10 ms·

> "It hijacks open-source APIs and places them on top of its own proprietary solutions, thereby siphoning off customers from the open-source project to its own

> "It hijacks open-source APIs and places them on top of its own proprietary solutions, thereby siphoning off customers from the open-source project to its own proprietary solution, as it did with the MongoDB APIs." Basically, there is no such thing as an "Open Source API". APIs are not software, and we've already seen the damage that treating APIs as software (for copyright purposes) can do. The proper abstraction for APIs (and protocols, and file-formats, etc.) is the standard, which ideally admits the possibility of multiple interoperable implementations, both proprietary and open source (patents being the joker in the deck, unfortunately).

erik_seaberg 7y ago
This. If the only thing keeping customers on my platform is an incompatible API, what does that say about me as a vendor?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  That you’re not going hungry while one of the most valuable companies in the world doesn’t extract value from your work.
  - mwfunk 7y ago
    If someone gets into writing open source with the goal of making money off of it and gets pissed when others “extract value” from their work, that person never should have gotten into open source to begin with. In fact, for their own sake, they should probably get right the fuck out of open source pronto, because they are seriously missing all the points in spectacular fashion.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jeena 7y ago
      I don't agree. Open Source has always been about making money. What you might mean is Free Software, which is quite different from a philosophical point of view.
      - quickthrower2 7y ago
        Open source isn’t particularly about making money. The making money is orthogonal and potentially harder if the source is available with a permissive license. Free software is about freedom of the user to make copies and distribute the source code and again money is orthogonal. But I think in practice both open source and free software are hard to monitise. Often the open source software is a marketing platform for a managed service ala “we made it were the experts let us host it for you”
        jeena 7y ago
        I still disagree, open source from the start was designed with companies (and it's developers) in mind and companies are particularly about making money. It's about the underlying values, open source is about making development easier, cheaper, etc. Btw. I'm not comparing open- vs. closed-source but open-source-software vs. free-software.
        quickthrower2 7y ago
        I haven't read up on the origins of OSS, so I can't really comment on why it was designed. I will at some point read up on it more. I agree Open Source & Non-Free (as per R.M.S.) would be much more commercially useful than Free in a lot of circumstances, because if I pay $1000 for some Free as in Speech software I can then go and sell it to your competitors for $10. The only way I can think that this is not business-destroying if said software is so tricky to set up that it only makes sense to buy it from the original vendor who will set it up for you in the price - in which case that probably breaks the spirit of free software.
      - wolco 7y ago
        Open source has been about protecting open software going forward.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
  That you are not Microsoft? How is this any different from vendor lock in?
- treis 7y ago
  A well thought out API is a valuable thing and there's no shame in that being your competitive advantage.
jchw 7y ago
It's certainly an interesting point of view. Take something that's commercial, for example, like Microsoft's docx format. If Open Office/Libre Office implements support for docx, is it hijacking proprietary formats, and siphoning customers off of proprietary projects? (edit: as it has been pointed out, .docx is a bad example, because it was standardized, but the point stands, I believe.) I hate that this stuff hits HN front page. It worries me that we're developing a culture where I as an individual must adhere to some moral framework when writing code, lest I violate some social open source norms. To me, this is deeply poisonous to the spirit of open source.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago
  .docx (Office Open XML) isn't propertiary, it's an open standard.
  - jchw 7y ago
    True, that was a bad example, but honestly it's irrelevant. Same point could be made about .doc when it was reversed back when. I thought there was even a court case about someone reverse engineering .doc a while back, but I can't find it right now.
  - Nursie 7y ago
    It's a bad open standard though - microsoft basically stacked ISO to push it through.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > It worries me that we're developing a culture where I as an individual must adhere to some moral framework when writing code, lest I violate some social open source norms. To me, this is deeply poisonous to the spirit of open source. Every culture or community has norms, and many of those norms generalize to universal moral principles, like: participate fairly in a community, not exploit it. "Spirit of Open Source" isn't something defined entirely in the phrase of "open source". It's an idea that gets defeated by actions of some larger players today, hence the outrage (and an opportunity to remind people yet again, that RMS was right about this).
Too 7y ago
The API situation is interesting because they allow using MongoDB inside your application as a backend [1]. So what happens if you make a wrapper for the API and distribute your wrapped API as a service? How thick does that wrapper have to be before it is considered a different application. To take the most extreme example, what if i just rename find() to query() making it no longer a "MongoDB Service" but a "AmazongoDB service"? [1] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license/faq#mdb3 https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...
- webmaven 7y ago
  I'm reasonably certain that a lawyer (that is: your lawyer) would tell you not to do that, since it would be pretty obvious that the wrapper is only being used in an attempt to evade the terms of the license.

erik_seaberg 7y ago

This. If the only thing keeping customers on my platform is an incompatible API, what does that say about me as a vendor?

toomuchtodo 7y ago
That you’re not going hungry while one of the most valuable companies in the world doesn’t extract value from your work.
- mwfunk 7y ago
  If someone gets into writing open source with the goal of making money off of it and gets pissed when others “extract value” from their work, that person never should have gotten into open source to begin with. In fact, for their own sake, they should probably get right the fuck out of open source pronto, because they are seriously missing all the points in spectacular fashion.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jeena 7y ago
    I don't agree. Open Source has always been about making money. What you might mean is Free Software, which is quite different from a philosophical point of view.
    - quickthrower2 7y ago
      Open source isn’t particularly about making money. The making money is orthogonal and potentially harder if the source is available with a permissive license. Free software is about freedom of the user to make copies and distribute the source code and again money is orthogonal. But I think in practice both open source and free software are hard to monitise. Often the open source software is a marketing platform for a managed service ala “we made it were the experts let us host it for you”
      - jeena 7y ago
        I still disagree, open source from the start was designed with companies (and it's developers) in mind and companies are particularly about making money. It's about the underlying values, open source is about making development easier, cheaper, etc. Btw. I'm not comparing open- vs. closed-source but open-source-software vs. free-software.
        quickthrower2 7y ago
        I haven't read up on the origins of OSS, so I can't really comment on why it was designed. I will at some point read up on it more. I agree Open Source & Non-Free (as per R.M.S.) would be much more commercially useful than Free in a lot of circumstances, because if I pay $1000 for some Free as in Speech software I can then go and sell it to your competitors for $10. The only way I can think that this is not business-destroying if said software is so tricky to set up that it only makes sense to buy it from the original vendor who will set it up for you in the price - in which case that probably breaks the spirit of free software.
    - wolco 7y ago
      Open source has been about protecting open software going forward.
kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
That you are not Microsoft? How is this any different from vendor lock in?
treis 7y ago
A well thought out API is a valuable thing and there's no shame in that being your competitive advantage.

jchw 7y ago

It's certainly an interesting point of view. Take something that's commercial, for example, like Microsoft's docx format. If Open Office/Libre Office implements support for docx, is it hijacking proprietary formats, and siphoning customers off of proprietary projects? (edit: as it has been pointed out, .docx is a bad example, because it was standardized, but the point stands, I believe.) I hate that this stuff hits HN front page. It worries me that we're developing a culture where I as an individual must adhere to some moral framework when writing code, lest I violate some social open source norms. To me, this is deeply poisonous to the spirit of open source.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 7y ago
.docx (Office Open XML) isn't propertiary, it's an open standard.
- jchw 7y ago
  True, that was a bad example, but honestly it's irrelevant. Same point could be made about .doc when it was reversed back when. I thought there was even a court case about someone reverse engineering .doc a while back, but I can't find it right now.
- Nursie 7y ago
  It's a bad open standard though - microsoft basically stacked ISO to push it through.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> It worries me that we're developing a culture where I as an individual must adhere to some moral framework when writing code, lest I violate some social open source norms. To me, this is deeply poisonous to the spirit of open source. Every culture or community has norms, and many of those norms generalize to universal moral principles, like: participate fairly in a community, not exploit it. "Spirit of Open Source" isn't something defined entirely in the phrase of "open source". It's an idea that gets defeated by actions of some larger players today, hence the outrage (and an opportunity to remind people yet again, that RMS was right about this).

Too 7y ago

The API situation is interesting because they allow using MongoDB inside your application as a backend [1]. So what happens if you make a wrapper for the API and distribute your wrapped API as a service? How thick does that wrapper have to be before it is considered a different application. To take the most extreme example, what if i just rename find() to query() making it no longer a "MongoDB Service" but a "AmazongoDB service"? [1] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license/faq#mdb3 https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...

webmaven 7y ago
I'm reasonably certain that a lawyer (that is: your lawyer) would tell you not to do that, since it would be pretty obvious that the wrapper is only being used in an attempt to evade the terms of the license.