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I searched for OpenTeams' OSS license, but all I'm seeing is * © 2019 OpenTeams. All rights reserved. * https://openteams.com/terms-of-service https://opentea
by AdrienLemaire 7y ago
I searched for OpenTeams' OSS license, but all I'm seeing is
* © 2019 OpenTeams. All rights reserved.
* https://openteams.com/terms-of-service https://openteams.com/terms-of-service
Why isn't a project who wants to change the economics of open source, open-source itself?
Can you reconsider your licensing choices?
- echelon 7y agoAn organization collecting funds for open source should itself be open source and not earn margin for anything other than upkeep and paying engineers' salaries. I kind of feel like Patreon and Kickstarter are in the same vein: rent seeking marketplaces that would be better if they were replaced with entirely open source alternatives that belonged to their respective communities. Patreon should be funded via patreon. If Wikipedia were started today, I worry that it would have ads or be for-profit.
- numtel 7y agoAs someone working on a crowdfunding platform that I would like to be able to release the source code as an open consumer union implementation, I have concerns about enabling unmoderated crowdfunding. The power of a collective wallet is not something to be taken lightly. Whether it's environmental destruction or divisive politics, I have yet to decide that setting something like this free is for the best interest. I would like to see an open source license like the GPL that has enforceable, well-defined provisions for environmental protection and human rights. It seems like to go all the way, a smart contract would need to be used to ensure the transparency that a standard webserver-based infrastructure cannot provide. But credit cards are the standard for online payments so this would put a project in a further category from the start.
- hbadgery 7y agoThank you for sharing your concerns. We will not be an unmoderated platform and I will look into the GPL license, thank you. We are at the very beginning of our journey and so there are many features to come.
- numtel 7y agoSorry if there was any confusion. I was wondering just in a general sense. I did not mean to imply anything about the moderation of OpenTeams.
- _-o-_ 7y agoСrowdfunding platforms are glorified blogs with Stripe integration. What exactly are you afraid to opensourse?
- hbadgery 7y agoI cannot agree with you more. We are working on making open source software sustainable so that people view open source software as a real career. People should be paid to work on the projects that they love and care so much about! We have had many discussions around becoming open source in the beginning. However, in order to ensure that we achieve the aforementioned mission, we believe that is it best to start off as a proprietary company for a number of different reasons. In the future, we will be looking to become open source. Thank you for your feedback!
- Deimorz 7y agoLiberapay is the closest to what you're describing that I know of: https://en.liberapay.com/about/ https://en.liberapay.com/about/ It's open-source, non-profit, and (tries to) fund itself through its own platform: https://en.liberapay.com/Liberapay/donate https://en.liberapay.com/Liberapay/donate
- hbadgery 7y agoWe are big fans of Liberapay. They are a great solution working towards making open source sustainable. Our model is very different though. Instead of a recurring donation based system, we are creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software. The KickStarter idea comes from the fact that any person or company can fund the project so that in the future, they can use the software. The deep social reputation database generated by the OpenTeams’ social reputation network will provide the foundation for proposers to demonstrate their ability to deliver on a fundable project's goals and grant the prospective funders the ability to validate the composition of the team proposed. We really appreciate your feedback, thank you!
- hbadgery 7y agoThe discussion about being open source has been extensively debated. In order to change the economics of open source, we believe you need to do things differently. At the moment we are not open source because we need to get the project off the ground. We believe that in order to grow to a suitable level where we can talk about becoming open source, we need to have the control and swiftness of a proprietary startup to be able to first establish a marketplace that proves this new business model. Please note that we are all for becoming open source in the future.
- Stevvo 7y ago"the control and swiftness of a proprietary startup"... What a load of BS. It's literally flicking a switch on your repository. Nothing else needs to change about how you do things. I won't be supporting this venture, because you have made it clear you are not interested in supporting OSS. Your interest is in exploiting a market opportunity.
- mch82 7y agoHaving read about the beginnings of a lot of open source projects it is common for an initial period of “closed” small team development. Episode 32 of the Django Chat podcast touches on this topic at 34 minutes in. DHH talks about the benefits of a small group of people working fast to shape a feature before releasing it to the community. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/django-chat/id1451536459?i=1000451164141 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/django-chat/id14515364...
- hbadgery 7y agoThank you for such an insightful comment. This is exactly the approach we are taking to launch OpenTeams. By having a small "closed" group focus on launching key features, we believe that our new business model will become the default approach to helping open source projects become sustainable.
- hbadgery 7y agoThank you for your feedback. I empathise with your concern, but the only thing we are interested in is supporting OSS. Travis has been in the industry for over 20 years and his life is open source software. This is where his interests lie. The sole purpose of this company is to bring together organizations using open source software with creators and maintainers of the software to facilitate and grow funding opportunities. This is needed so that open source can become sustainable. In order to achieve this mission, revenue is needed to make sure that we are actually capable of supporting OSS. One of our main goals at OpenTeams is to channel more funding and resources into community-driven projects, to support transparency in their governance, and keep the communities around them healthy and accelerate their development. We do this in a way that keeps the community in charge of its destiny.