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So, Sentry is no longer Open Source at all, though people might potentially be able to collaborate on three-year-old versions (or, hopefully, use whatever unifi

So, Sentry is no longer Open Source at all, though people might potentially be able to collaborate on three-year-old versions (or, hopefully, use whatever unified fork pops up from the last Open Source release). That's disappointing. Unfortunately, the more companies use such licenses, the more others see it as "safety in numbers" for them to do the same.

scj 7y ago
I somewhat suspect companies that apply "creative" licenses like this haven't been under a corporate legal department before. Using a standard license is great. Using a custom license that is extremely similar to an existing license is not as good, but is usually workable... Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  > Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. A conversation made far less pleasant by the ability to feed arbitrary dates into a Git repo's commit history: https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti I'm sure there's a way to find the actual time a push happened; hopefully it doesn't involve subpoenaing GitHub (or Microsoft, I guess) for logs.
  - ilammy 7y ago
    If you're that paranoid for your software, you can vendor the source, sign the tag with publicly-verifiable GPG key, and include some cryptographic timestamp in the description (e.g., hash of the current Bitcoin block or something) Also, print all of that, get the legal to seal the pages, and put them into a safe.
- cma 7y ago
  > Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. Wouldn't that be: > Showing legal how to use [Microsoft] Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them [Microsoft] Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. Seems that 'Microsoft' prefix might get a bit more clout.
- brlewis 7y ago
  > Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. You only have to do that if you're setting up a commercial service that competes with sentry. If you're merely setting it up for your own company's self-hosted use, you don't need that.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    Are you really sure that your big-company legal team won't want to review this odd situation?
    - brlewis 7y ago
      No, but I'm sure they won't have to look at git logs to date the software.
  - kyle-rb 7y ago
    >convincing them Github is a reputable party This might be one actual positive of GitHub getting bought by Microsoft: convincing people who don't know anything about software that it's a reputable party.
- mdpye 7y ago
  While they don't appear super frequent, they cut releases: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/tags https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/tags Pick one which was cut at a particular point in time and you're done. Doesn't seem that complicated.
the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
> Sentry is no longer Open Source at all I just want to clarify that in addition to BSL converting into an Open Source license after the conversion date, we also did not BSL license everything. Client libraries are completely unaffected and so is a lot that is going on behind the scenes. We're firmly committed to being good Open Source citizens. For instance a lot of the work that is going on behind the scenes is separated into independent reusable libraries that retain their original licenses.
- tedivm 7y ago
  Why should we trust you not to change that in the future?
  - the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
    Question of trust is always hard. I believe that our heart is at the right place and I think many people interacted with us over the years probably got a pretty good picture of how we work.
    - tedivm 7y ago
      That's a real polite way of saying that we can't trust you not to relicense other projects in the future. Lets be clear here too- I'm using your product right now, and I feel that this is a huge betrayal of trust.
      - the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
        > That's a real polite way of saying that we can't trust you not to relicense other projects in the future. There is no good answer to a loaded question like this. If you suspect malice I have nothing I can say to counter this.
  - atonse 7y ago
    Unless you're trying to build a competing product to Sentry, nothing's changed, from my interpretation.
emidln 7y ago
It seems the restriction is on offering a competing product with Sentry's codebase. This seems fine. I'll still submit bug reports or even contribute fixes here. My current employer isn't a cloud provider or an exception handling as a service company, but we still might want to run Sentry in-house. Previously, we might have contributed fixes/features in the interest of spreading our own maintenance burden. This still seems possible and I don't see a reason to not contribute back for my use case.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
api 7y ago
Open source ideology is stuck in the 90s when the primary goal was to displace closed source lock-in platforms like Windows, and that ideology has become an unquestionable dogma. Today the primary goal should be to build an open software ecosystem independent from the SaaS / Cloud behemoths and with a business model that isn't based on surveillance. Nothing is actually free. Open source was built on a social contract with certain "gift culture" assumptions. SaaS is violating that social contract by only taking and in a way that ultimately harms the 'freedom' goals of open source, so the social contract must evolve.
burtonator 7y ago
I'm fine with it and I think it will actually yield MORE open source code, not less. Companies will be able to invest more into their infrastructure without much risk. Customers can still contribute back knowing that they will eventually be able to use the OSS version once it matures.

scj 7y ago

I somewhat suspect companies that apply "creative" licenses like this haven't been under a corporate legal department before. Using a standard license is great. Using a custom license that is extremely similar to an existing license is not as good, but is usually workable... Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best.

yellowapple 7y ago
> Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. A conversation made far less pleasant by the ability to feed arbitrary dates into a Git repo's commit history: https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti I'm sure there's a way to find the actual time a push happened; hopefully it doesn't involve subpoenaing GitHub (or Microsoft, I guess) for logs.
- ilammy 7y ago
  If you're that paranoid for your software, you can vendor the source, sign the tag with publicly-verifiable GPG key, and include some cryptographic timestamp in the description (e.g., hash of the current Bitcoin block or something) Also, print all of that, get the legal to seal the pages, and put them into a safe.
cma 7y ago
> Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. Wouldn't that be: > Showing legal how to use [Microsoft] Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them [Microsoft] Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. Seems that 'Microsoft' prefix might get a bit more clout.
brlewis 7y ago
> Showing legal how to use Github so they can confirm the age of the software you're using, then convincing them Github is a reputable party will likely result in an unpleasant conversation at best. You only have to do that if you're setting up a commercial service that competes with sentry. If you're merely setting it up for your own company's self-hosted use, you don't need that.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  Are you really sure that your big-company legal team won't want to review this odd situation?
  - brlewis 7y ago
    No, but I'm sure they won't have to look at git logs to date the software.
- kyle-rb 7y ago
  >convincing them Github is a reputable party This might be one actual positive of GitHub getting bought by Microsoft: convincing people who don't know anything about software that it's a reputable party.
mdpye 7y ago
While they don't appear super frequent, they cut releases: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/tags https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/tags Pick one which was cut at a particular point in time and you're done. Doesn't seem that complicated.

the_mitsuhiko 7y ago

> Sentry is no longer Open Source at all I just want to clarify that in addition to BSL converting into an Open Source license after the conversion date, we also did not BSL license everything. Client libraries are completely unaffected and so is a lot that is going on behind the scenes. We're firmly committed to being good Open Source citizens. For instance a lot of the work that is going on behind the scenes is separated into independent reusable libraries that retain their original licenses.

tedivm 7y ago
Why should we trust you not to change that in the future?
- the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
  Question of trust is always hard. I believe that our heart is at the right place and I think many people interacted with us over the years probably got a pretty good picture of how we work.
  - tedivm 7y ago
    That's a real polite way of saying that we can't trust you not to relicense other projects in the future. Lets be clear here too- I'm using your product right now, and I feel that this is a huge betrayal of trust.
    - the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
      > That's a real polite way of saying that we can't trust you not to relicense other projects in the future. There is no good answer to a loaded question like this. If you suspect malice I have nothing I can say to counter this.
- atonse 7y ago
  Unless you're trying to build a competing product to Sentry, nothing's changed, from my interpretation.

emidln 7y ago

It seems the restriction is on offering a competing product with Sentry's codebase. This seems fine. I'll still submit bug reports or even contribute fixes here. My current employer isn't a cloud provider or an exception handling as a service company, but we still might want to run Sentry in-house. Previously, we might have contributed fixes/features in the interest of spreading our own maintenance burden. This still seems possible and I don't see a reason to not contribute back for my use case.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

api 7y ago

Open source ideology is stuck in the 90s when the primary goal was to displace closed source lock-in platforms like Windows, and that ideology has become an unquestionable dogma. Today the primary goal should be to build an open software ecosystem independent from the SaaS / Cloud behemoths and with a business model that isn't based on surveillance. Nothing is actually free. Open source was built on a social contract with certain "gift culture" assumptions. SaaS is violating that social contract by only taking and in a way that ultimately harms the 'freedom' goals of open source, so the social contract must evolve.

burtonator 7y ago

I'm fine with it and I think it will actually yield MORE open source code, not less. Companies will be able to invest more into their infrastructure without much risk. Customers can still contribute back knowing that they will eventually be able to use the OSS version once it matures.