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> As Perens puts it, "we have to draw a line between 'open source' and the right to make money with open source. The open source definition allows, but does not

> As Perens puts it, "we have to draw a line between 'open source' and the right to make money with open source. The open source definition allows, but does not support, your right to make money. We're not going to change the rules because you can make money better that way." This right here. When you open source something, you are basically volunteering to write code. By the very definition, volunteering to do something does not entitle you to anything. Imagine how weird it would sound if people started asking money to volunteer in soup kitchens. If you think you are entitled to something for your work, don't volunteer. Make it a service and charge. If you think writing some code used by someone entitles you to some money, make it proprietary code and start charging like Microsoft does. No one is going to stop you.

coldtea 7y ago
>Imagine how weird it would sound if people started asking money to volunteer in soup kitchens. That's basically what NGOs are...
lostcolony 7y ago
Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Which may explain why people can feel entitled to getting paid for their efforts; we tend to feel that if we give something to others they owe us something back (this is why we have a bunch of laws against giving and accepting gifts in certain situations, because of the societal pressure to make it an equitable exchange), and it sometimes takes intentional reminding of ourselves that that's not how giving works, and that there is no actual quid pro quo obligation.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  > Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Whether you offer paid support or not has no bearing on whether you release your code under an open source license. Many companies offer support contracts for their open source software. Many paid employees work on open source software, not only volunteers (Google, Facebook, Canonical, Red Hat, SchedMD and so on). Open source and commercial are not antonyms.
  - lostcolony 7y ago
    You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. When I say 'support', I mean "Oh, this person filed a bug; I'll go fix it". I was not saying support with an implication of financial remuneration.
    - bonoboTP 7y ago
      > I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. Open sourcing something is also not equal to distributing something for free. I'm sorry for nitpicking, but there's a lot of genuine confusion about this out there. You can release something with an open source license without distributing it yourself. The free software movement regards it as a moral imperative to license all software with free / open source licenses, even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online. Even if you distribute it, you don't even have to have a bug tracking interface. Open sourcing is simply attaching a free/open source license to a piece of software. Nothing more nothing less. Not participation in the community, not Github, not issue tracking, not upstream or downstream patch contributions, or volunteering or zero-price distribution or anything else.
      - lostcolony 7y ago
        How does "even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online" in any way conflict with what I said? I said "It's like giving it away" - I never said the size of the audience. I didn't say anything about widespread distribution. And your point...is identical to the one I was making, that licensing something as open source is not volunteering to do anything from here on out, but instead just giving away the work you've already done. You're nit picking where there are no nits.
pstuart 7y ago
What about dual licensing? Pure GPL or commercial license? Seems like fair trade
- quantummkv 7y ago
  It is a fair trade. Qt works this way and is very successful in both the commercial and open source worlds.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  "Commercial" is not the antonym of free software/open source. "Proprietary" is. You can (and many companies do) make money with (i.e. commercialize) open source software.
kiba 7y ago
Open source does not have to be a charity.
- quantummkv 7y ago
  It kinda does. Pretending otherwise is like asking people to pay 10$ before eating at a community kitchen. Or forcing people to pay to enter a public park.
  - SuperFerret 7y ago
    You can ask to be paid to make the soup and then let others take it for free. Or to make it more apt. I can ask for money to build an unlimited soup dispenser and then let others take soup from it for free.
    - quantummkv 7y ago
      > You can ask to be paid to make the soup and then let others take it for free. But you cannot cry and moan if you give away the soup for free to someone and then find that they are reselling that to someone else for money. Or to make it more apt, I can ask a Softbank for money to build an unlimited soup dispenser and then let others take soup from it for free. But I cannot stop the people that took the free soup I offered to give away/sell it to others
      - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        "But you cannot cry and moan if you give away the soup for free to someone and then find that they are reselling that to someone else for money." Actually I think charities get really pissed off when you try do this? Isn't this why the individual packets of stuff often say 'not for resale' or whatever?
        tastythrowaway 7y ago
        You mean like licensing terms?
mistrial9 7y ago
no, there is another step (at least).. That is, to understand the benefits of something specialized, to .. say economy overall; society overall; research and innovation; education; governance.. you must understand benefits to others past yourself and your team. This is a higher mental function, do not assume everyone understands this, or that you understand this, at all times. Volunteering your own time is yes, a question, but there are systems effects to something as specialized as modern code.
- quantummkv 7y ago
  I am really sorry but I genuinely am unable to understand what you said. Can you repeat that in english please?
  - mistrial9 7y ago
    > When you open source something, you are basically volunteering to write code thank you for the opportunity to clarify... YOU - an individual coder; OpenSource - a publication with license for others; Write Code - specialized skills with high literacy; Volunteering - social arrangement with time and resources. You - Write Code - OpenSource => volunteering when code is made OpenSource, the origins of the code over time are due to more than one person when code is made OpenSource, benefits are primarily to systems, less so to the individual to understand the decision to make OpenSource code, the systems that benefit extend to Five Areas (for example, to quote https://paulfuhlir.com/ https://paulfuhlir.com/ ) .. listed above does that make it clearer ?
  - phonon 7y ago
    Open Source = Tikkun Olam

coldtea 7y ago

>Imagine how weird it would sound if people started asking money to volunteer in soup kitchens. That's basically what NGOs are...

lostcolony 7y ago

Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Which may explain why people can feel entitled to getting paid for their efforts; we tend to feel that if we give something to others they owe us something back (this is why we have a bunch of laws against giving and accepting gifts in certain situations, because of the societal pressure to make it an equitable exchange), and it sometimes takes intentional reminding of ourselves that that's not how giving works, and that there is no actual quid pro quo obligation.

bonoboTP 7y ago
> Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Whether you offer paid support or not has no bearing on whether you release your code under an open source license. Many companies offer support contracts for their open source software. Many paid employees work on open source software, not only volunteers (Google, Facebook, Canonical, Red Hat, SchedMD and so on). Open source and commercial are not antonyms.
- lostcolony 7y ago
  You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. When I say 'support', I mean "Oh, this person filed a bug; I'll go fix it". I was not saying support with an implication of financial remuneration.
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    > I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. Open sourcing something is also not equal to distributing something for free. I'm sorry for nitpicking, but there's a lot of genuine confusion about this out there. You can release something with an open source license without distributing it yourself. The free software movement regards it as a moral imperative to license all software with free / open source licenses, even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online. Even if you distribute it, you don't even have to have a bug tracking interface. Open sourcing is simply attaching a free/open source license to a piece of software. Nothing more nothing less. Not participation in the community, not Github, not issue tracking, not upstream or downstream patch contributions, or volunteering or zero-price distribution or anything else.
    - lostcolony 7y ago
      How does "even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online" in any way conflict with what I said? I said "It's like giving it away" - I never said the size of the audience. I didn't say anything about widespread distribution. And your point...is identical to the one I was making, that licensing something as open source is not volunteering to do anything from here on out, but instead just giving away the work you've already done. You're nit picking where there are no nits.

pstuart 7y ago

What about dual licensing? Pure GPL or commercial license? Seems like fair trade

quantummkv 7y ago
It is a fair trade. Qt works this way and is very successful in both the commercial and open source worlds.
bonoboTP 7y ago
"Commercial" is not the antonym of free software/open source. "Proprietary" is. You can (and many companies do) make money with (i.e. commercialize) open source software.

kiba 7y ago

Open source does not have to be a charity.

quantummkv 7y ago
It kinda does. Pretending otherwise is like asking people to pay 10$ before eating at a community kitchen. Or forcing people to pay to enter a public park.
- SuperFerret 7y ago
  You can ask to be paid to make the soup and then let others take it for free. Or to make it more apt. I can ask for money to build an unlimited soup dispenser and then let others take soup from it for free.
  - quantummkv 7y ago
    > You can ask to be paid to make the soup and then let others take it for free. But you cannot cry and moan if you give away the soup for free to someone and then find that they are reselling that to someone else for money. Or to make it more apt, I can ask a Softbank for money to build an unlimited soup dispenser and then let others take soup from it for free. But I cannot stop the people that took the free soup I offered to give away/sell it to others
    - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
      "But you cannot cry and moan if you give away the soup for free to someone and then find that they are reselling that to someone else for money." Actually I think charities get really pissed off when you try do this? Isn't this why the individual packets of stuff often say 'not for resale' or whatever?
      - tastythrowaway 7y ago
        You mean like licensing terms?

mistrial9 7y ago

no, there is another step (at least).. That is, to understand the benefits of something specialized, to .. say economy overall; society overall; research and innovation; education; governance.. you must understand benefits to others past yourself and your team. This is a higher mental function, do not assume everyone understands this, or that you understand this, at all times. Volunteering your own time is yes, a question, but there are systems effects to something as specialized as modern code.

quantummkv 7y ago
I am really sorry but I genuinely am unable to understand what you said. Can you repeat that in english please?
- mistrial9 7y ago
  > When you open source something, you are basically volunteering to write code thank you for the opportunity to clarify... YOU - an individual coder; OpenSource - a publication with license for others; Write Code - specialized skills with high literacy; Volunteering - social arrangement with time and resources. You - Write Code - OpenSource => volunteering when code is made OpenSource, the origins of the code over time are due to more than one person when code is made OpenSource, benefits are primarily to systems, less so to the individual to understand the decision to make OpenSource code, the systems that benefit extend to Five Areas (for example, to quote https://paulfuhlir.com/ https://paulfuhlir.com/ ) .. listed above does that make it clearer ?
- phonon 7y ago
  Open Source = Tikkun Olam