10 ms·

A lot of people seem to confuse Commercial with Proprietary... They are not the same.

falcolas 6y ago
Doesn't matter. Copyright, without the licensing exceptions, won't allow EvilCorp Inc. use your code even if you publish it in the clear on the internet. Also, more relevant to the discussion I was responding to, the GPL license doesn't allow re-licensing without consent (or a pre-arranged copyright assignment - a contributor's agreement). And it's copyright law which enforces this.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Given past experiences, I see large group projects trending towards having CLAs/DCOs where you give up ownership of your code anyway. Most people don't want to work with random contributors who wish to hold a gun to their heads in perpetuity.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > who wish to hold a gun to their heads An aside, that's an awfully violent visual for discussing ownership of code.
  - gary-kim 6y ago
    DCOs don't give copyright ownership to anyone else or even any more rights to anyone else. It is simply a declaration that you have the permission to license the code you wrote under the license you're giving it for. This article gives a nice description of the differences: https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-difference https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-differe...
j1elo 6y ago
True. Although in practice, the end-user freedoms that are guaranteed by copyleft practically destroy all, if not for a couple exceptions, of viable business plans. So even if theoretically the most aggressive licenses still allow for commercialization, the practical effect is that commercializing a copyleft codebase won't travel too far on its own as a business plan. This has been discussed a lot of times in HN, and the conclusion always is something on the lines of "don't do copyleft if you want to have any aspirations of commercialization on the software itself as opposed to peripheral elements such as support services or similar".
- busterarm 6y ago
  > So even if theoretically the most aggressive licenses still allow for commercialization, the practical effect is that commercializing a copyleft codebase won't travel too far on its own as a business plan. Red Hat was acquired for $34 Billion. It really depends on what you're selling and how good your product is. > "don't do copyleft if you want to have any aspirations of commercialization on the software itself as opposed to peripheral elements such as support services or similar" Cop out argument. This comes from the same people who do split licenses that spit in the face of the spirit of OSS. It's people who want all of the benefits of writing OSS (outside contribution, growth in use of your product, less investment in sales) but none of the risks (someone else using what you offer for free and having a better product than you). It's purely anti-competitive.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Redhat is the exception that proves the rule. How many more companies which relied upon selling services around GPL'ed code have died? Lots.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      Canonical and SUSE are still around and have millions in revenue. Turns out that Linux is a good product that needs a lot of stewardship and support that's worth paying for. There's also hundreds of thousands of software developers and consultancies offering their services that make use of GPL'd (and other OSS-licensed) code. Probably 90% of this board is selling their services/labor of GPL'd projects. It's been my whole career. No, what it sounds like is we're talking about people who want to write OSS but also want ownership and exclusive rights to make money off of it. My argument there is pound sand.
      - j1elo 6y ago
        Note Canonical was created by an already millionaire. He already managed a Venture Capital at that time, and I assume had other businesses around. fwiw Canonical might as well be all lost money (millions of revenue, but how about profits?). No idea about Suse. In any case, even if they are great success examples, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand... so I'd say the sample size is not precisely "enough", not at least to prove a point. EDIT: (reply to an edited part of the comment) > what it sounds like is we're talking about people who want to write OSS but also want ownership and exclusive rights to make money off of it I agree. On the other hand, most of the OSS that exists is created by such people, and what do we prefer? Idealistic but non-existing OSS software? or compromised but existing and useful OSS software? That's the question that I feel is behind all the conversations about this topic.

Doesn't matter. Copyright, without the licensing exceptions, won't allow EvilCorp Inc. use your code even if you publish it in the clear on the internet. Also, more relevant to the discussion I was responding to, the GPL license doesn't allow re-licensing without consent (or a pre-arranged copyright assignment - a contributor's agreement). And it's copyright law which enforces this.

busterarm 6y ago
Given past experiences, I see large group projects trending towards having CLAs/DCOs where you give up ownership of your code anyway. Most people don't want to work with random contributors who wish to hold a gun to their heads in perpetuity.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > who wish to hold a gun to their heads An aside, that's an awfully violent visual for discussing ownership of code.
- gary-kim 6y ago
  DCOs don't give copyright ownership to anyone else or even any more rights to anyone else. It is simply a declaration that you have the permission to license the code you wrote under the license you're giving it for. This article gives a nice description of the differences: https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-difference https://opensource.com/article/18/3/cla-vs-dco-whats-differe...

j1elo 6y ago

True. Although in practice, the end-user freedoms that are guaranteed by copyleft practically destroy all, if not for a couple exceptions, of viable business plans. So even if theoretically the most aggressive licenses still allow for commercialization, the practical effect is that commercializing a copyleft codebase won't travel too far on its own as a business plan. This has been discussed a lot of times in HN, and the conclusion always is something on the lines of "don't do copyleft if you want to have any aspirations of commercialization on the software itself as opposed to peripheral elements such as support services or similar".

busterarm 6y ago
> So even if theoretically the most aggressive licenses still allow for commercialization, the practical effect is that commercializing a copyleft codebase won't travel too far on its own as a business plan. Red Hat was acquired for $34 Billion. It really depends on what you're selling and how good your product is. > "don't do copyleft if you want to have any aspirations of commercialization on the software itself as opposed to peripheral elements such as support services or similar" Cop out argument. This comes from the same people who do split licenses that spit in the face of the spirit of OSS. It's people who want all of the benefits of writing OSS (outside contribution, growth in use of your product, less investment in sales) but none of the risks (someone else using what you offer for free and having a better product than you). It's purely anti-competitive.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Redhat is the exception that proves the rule. How many more companies which relied upon selling services around GPL'ed code have died? Lots.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    Canonical and SUSE are still around and have millions in revenue. Turns out that Linux is a good product that needs a lot of stewardship and support that's worth paying for. There's also hundreds of thousands of software developers and consultancies offering their services that make use of GPL'd (and other OSS-licensed) code. Probably 90% of this board is selling their services/labor of GPL'd projects. It's been my whole career. No, what it sounds like is we're talking about people who want to write OSS but also want ownership and exclusive rights to make money off of it. My argument there is pound sand.
    - j1elo 6y ago
      Note Canonical was created by an already millionaire. He already managed a Venture Capital at that time, and I assume had other businesses around. fwiw Canonical might as well be all lost money (millions of revenue, but how about profits?). No idea about Suse. In any case, even if they are great success examples, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand... so I'd say the sample size is not precisely "enough", not at least to prove a point. EDIT: (reply to an edited part of the comment) > what it sounds like is we're talking about people who want to write OSS but also want ownership and exclusive rights to make money off of it I agree. On the other hand, most of the OSS that exists is created by such people, and what do we prefer? Idealistic but non-existing OSS software? or compromised but existing and useful OSS software? That's the question that I feel is behind all the conversations about this topic.