8 ms·

Open-source companies gather to gripe: Cloud giants sell our code as a service

84 points by zerop 7y ago

pnako 7y ago
In the 80s, Bill Gates and others figured out that hardware was a commodity and most of the value is actually in the software. It's possible we're seeing a reversal of that trend; like we're seeing the trend of a distributed/decentralized Internet increasingly look like a single big computer run by Cloudflare, Google and a few others; Minitel 2.0.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  The big difference now is computing power and resources. Everyone can connect to your cluster of machines and you can sell them access for a sweet profit. Back then there was no cloud computing. You just had bare metal to host off of or some shared hosting.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  Right now you have a bunch of companies in the top 10 that see software as a commodity they either give away for free or keep entirely to themselves and do not sell directly: Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and to a degree Amazon (AWS) and even Microsoft. Apple makes money on Hardware, followed by services (incl the App Store). The software that people actually run they give away (mostly), like macOS, iOS, productivity apps bundled with their OSes, XCode, etc. Alphabet makes a living mostly off of services (mostly ad brokerage, some cloud stuff too) and gives away a lot of software (such as Android, the Play* apps and other google apps), but rarely sells "old school"/non-subscription software licenses. Facebook? They do not sell software either, they sell services (ad brokerage). They give away a lot of software, be it their apps you can install (Facebook, Messenger, WhatApp, Instagram) or their open source low-level stuff. Amazon AWS sells services. The actual software they run is an implementation detail. Even core Amazon moved a lot from selling actual goods as a retailer to being a "marketplace" service platform for other retailers. And with Prime Video and Music, they carved out their place in the subscriptions space too. They also sell some hardware too (Echo, Fire, Kindle), tho mostly not to make a ton of money directly off of it but bolster their other products. Microsoft wants in on the services thing too, gave away a ton of Win10 licenses to make sure the network effect isn't compromised, and started entering the services/subscriptions market more aggressively with things like Xbox Live (the actual console bordering on being a loss leader) and Office 365, and to a degree the Microsoft Store, tho not particularly successful so far. Even Oracle desperately wants in on the services/cloud thing for a long time. Netflix is subscriptions. The software again is an implementation detail. Samsung sells hardware and to a degree services and subscriptions, but gives away their software. Adobe is all about subscriptions too. Red Hat? Subscriptions and services. Their new parent IBM? Subscriptions, services and hardware. There is hardly any major player left that actually sells you software like Microsoft did. Those who sell software usually sell you subscriptions not the software itself.
sokoloff 7y ago
To give an idea of the balanced nature of the article, I've pulled a few select quotes: "the peril of cloud-provider parasitism", "open-source code cobblers – Confluent, Elastic, MongoDB, Neo4J, and Redis Labs", "ward off predatory cloud titans".
- andreareina 7y ago
  "Biting the hand that feeds IT" indeed. The style is typical of The Register, which doesn't claim any sort of neutrality.
amos19870630 7y ago
I believe in Free Software, but I also believe if software is being used to turn a profit, there should be a cost to that.
- yonixw 7y ago
  They charge mainly for maintenance and support, not just reselling the same code. So what is exactly your case?
- danShumway 7y ago
  To me this comes off the same way as someone saying, "I believe in DRM free media, but I also believe that if someone tries to send an MP3 to their friend, their computer should stop them." What do you mean by Free Software if not, 'users can use it for anything'?
- jchook 7y ago
  I have seen many OSS projects that enforce exactly this. One example that comes to mind, HighCharts.js — free until you make any money. https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/ https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    That's not Free Software.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    It's not "free software" or "open source". It's proprietary software that's source available. If that's what you want to write or use, great.
- knorker 7y ago
  That's like saying you support Free Speech, but only for things you agree with. In other words it's the complete opposite.
  - prepend 7y ago
prepend 7y ago
I remember in the 90s IBM started packaging and selling Apache web server. Some of my colleagues thought this was bad. But I went to ApacheCon and they were totally cool with it. There was a good talk, I think by Jim Jajielski, explaining that the purpose of the Apache license is to allow this. I don’t get these articles because it seems like “duh, that’s the point.” Either the press is stupid, or the companies are acting in bad faith, or the founders didn’t understand OSS, or something because cloud giants are doing nothing wrong. It’s permissible under the license of the named software. It’s like complaining that Apple and Google sell phones with Unix stuff in there without licensing it. There’s no requirement to pay and no expectation. Separately weird is that these cloud giants make tons of contributions to open source.
- cxr 7y ago
  From [1]: > People throw around the phrase "cognitive dissonance" lot, too loosely probably. But BSD folks who constantly tout the virtues of their license for the things that it allows downstream developers to do and then complain when someone actually exercises those options are the single best real world example of cognitive dissonance that I've ever encountered. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12618977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12618977 Or to put it in meme format. Copyleft: ∗exists∗ Developers: ptui, MIT all the way Cloud giants: oh hey, nice code Developers: wait stahp
  - znpy 7y ago
    this is the cleanest explaination to all that's going on right now. The harsh truth is that Stallman had seen it right all along, and adviced us on time about what to do. Yet not all of us listened, many gave in into non-completely-free licenses, and here we are now.
    - thomascgalvin 7y ago
      There are a lot of issues with Stallman, but when it comes to software freedom, the guy has been more right, more consistently, than anyone else. The fact that he advocated for "GPL Vx, or any later version" shows how much foresight he had; he even realized that he probably hadn't foreseen every issue, and included a mechanism for fixing it, and rolling out that patch more or less automatically.
tmikaeld 7y ago
I don't see a problem with the current model.. If open source projects change their licensing to force paying for business use and the cloud giants doesn't want to pay, the cloud giant could afford forking the project and make their own version. This could lead to the original project being unmaintained and the new fork becoming the standard, if that happens and given enough time, the cloud giant can make software patents on the changes they've committed and change the license of that code/features. Making it even harder to create something similar or even something new with the same features.
- jsty 7y ago
  > the cloud giant can make software patents on the changes they've committed and change the license of that code/features If you choose a license with a patent grant (e.g. Apache), wouldn't this be fairly difficult to pull off? To re-license they'd have to re-write all the original contributions or create a separate project with the 'patent-encumbered' code under a different license without a grant, on which the main project depended.
  - tmikaeld 7y ago
    That's just it, a project can be dual licensed, which is not so uncommon. A business license + open source license, often called cripple-ware, they make the system quite useless without a GUI or management tool for example.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      I might be missing something, but I'm not following the "that's just it". A third party contributor (say AWS) can't take a single-licensed Apache project and decide to dual-license it.
      - JetSpiegel 7y ago
        The original developer can dual license and force Amazon to contribute (either in cash, or in code).
hannob 7y ago
Look, this all comes down to a simple thing: If you do Open Source you get Open Source - with all the up- and downsides this may mean for you. Upsides include that you may get community contributions (though that's not a given) and that many people will like your software more because they prefer Open Source. Downsides include that you can't force any user of your software to pay you. What you can't have is all the upsides without the downsides. Sorry.
yonixw 7y ago
Sometimes I want to pay someone else to handle everything (Upgrades, Security patches, Bugs etc.) While no one stopping me from buying a VM and doing it myself. So what's the problem?
marknadal 7y ago
STOP IT! Open Core is freaking not Open Source. The article states many companies have moved AWAY from open source to "source available". I will proudly die on this hill, to defend true Open Source, we give away our database tech used by 8M users (across non-profits, community ops, and for-profit startups) in production for free (https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun). This complaining has got to stop. Go freaking license your code as (A)GPL and join Richard Stallman's ideology if you don't like companies using your tech. Or be brave enough to charge proprietary license, but if you do, stop your "we're Open Source" marketing pretense. Such hypocrites.
- munmaek 7y ago
  Everyone likes benefiting from Open Source until someone runs with their work and makes a profit. My take from all of this is that people have no idea what they're doing when they license their work as Open Source. The go-to process currently is to slap on the MIT license, call it a day, and then forget about it until they find out someone is massively profiting from it.
gregwebs 7y ago
This is a horrible article. I don't think the reporter was at the conference. I was on Thursday. There was one talk with this complaint (speaker mentioned in the article) and everything else was just discussing open source business in pragmatic ways without lamenting cloud provider behavior.
- travisoliphant 7y ago
  I was also there on Thursday and agree. The talks were actually observing that cloud giants do alter the business landscape for open-source, but there are always innovations and possibilities. There were one or two talks on alternative licensing schemes, but the most interesting talks to me were alternative virtuous cycles that are available for supporting open-source while allowing any company to benefit.
rohittidke 7y ago
Its very good this topic is coming up. Fortune 100 companies pay a lot of money for these services, a classic example is Azure Search, which is using ElasticSearch. I wonder how the ElasticSearch community or the founder is benefited. I am curious to know. Also AWS sells a dozen of open source project as services.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  I found this interesting when trying to google if MS is contributing patches to ES. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elasticsearch-and-critics-say-its-kneecapping-competitors/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elas... It's about the drama around AWS and ES.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  There's a really simple solution to the problem of people you don't like using stuff you give them: don't give it to them. Use AGPL, or add a viral exclusion for any company with a $10B market cap or whatever you want.
baybal2 7y ago
I remember, not so few server software devs like that of mongo were categorically against projects switching to AGPL few years ago because of fears of this preventing them selling their stuff in SaaS format. Well, now their software is being turned into SaaS, except not by them, but by Amazon
fortran77 7y ago
You give away your software without too many constraints, and you should expect this.
Zelphyr 7y ago
I don't understand where this sentiment is coming from lately? All of a sudden there are people who seem shocked that corporations are profiting off of Open Source software, even though nobody in the community has ever had a problem with it.
- thomascgalvin 7y ago
  I would argue that in many cases, they aren't even making money off of open source directly. Like, people aren't paying Amazon for MongoDB, they're paying someone for the infrastructure necessary to run MongoDB.
  - benologist 7y ago
    They need many millions of lines of open source just to serve a html page... from kernel to Firefox and every bit of hardware between. Take away the open source and they need billions in proprietary software licenses. Take away the open source and Facebook didn't get written with PHP and MySQL. Take away the open source and Amazon has to license Oracle and MSSQL and Windows instead of profiting off MongoDB and PostgreSQL. Amazon are still actively migrating away from Oracle because it "doesn't scale", what they mean is proprietary software bills per CPU core or server so it scales proportionately to Amazon's own profits. This is just one way FAANG leverages open source to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in their own operations. Google forked MySQL for their advertising empire instead of licensing MSSQL or Oracle. I do not believe you could even count the full extent they are dependent on open source without ripping it all out and watching them crumble. What's it worth to FB when every job candidate is highly proficient in React? Without open source culture driving self-education, without open source community in place to embrace React, React needs a 2 - 3 month training course for all newly-hired engineers!
    - Zelphyr 7y ago
      This is true. Amazon needs tons of code just to get to the point of being able to even run Apache or nginx at all, and all that code written by contributors for free. So is your argument that all of those developers, or, at least the Open Source projects should be compensated by Amazon for that effort? If so, then that suggests that Apache and nginx owe something to Linux, GNU, etc... as well. Sure, either can be run on alternative platforms but, let's be honest; they're usually run on Linux. One might even argue that neither Apache or nginx would exist had Linus not made Linux Open Source. You bring up React. What's it worth to Facebook for all those engineers proficient in React? Well, React was created by developers who work/worked for Facebook so it seems to me the question is really, what's it worth all of us who might use React? Facebook sponsored it and has easily spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on engineer salaries, equipment for them, office space, etc... By your logic, all the developers not working for Facebook who use React should compensate Facebook for their generosity. See how absurd this starts to become? This is all a false dichotomy. To suggest these companies owe the open source community is wrong. No open source developer I've ever met (and I've been in this community for over 20 years) has EVER said they expected some kind of compensation. That's not what Open Source is about.
nqzero 7y ago
I've taken a cut at a license that attempts to address monetization while preserving what I see as the underlying strengths of Open Source - reducing the risks of collaboration and adoption: https://github.com/db4j/PUPL https://github.com/db4j/PUPL It requires paying for usage above a level, but is symmetric and permissive and makes future costs predictable, ie prevents the copyright owner from pulling the rug out from underneath you after you've adopted it. The software that I intended this license for never gained traction (so completely that no-one ever told me "i'd try it out if it was open source") so it's untested. But if a popular software used this license, would you be willing to use it or contribute to it ?
- runako 7y ago
  The gist of that license seems to be: - you can use this software for free at home for personal use - if you use it at work, you can try it out for free but you have to pay to really use it - we welcome your code submissions, which will hopefully grow our license revenue I feel like there are already licenses out there that hit these major points. If I ran across software that used this license, I would recommend they use one of the other popular licenses or just dual-license. In general, I want licenses to be written and vetted by lawyers.
  - human20190310 7y ago
    > In general, I want licenses to be written and vetted by lawyers. I want them to be so standardized that I don't have to read them. If the license doesn't match something I already know, I'd be reluctant to include the code in any of my projects.
    - nqzero 7y ago
      yes, i totally agree - as much as i like the terms of my license, if i came across an interesting software that used the license, i probably wouldn't try it out just because the cost of understanding any new license is too high. i've more or less given up on the software that I intended the license for, but i mention license here in the hopes that one of these open-core companies will create, vet and popularize a license with similar assurances
chiefalchemist 7y ago
Would it be possible to have licensea based on usage. I believe the image (photography) sites do this, and prices reflect it. That said, perhaps the industry needs an ethical framework similar to tithing? While I understand these software publishers are upset, no one involved has done anything wrong. Big companies taking advantage of free software can't be a surprise.
jitendrac 7y ago
That is totally absurd argument, those cloud or industry giants are not taking any extra privileges, they have explicit permission to use those software. In fact, they are the major adapters who boosts development and contribution to eco-system. They actively motivate their employees to improve the software and publicly contribute who are mostly the major contributors. Big companies are not bound by these software, they can re-invent their own wheel if needed. They are the one who opensources major new technology without thinking about the profit for example. Anguler.js, React, Hiphop, Mysql etc. Edit: If you really feel uncomfortable, you can release your software with GNU AGPL, That would be tit-for-tat in your way.
benologist 7y ago
I think you can look at FAANG almost as the commercial arm of open source, it's not necessarily bad that they are the best at monetizing open source and increasingly specialized in doing so. It's only bad when they are greedy and keep all of that money, dodge taxes globally and strip benefits from all the employees they can. This is like the "billionaires can be philanthropists" problem... they overwhelmingly prefer not to so it is vastly less efficient to rely on their philanthropy individually vs a tax collected from all of them. FAANG have the funds and the expertise monetizing open source to carry the entire open source community many times over, but they will hit a combined trillion dollars in savings before that happens. They will dodge hundreds of billions more in taxes before fueling the open source fire that furthers technology and feeds them recruits, ideas and software. I've heard it argued that they do pay it forward through their own open source contributions. I think this is more accurately called paying it sideways if anything. They get legal tender fit for any purpose, and what proportionately little code they give back is not legal tender for any purpose.

84 points by zerop 7y ago

In the 80s, Bill Gates and others figured out that hardware was a commodity and most of the value is actually in the software. It's possible we're seeing a reversal of that trend; like we're seeing the trend of a distributed/decentralized Internet increasingly look like a single big computer run by Cloudflare, Google and a few others; Minitel 2.0.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
The big difference now is computing power and resources. Everyone can connect to your cluster of machines and you can sell them access for a sweet profit. Back then there was no cloud computing. You just had bare metal to host off of or some shared hosting.
rndgermandude 7y ago
Right now you have a bunch of companies in the top 10 that see software as a commodity they either give away for free or keep entirely to themselves and do not sell directly: Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and to a degree Amazon (AWS) and even Microsoft. Apple makes money on Hardware, followed by services (incl the App Store). The software that people actually run they give away (mostly), like macOS, iOS, productivity apps bundled with their OSes, XCode, etc. Alphabet makes a living mostly off of services (mostly ad brokerage, some cloud stuff too) and gives away a lot of software (such as Android, the Play* apps and other google apps), but rarely sells "old school"/non-subscription software licenses. Facebook? They do not sell software either, they sell services (ad brokerage). They give away a lot of software, be it their apps you can install (Facebook, Messenger, WhatApp, Instagram) or their open source low-level stuff. Amazon AWS sells services. The actual software they run is an implementation detail. Even core Amazon moved a lot from selling actual goods as a retailer to being a "marketplace" service platform for other retailers. And with Prime Video and Music, they carved out their place in the subscriptions space too. They also sell some hardware too (Echo, Fire, Kindle), tho mostly not to make a ton of money directly off of it but bolster their other products. Microsoft wants in on the services thing too, gave away a ton of Win10 licenses to make sure the network effect isn't compromised, and started entering the services/subscriptions market more aggressively with things like Xbox Live (the actual console bordering on being a loss leader) and Office 365, and to a degree the Microsoft Store, tho not particularly successful so far. Even Oracle desperately wants in on the services/cloud thing for a long time. Netflix is subscriptions. The software again is an implementation detail. Samsung sells hardware and to a degree services and subscriptions, but gives away their software. Adobe is all about subscriptions too. Red Hat? Subscriptions and services. Their new parent IBM? Subscriptions, services and hardware. There is hardly any major player left that actually sells you software like Microsoft did. Those who sell software usually sell you subscriptions not the software itself.

sokoloff 7y ago

To give an idea of the balanced nature of the article, I've pulled a few select quotes: "the peril of cloud-provider parasitism", "open-source code cobblers – Confluent, Elastic, MongoDB, Neo4J, and Redis Labs", "ward off predatory cloud titans".

andreareina 7y ago
"Biting the hand that feeds IT" indeed. The style is typical of The Register, which doesn't claim any sort of neutrality.

amos19870630 7y ago

I believe in Free Software, but I also believe if software is being used to turn a profit, there should be a cost to that.

yonixw 7y ago
They charge mainly for maintenance and support, not just reselling the same code. So what is exactly your case?
danShumway 7y ago
To me this comes off the same way as someone saying, "I believe in DRM free media, but I also believe that if someone tries to send an MP3 to their friend, their computer should stop them." What do you mean by Free Software if not, 'users can use it for anything'?
jchook 7y ago
I have seen many OSS projects that enforce exactly this. One example that comes to mind, HighCharts.js — free until you make any money. https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/ https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/
- lonelappde 7y ago
  That's not Free Software.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  It's not "free software" or "open source". It's proprietary software that's source available. If that's what you want to write or use, great.
knorker 7y ago
That's like saying you support Free Speech, but only for things you agree with. In other words it's the complete opposite.
- prepend 7y ago

prepend 7y ago

I remember in the 90s IBM started packaging and selling Apache web server. Some of my colleagues thought this was bad. But I went to ApacheCon and they were totally cool with it. There was a good talk, I think by Jim Jajielski, explaining that the purpose of the Apache license is to allow this. I don’t get these articles because it seems like “duh, that’s the point.” Either the press is stupid, or the companies are acting in bad faith, or the founders didn’t understand OSS, or something because cloud giants are doing nothing wrong. It’s permissible under the license of the named software. It’s like complaining that Apple and Google sell phones with Unix stuff in there without licensing it. There’s no requirement to pay and no expectation. Separately weird is that these cloud giants make tons of contributions to open source.

cxr 7y ago
From [1]: > People throw around the phrase "cognitive dissonance" lot, too loosely probably. But BSD folks who constantly tout the virtues of their license for the things that it allows downstream developers to do and then complain when someone actually exercises those options are the single best real world example of cognitive dissonance that I've ever encountered. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12618977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12618977 Or to put it in meme format. Copyleft: ∗exists∗ Developers: ptui, MIT all the way Cloud giants: oh hey, nice code Developers: wait stahp
- znpy 7y ago
  this is the cleanest explaination to all that's going on right now. The harsh truth is that Stallman had seen it right all along, and adviced us on time about what to do. Yet not all of us listened, many gave in into non-completely-free licenses, and here we are now.
  - thomascgalvin 7y ago
    There are a lot of issues with Stallman, but when it comes to software freedom, the guy has been more right, more consistently, than anyone else. The fact that he advocated for "GPL Vx, or any later version" shows how much foresight he had; he even realized that he probably hadn't foreseen every issue, and included a mechanism for fixing it, and rolling out that patch more or less automatically.

tmikaeld 7y ago

I don't see a problem with the current model.. If open source projects change their licensing to force paying for business use and the cloud giants doesn't want to pay, the cloud giant could afford forking the project and make their own version. This could lead to the original project being unmaintained and the new fork becoming the standard, if that happens and given enough time, the cloud giant can make software patents on the changes they've committed and change the license of that code/features. Making it even harder to create something similar or even something new with the same features.

jsty 7y ago
> the cloud giant can make software patents on the changes they've committed and change the license of that code/features If you choose a license with a patent grant (e.g. Apache), wouldn't this be fairly difficult to pull off? To re-license they'd have to re-write all the original contributions or create a separate project with the 'patent-encumbered' code under a different license without a grant, on which the main project depended.
- tmikaeld 7y ago
  That's just it, a project can be dual licensed, which is not so uncommon. A business license + open source license, often called cripple-ware, they make the system quite useless without a GUI or management tool for example.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I might be missing something, but I'm not following the "that's just it". A third party contributor (say AWS) can't take a single-licensed Apache project and decide to dual-license it.
    - JetSpiegel 7y ago
      The original developer can dual license and force Amazon to contribute (either in cash, or in code).

hannob 7y ago

Look, this all comes down to a simple thing: If you do Open Source you get Open Source - with all the up- and downsides this may mean for you. Upsides include that you may get community contributions (though that's not a given) and that many people will like your software more because they prefer Open Source. Downsides include that you can't force any user of your software to pay you. What you can't have is all the upsides without the downsides. Sorry.

yonixw 7y ago

Sometimes I want to pay someone else to handle everything (Upgrades, Security patches, Bugs etc.) While no one stopping me from buying a VM and doing it myself. So what's the problem?

marknadal 7y ago

STOP IT! Open Core is freaking not Open Source. The article states many companies have moved AWAY from open source to "source available". I will proudly die on this hill, to defend true Open Source, we give away our database tech used by 8M users (across non-profits, community ops, and for-profit startups) in production for free (https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun). This complaining has got to stop. Go freaking license your code as (A)GPL and join Richard Stallman's ideology if you don't like companies using your tech. Or be brave enough to charge proprietary license, but if you do, stop your "we're Open Source" marketing pretense. Such hypocrites.

munmaek 7y ago
Everyone likes benefiting from Open Source until someone runs with their work and makes a profit. My take from all of this is that people have no idea what they're doing when they license their work as Open Source. The go-to process currently is to slap on the MIT license, call it a day, and then forget about it until they find out someone is massively profiting from it.

gregwebs 7y ago

This is a horrible article. I don't think the reporter was at the conference. I was on Thursday. There was one talk with this complaint (speaker mentioned in the article) and everything else was just discussing open source business in pragmatic ways without lamenting cloud provider behavior.

travisoliphant 7y ago
I was also there on Thursday and agree. The talks were actually observing that cloud giants do alter the business landscape for open-source, but there are always innovations and possibilities. There were one or two talks on alternative licensing schemes, but the most interesting talks to me were alternative virtuous cycles that are available for supporting open-source while allowing any company to benefit.

rohittidke 7y ago

Its very good this topic is coming up. Fortune 100 companies pay a lot of money for these services, a classic example is Azure Search, which is using ElasticSearch. I wonder how the ElasticSearch community or the founder is benefited. I am curious to know. Also AWS sells a dozen of open source project as services.

EdwardDiego 7y ago
I found this interesting when trying to google if MS is contributing patches to ES. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elasticsearch-and-critics-say-its-kneecapping-competitors/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elas... It's about the drama around AWS and ES.
lonelappde 7y ago
There's a really simple solution to the problem of people you don't like using stuff you give them: don't give it to them. Use AGPL, or add a viral exclusion for any company with a $10B market cap or whatever you want.

baybal2 7y ago

I remember, not so few server software devs like that of mongo were categorically against projects switching to AGPL few years ago because of fears of this preventing them selling their stuff in SaaS format. Well, now their software is being turned into SaaS, except not by them, but by Amazon

fortran77 7y ago

You give away your software without too many constraints, and you should expect this.

Zelphyr 7y ago

I don't understand where this sentiment is coming from lately? All of a sudden there are people who seem shocked that corporations are profiting off of Open Source software, even though nobody in the community has ever had a problem with it.

thomascgalvin 7y ago
I would argue that in many cases, they aren't even making money off of open source directly. Like, people aren't paying Amazon for MongoDB, they're paying someone for the infrastructure necessary to run MongoDB.
- benologist 7y ago
  They need many millions of lines of open source just to serve a html page... from kernel to Firefox and every bit of hardware between. Take away the open source and they need billions in proprietary software licenses. Take away the open source and Facebook didn't get written with PHP and MySQL. Take away the open source and Amazon has to license Oracle and MSSQL and Windows instead of profiting off MongoDB and PostgreSQL. Amazon are still actively migrating away from Oracle because it "doesn't scale", what they mean is proprietary software bills per CPU core or server so it scales proportionately to Amazon's own profits. This is just one way FAANG leverages open source to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in their own operations. Google forked MySQL for their advertising empire instead of licensing MSSQL or Oracle. I do not believe you could even count the full extent they are dependent on open source without ripping it all out and watching them crumble. What's it worth to FB when every job candidate is highly proficient in React? Without open source culture driving self-education, without open source community in place to embrace React, React needs a 2 - 3 month training course for all newly-hired engineers!
  - Zelphyr 7y ago
    This is true. Amazon needs tons of code just to get to the point of being able to even run Apache or nginx at all, and all that code written by contributors for free. So is your argument that all of those developers, or, at least the Open Source projects should be compensated by Amazon for that effort? If so, then that suggests that Apache and nginx owe something to Linux, GNU, etc... as well. Sure, either can be run on alternative platforms but, let's be honest; they're usually run on Linux. One might even argue that neither Apache or nginx would exist had Linus not made Linux Open Source. You bring up React. What's it worth to Facebook for all those engineers proficient in React? Well, React was created by developers who work/worked for Facebook so it seems to me the question is really, what's it worth all of us who might use React? Facebook sponsored it and has easily spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on engineer salaries, equipment for them, office space, etc... By your logic, all the developers not working for Facebook who use React should compensate Facebook for their generosity. See how absurd this starts to become? This is all a false dichotomy. To suggest these companies owe the open source community is wrong. No open source developer I've ever met (and I've been in this community for over 20 years) has EVER said they expected some kind of compensation. That's not what Open Source is about.

nqzero 7y ago

I've taken a cut at a license that attempts to address monetization while preserving what I see as the underlying strengths of Open Source - reducing the risks of collaboration and adoption: https://github.com/db4j/PUPL https://github.com/db4j/PUPL It requires paying for usage above a level, but is symmetric and permissive and makes future costs predictable, ie prevents the copyright owner from pulling the rug out from underneath you after you've adopted it. The software that I intended this license for never gained traction (so completely that no-one ever told me "i'd try it out if it was open source") so it's untested. But if a popular software used this license, would you be willing to use it or contribute to it ?

runako 7y ago
The gist of that license seems to be: - you can use this software for free at home for personal use - if you use it at work, you can try it out for free but you have to pay to really use it - we welcome your code submissions, which will hopefully grow our license revenue I feel like there are already licenses out there that hit these major points. If I ran across software that used this license, I would recommend they use one of the other popular licenses or just dual-license. In general, I want licenses to be written and vetted by lawyers.
- human20190310 7y ago
  > In general, I want licenses to be written and vetted by lawyers. I want them to be so standardized that I don't have to read them. If the license doesn't match something I already know, I'd be reluctant to include the code in any of my projects.
  - nqzero 7y ago
    yes, i totally agree - as much as i like the terms of my license, if i came across an interesting software that used the license, i probably wouldn't try it out just because the cost of understanding any new license is too high. i've more or less given up on the software that I intended the license for, but i mention license here in the hopes that one of these open-core companies will create, vet and popularize a license with similar assurances

chiefalchemist 7y ago

Would it be possible to have licensea based on usage. I believe the image (photography) sites do this, and prices reflect it. That said, perhaps the industry needs an ethical framework similar to tithing? While I understand these software publishers are upset, no one involved has done anything wrong. Big companies taking advantage of free software can't be a surprise.

jitendrac 7y ago

That is totally absurd argument, those cloud or industry giants are not taking any extra privileges, they have explicit permission to use those software. In fact, they are the major adapters who boosts development and contribution to eco-system. They actively motivate their employees to improve the software and publicly contribute who are mostly the major contributors. Big companies are not bound by these software, they can re-invent their own wheel if needed. They are the one who opensources major new technology without thinking about the profit for example. Anguler.js, React, Hiphop, Mysql etc. Edit: If you really feel uncomfortable, you can release your software with GNU AGPL, That would be tit-for-tat in your way.

benologist 7y ago

I think you can look at FAANG almost as the commercial arm of open source, it's not necessarily bad that they are the best at monetizing open source and increasingly specialized in doing so. It's only bad when they are greedy and keep all of that money, dodge taxes globally and strip benefits from all the employees they can. This is like the "billionaires can be philanthropists" problem... they overwhelmingly prefer not to so it is vastly less efficient to rely on their philanthropy individually vs a tax collected from all of them. FAANG have the funds and the expertise monetizing open source to carry the entire open source community many times over, but they will hit a combined trillion dollars in savings before that happens. They will dodge hundreds of billions more in taxes before fueling the open source fire that furthers technology and feeds them recruits, ideas and software. I've heard it argued that they do pay it forward through their own open source contributions. I think this is more accurately called paying it sideways if anything. They get legal tender fit for any purpose, and what proportionately little code they give back is not legal tender for any purpose.