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As a developer acting on behalf of an organization using open source, I benefit from being able to pay the vendor of my choice to host a given piece of software

As a developer acting on behalf of an organization using open source, I benefit from being able to pay the vendor of my choice to host a given piece of software. If only the single-source author can host it as a service, or you need the permission of the single source author to host it as a service, then my choices are either self-hosting, or paying whatever price the single legal-as-a-service-host wants to charge, at whatever service quality they provide. (The fact they can choose to allow other licensed hosts, perhaps for a free if they want, does not change their monopoly control). It is a form of vendor lock-in, and avoiding vendor lock-in is one popular motivation for using open source. So yes, this restriction makes something not open source. This restriction also is not favourable to me as a user of the open source software. Open source was always about avoiding monopoly control of who is allowed to do what with the software. Monopoly control of who is allowed to host it as a service is such, and it is more favourable to me as a consumer when there is not that monopoly control. Now, meanwhile, there are various market battles going on between various big tech cloud providers and other companies providing (previously) open source software. This is also true. Both things can be true. For the consumer, as the OP suggests, your best bet is when there is software that can be produced sustainably by multiple entities collaborating, instead of a single company. Now, if that's not sustainable, that's a problem. It's possible that open source is facing sustainability problems due to current conditions. But that doesn't change the fact that monopolizing legal right to host software as a service is not open source, is rightly not approved by OSI, and is making consumers locked in to that single vendor (or their licencees), which is indeed contrary to intention of open source.

kodah 6y ago
> It is a form of vendor lock-in, and avoiding vendor lock-in is one popular motivation for using open source. Likely also a false one. For example, if you use WordPress guess who your vendor is? WordPress. More vexing, if you use Kubernetes provided by a cloud provider guess who your vendor is? The cloud provider, because of all those non-free doodads they put into their managed service. It is possible for a company like AWS to continue to offer a managed service for things like elastic, but I suspect elastic wants the nature of the agreement to change; which as far as I can tell we're not privy to.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  I can pay for a hosted wordpress on BlueHost, FlyWheel, GoDaddy (don't do it!), linode as a "marketplace app", and many many others. None of these sites need any agreement with the wordpress authors at all, because wordpress is open source, anyone can run it. wordpress owners can't withdraw permission to offer hosted wordpress or make them pay for the right to host, because it's open source. if I don't like the pricing or service on wordpress.com, I have many options for wordpress-as-a-service. If wordpress.com is the best price/quality, it's because they've done a good job, sure perhaps because they have the most expertise with the software since they write it -- not because they have a license that gives them a monopoly on wordpress hosting.
  - kodah 6y ago
    My point was that the term "vendor lock-in" is loaded. Your point is valid simultaneously. Expanding on my point, I do think it's possible that AWS can provide services that continue to make software easy to run (like fully managed services). The way I see this is if AWS becomes the primary contributor and the dominant service provider, then the same situation you described happens in reverse. I think the solution here is probably about connecting the success of managed open source based services on AWS to keeping the companies that power them funded. If you balance contributions and money, it keeps the ecosystem in a better state.
    - jrochkind1 6y ago
      I see what you mean, and this perhaps is related to the OP's suggestion that ideally you have a "open source-licensed projects with a non-profit home, neutral trademark ownership, and multiple significant contributors" -- multiple significant contributors. But here's the thing. Open source means that even the single contributing entity can not take away your ability to use already-reased code, or anyone's ability to fork it and keep working on it without the permission of the original author. Open source is designed this way exactly to avoid vendor lock-in -- you can always, in the "worst" case, fork the code without the participation of the original authors at all. This won't necessarily be easy, cheap or even feasible; sure. Open source does not automatically solve all your problems or guarantee that you'll be able to get the software you want for free forever. It just takes out of the question needing to get permission to do what you want or need to do from the authors or a single owning vendor. This is what many mean by avoiding vendor lock-in. In some cases open source may not be sustainable. In some cases as a consumer it may make sense to choose a non-open-source product; in many cases as a producer trying to make money producing open source may not make a business model. But if you want to limit people's ability to use whatever hosted service providers they want, including after a fork, including even if your business goes out of existence, that's not open source.

kodah 6y ago

> It is a form of vendor lock-in, and avoiding vendor lock-in is one popular motivation for using open source. Likely also a false one. For example, if you use WordPress guess who your vendor is? WordPress. More vexing, if you use Kubernetes provided by a cloud provider guess who your vendor is? The cloud provider, because of all those non-free doodads they put into their managed service. It is possible for a company like AWS to continue to offer a managed service for things like elastic, but I suspect elastic wants the nature of the agreement to change; which as far as I can tell we're not privy to.

jrochkind1 6y ago
I can pay for a hosted wordpress on BlueHost, FlyWheel, GoDaddy (don't do it!), linode as a "marketplace app", and many many others. None of these sites need any agreement with the wordpress authors at all, because wordpress is open source, anyone can run it. wordpress owners can't withdraw permission to offer hosted wordpress or make them pay for the right to host, because it's open source. if I don't like the pricing or service on wordpress.com, I have many options for wordpress-as-a-service. If wordpress.com is the best price/quality, it's because they've done a good job, sure perhaps because they have the most expertise with the software since they write it -- not because they have a license that gives them a monopoly on wordpress hosting.
- kodah 6y ago
  My point was that the term "vendor lock-in" is loaded. Your point is valid simultaneously. Expanding on my point, I do think it's possible that AWS can provide services that continue to make software easy to run (like fully managed services). The way I see this is if AWS becomes the primary contributor and the dominant service provider, then the same situation you described happens in reverse. I think the solution here is probably about connecting the success of managed open source based services on AWS to keeping the companies that power them funded. If you balance contributions and money, it keeps the ecosystem in a better state.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    I see what you mean, and this perhaps is related to the OP's suggestion that ideally you have a "open source-licensed projects with a non-profit home, neutral trademark ownership, and multiple significant contributors" -- multiple significant contributors. But here's the thing. Open source means that even the single contributing entity can not take away your ability to use already-reased code, or anyone's ability to fork it and keep working on it without the permission of the original author. Open source is designed this way exactly to avoid vendor lock-in -- you can always, in the "worst" case, fork the code without the participation of the original authors at all. This won't necessarily be easy, cheap or even feasible; sure. Open source does not automatically solve all your problems or guarantee that you'll be able to get the software you want for free forever. It just takes out of the question needing to get permission to do what you want or need to do from the authors or a single owning vendor. This is what many mean by avoiding vendor lock-in. In some cases open source may not be sustainable. In some cases as a consumer it may make sense to choose a non-open-source product; in many cases as a producer trying to make money producing open source may not make a business model. But if you want to limit people's ability to use whatever hosted service providers they want, including after a fork, including even if your business goes out of existence, that's not open source.