3 ms·

> If it's open for you but not for him what's your problem? How do I know it'll stay open for me? How am I supposed to make that determination on whether or n

> If it's open for you but not for him what's your problem? How do I know it'll stay open for me? How am I supposed to make that determination on whether or not it even is open for me in the first place? With a standard OSI or FSF approved license, I don't have to be a lawyer to have at least some idea of what the license entails, because their lawyers - and plenty of others - have already combed through them and put together layman-accessible descriptions of their stipulations - and further, by the very nature of their approval as "open source" or "free software" licenses, I know with reasonable certainty that even something as restrictive as the AGPLv3 will always permit me to use, modify, and redistribute that software, no matter what. Contrast with these bespoke "source available" licenses, which are specific to certain products/companies and can change at any time. One might call it "FUD" to be skeptical of 'em, but they certainly seem to leave a lot of room for fear, uncertainty, and doubt given the legal pitfalls around, say, maintaining an independent fork. Still, at least the software itself is transparent (i.e. it can be independently audited at any time, by anyone with the requisite knowledge, for any reason), so for most cases I would certainly pick such software over anything opaque / closed source any day. The lack of contingencies should the developers inevitably go out of business (whether from buyout or bankruptcy) still pushes me to prefer, you know, actual free and open source software. Transparency is a dependency of trust, but it ain't the only one.

pydry 6y ago
>How do I know it'll stay open for me? How am I supposed to make that determination on whether or not it even is open for me in the first place? Technically any license can be changed if the company holds the copyright. This is why Microsoft makes you sign a CLA. This signals a plan to potentially de-open source in the future and capitalize upon their IP. Source available licenses are about what you can do NOW and it's usually very very clear. For example, don't set up an elastic search SAAS. Of course, you're not Amazon so you won't. >With a standard OSI or FSF approved license, I don't have to be a lawyer Apparently you could do with a bit of training because the thing you were most worried about is enabled by a CLA not a source available license. You are perfectly correct to be suspicious of Microsoft's CLA when combined with their "we turned over a new leaf with OSS" marketing. I am. >One might call it "FUD" Not gonna lie: thats the exactly what I was thinking when I read your comment.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > Technically any license can be changed if the company holds the copyright. If a codebase uses a well-defined license - like, say, the GNU GPL or Mozilla MPL or Apache license - then unless the company is the FSF, Mozilla, or Apache (respectively), then I know with reasonable certainty that as long as they're using that license with that name, the terms won't be changing under my eyes. The same can't be said of some product-specific "ElasticSearch License" or "CockroachDB License" or "MongoDB License" or what have you. With these, I'm back to having to read EULAs one by one, because the meaning of "$PRODUCT License" can change at pretty much any time. That is, if you're going to jump immediately to some bald-faced snarky ad hominem like > Apparently you could do with a bit of training it would be a lot more effective if you actually understood and acknowledged what I'm talking about instead of going off on some tangent about Microsoft and CLAs.

pydry 6y ago

>How do I know it'll stay open for me? How am I supposed to make that determination on whether or not it even is open for me in the first place? Technically any license can be changed if the company holds the copyright. This is why Microsoft makes you sign a CLA. This signals a plan to potentially de-open source in the future and capitalize upon their IP. Source available licenses are about what you can do NOW and it's usually very very clear. For example, don't set up an elastic search SAAS. Of course, you're not Amazon so you won't. >With a standard OSI or FSF approved license, I don't have to be a lawyer Apparently you could do with a bit of training because the thing you were most worried about is enabled by a CLA not a source available license. You are perfectly correct to be suspicious of Microsoft's CLA when combined with their "we turned over a new leaf with OSS" marketing. I am. >One might call it "FUD" Not gonna lie: thats the exactly what I was thinking when I read your comment.

yellowapple 6y ago
> Technically any license can be changed if the company holds the copyright. If a codebase uses a well-defined license - like, say, the GNU GPL or Mozilla MPL or Apache license - then unless the company is the FSF, Mozilla, or Apache (respectively), then I know with reasonable certainty that as long as they're using that license with that name, the terms won't be changing under my eyes. The same can't be said of some product-specific "ElasticSearch License" or "CockroachDB License" or "MongoDB License" or what have you. With these, I'm back to having to read EULAs one by one, because the meaning of "$PRODUCT License" can change at pretty much any time. That is, if you're going to jump immediately to some bald-faced snarky ad hominem like > Apparently you could do with a bit of training it would be a lot more effective if you actually understood and acknowledged what I'm talking about instead of going off on some tangent about Microsoft and CLAs.