind of license proliferation that was going on due to every Tom and Harry that wanted to publish their own license, it was difficult to understand which license was really safe to use and which wasn't. FSF and OSI stepped in to bring some sanity to this situation by categorizing all the free and open source licenses by their permissiveness and restrictions. The majority of the open source development community adopted these licenses. Any license that restricts making money would neither be considered a free license by FSF nor an open source license by OSI. The license could discourage making money without contributing back to the community and the GPL family of licenses do achieve that to some extent but they cannot outright restrict making money. The OSD has its roots in Debian Free Software Guidelines which for a long time has been the community standard for what guarantees free software must provide. FSF's four freedoms of free software are also similar. OSD adopted Debian's guidelines to create the open source definition. If a license does not allow us to run a software how we wish we lose freedom 0 to run the software how we wish. We lose the right to use the software for any field of endeavor. You might want to consider it "open source" because you can still see the source but widely accepted terms like "open source" do not get redefined so easily based on how some people feel about the term. The term's meaning still remains intact due to the meaning it holds for the vast majority of open source software developers.
    - tolmasky 7y ago
      "Open source unless you make more money than us" is what it sounds like, and might actually be worse than closed source.
  - frabcus 7y ago
    "Open source" is generally taken to mean follows the OSI's definition at https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd There are other terms for source which is available but proprietary, such as "shared source".
- r-w 7y ago
  A license that makes source code available while restricting how it can be used: https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license

enriquto 7y ago

> If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and using an AGPL licence, there would be no danger for them!

GordonS 7y ago
There are ways around this. I quite like what TimescaleDB have done, with most features OSS, and the more advanced features are under an open source license that permits use for those building a product around it, but preventing TimescaleDB as a service.
- babyloneleven 7y ago
  There is no open source license like that.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    TimescaleDB's TSL license is not "OSS", but it is open source. TimescaleDB has a good blog post about why they went this route[0] I do think that perhaps we need to stop being so snooty about OSS vs open source, and recognise that companies with open source products are allowed to make a profit while preventing the big cloud providers from scalping them. [0] https://blog.timescale.com/how-we-are-building-an-open-source-business-a7701516a480/ https://blog.timescale.com/how-we-are-building-an-open-sourc...
- pabs3 7y ago
  A license like that discriminates against fields of endeavour (cloud companies), so it doesn't comply with the open source definition (item 6): https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - hoseja 7y ago
    Then maybe open source definition should update as new ways to exploit it have been found?

WorldMaker 7y ago

If Wolfram is correct in how game changing the Wolfram Language, Engine, et al are, then commoditizing it to the point that there is an "Azure Wolfram" stack and an "AWS Wolfram" stack may be vindication. (Maybe not very profitable vindication, but real bonafide "people are using it and happy with it" vindication.) Azure and AWS already have competing stacks to Wolfram, it is just various and sometimes incompatible hodgepodges of R, Python, Jupyter, and so on and so forth.

discreteevent 7y ago
There are a lot of poor quality open source packages in use. Some are just chaotic. But people still use them, often just keeping themselves much busier than they need to be. Of course there are a lot of high quality packages in use as well. So popularity does not correlate with quality (in many fields) If Wolfram open source their stuff and people use it, it won't necessarily be a vindication. At the moment they have people who are willing to part with cash to get what they make. That's a definite vindication for anyone who makes things.

r-w 7y ago

They’d have to use a license similar to MongoDB’s.