5 ms·

I have the impressions that, in some ways, we are reaching the limits of the open source model. I am not saying this light heartedly, I built a fair share of op

by hbbio 5y ago

I have the impressions that, in some ways, we are reaching the limits of the open source model. I am not saying this light heartedly, I built a fair share of open source software myself. The situation is complex since many different types of contributions exist ranging from two extreme positions: 1. A company or startup following the "open source business model" publishes a complex piece of open source software, trying to get adoption while the company lives off VC money - planning later to sell services (hosted SaaS, support, etc.) and/or extra features for the product. 2. An individual writes a small library or tool in his/her free time, publishes it on GitHub and then forgets about it. But it may still get traction because it is useful. It is a gradient of several variables: type of entity, intended purpose of publishing and expected return, short/long-term commitment, etc. that lead to different situations. For some, especially if we account a growing social factor in, there may be better solutions that open source (as OSI defined). For instance, an independent developer writing an important library should get a share of the business use/revenue, especially if a set of companies that were not involved in writing it end up seizing most of the enterprise business around it. Something like "public source", i.e. source available but not free to use under any condition may be an answer in some cases.

enriquto 5y ago
i'm sure we had a name for that, "coopie-lept" , "copiiiehlift", "cuuu..." please help me
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Copyleft certainly is not "source available but not free to use under any condition".
ozim 5y ago
I think there should be something like "Private copying levy" but for open source developers that create useful libraries. My example would be cURL. Car makers have it incorporated in their software and well I don't think any of those car makers was going to Daniel to buy that piece of software or contributed back to the project. For "private copying levy" I don't really agree all poets should take cut because there is no demonstrable evidence that someone is using their work, so they would receive money for nothing. While open source developers can demonstrate that their software is used by those companies to build products and people use their work while using products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/08/12/a-hundred-million-cars-run-curl/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/08/12/a-hundred-million-car...
- shakna 5y ago
  It took Daniel 937 days to get a visa [0] to _visit_ the US. I don't really see the US ever being interested in the contributions of a particular software, like cURL, to their industries as a whole. Any levy to support it would be fought at every level. [0] https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html
  - ozim 5y ago
    This cURL is just a single example, and as Daniel is Swedish then that would be on Sweden to introduce such levy and pay it out to him. But as other example if someone would be US national and contributed to OpenSSL project, he should get some payment for that. This would possibly fix quite some issues with OSS funding and contributors burnout. Because there are real examples of big corporations taking advantage of open source code without paying anything. Unfortunately OSS contributors are quite small group so their votes are not something that would make government take them seriously. But their work is proven to be important for society and that should be taken into consideration.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      > as Daniel is Swedish then that would be on Sweden to introduce such levy and pay it out to him. That just makes the situation even worse; it would be painted (with some justification) as wrecking the Swedish domestic software industry.
      - ozim 5y ago
        How can someone justify: "We are going to tax Microsoft, Apple an Google for using Open Source software created by Swedish developers and pay money collected to those developers" as "wrecking the Swedish domestic software industry"? I would say it would make more Swedish people interested in writing software and getting back value that BigCorps are stealing from Sweden.
- ahepp 5y ago
  Isn't this problem easily and simply solved by dual licensing GPL/commercial? If Daniel wanted something in return for his code, he should not have MIT licensed it. I don't mean that in a snarky way, I just don't see what more there is to say on the matter.
pjc50 5y ago
> For instance, an independent developer writing an important library should get a share of the business use/revenue, especially if a set of companies that were not involved in writing it end up seizing most of the enterprise business around it. But then it won't be adopted. The modern OSS infrastructure is, for better or worse, a product of being both transactionless and frictionless. You can use such software without round-tripping a conversation, and you can do it without money changing hands - which, for businesses, means you can use it without fighting your internal purchase process. The fantasy of taking a revenue split and distributing it over everyone mentioned in your transitive dependencies is just that: a fantasy. It can't happen that way in a modern business culture. Try to enforce it and businesses will just go back to buying single vendor stacks
- ako 5y ago
  This. Enterprise Developers use opensource because it empowers them to choose the right compone nts without involving an entire purchasing organization. And why pay for software if there’s no support organization with support contracts and SLA’s?
wvenable 5y ago
> Something like "public source", i.e. source available but not free to use under any condition may be an answer in some cases. What would be the purpose of this? If the source is available but can't be used then there is no reason for the source to be available. No one can do anything with that source. The library in question is already released "without warranty of any kind, express or implied". If the author is burdened by support that they explicitly don't need to provide then the answer is to not provide that support. They are under no obligation to do so. Asking to limit the distribution of their product after explicitly licensing it to allow for distribution "without restriction" and "without limitation" is just plainly the wrong approach.
- quanticle 5y ago
  Exactly. The remedy for the original package author is to put up a banner on their project that says, "I will not be answering questions about my package on NixOS because I disagree with how NixOS packages my library." Failing that they could release their project under a non-free license that restricts redistribution in a way that excludes NixOS. I don't understand what their intent was in requesting that the NixOS packagers voluntarily give up rights that the author had explicitly granted them, via the MIT License.
  - squiggleblaz 5y ago
    > Failing that they could release their project under a non-free license that restricts redistribution in a way that excludes NixOS. He wasn't happy with Fedora doing it either. It's a matter of redistribution, not a matter of NixOS. > I don't understand what their intent was in requesting that the NixOS packagers voluntarily give up rights that the author had explicitly granted them, via the MIT License. The author isn't proposing software that a person might use to solve a problem. He's part of a project (Home Automation) that provides a service, and writes tools to that end. People who fundamentally see themselves as providing a service prefer precisely specified, first party dependencies. They see GNU/Linux distributions (which connect users and developers - or alternatively stand between users and developers) as dead ends and irritations. He was saying "if you want to use this, go knock yourself out" but he's also saying "please don't get in between me and my clients".
d110af5ccf 5y ago
A common solution to this is dual licensing. The project gets open sourced under a strong copy left license (ie GPL or AGPL). Then you offer a commercial license for closed source usage. The downside is that this greatly complicates project stewardship. You can no longer accept contributions to the version you maintain without a CLA. Related, if someone forks you can no longer incorporate any of their changes unless you track them down and convince them to sign a CLA or otherwise license their changes to you. It should work well if you were already planning to do everything yourself. You get to sell your work while also allowing the open source ecosystem to benefit from it free of charge.
type0 5y ago
> A company or startup following the "open source business model" ... Yes, it's the case that open source isn't and can't be a business model in itself
syshum 5y ago
Increased use of copyleft license would be a solution. Over use of MIT license, and the focus of open source dev tools only is the root of the problem We need open source SOFTWARE. not libraries and tooling
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "Something like "public source", i.e. source available but not free to use under any condition may be an answer in some cases." A term for this exists already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software > "For instance, an independent developer writing an important library should get a share of the business use/revenue" No matter how much people try to avoid saying it, this is simply a proprietary license, albeit one that happens to provide source. All the downsides of a proprietary license are there: the user having to pay for it, having to legally evaluate and accept the terms of the license, and having to monitor for license compliance. Beyond that, the author themselves have to build an organization around accepting payments (internationally even), handling taxes on revenue, undertaking legal action against violators, and be bound by legal requirements, such as fitness for merchantability and export restrictions. None of these things can be avoided so they are now playing a game that the proprietary software vendors are literally structured around winning.
ksec 5y ago
>Something like "public source" Somewhat similar to Unreal Engine Model?

by hbbio 5y ago

enriquto 5y ago

i'm sure we had a name for that, "coopie-lept" , "copiiiehlift", "cuuu..." please help me

badsectoracula 5y ago
Copyleft certainly is not "source available but not free to use under any condition".

ozim 5y ago

I think there should be something like "Private copying levy" but for open source developers that create useful libraries. My example would be cURL. Car makers have it incorporated in their software and well I don't think any of those car makers was going to Daniel to buy that piece of software or contributed back to the project. For "private copying levy" I don't really agree all poets should take cut because there is no demonstrable evidence that someone is using their work, so they would receive money for nothing. While open source developers can demonstrate that their software is used by those companies to build products and people use their work while using products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/08/12/a-hundred-million-cars-run-curl/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/08/12/a-hundred-million-car...

shakna 5y ago
It took Daniel 937 days to get a visa [0] to _visit_ the US. I don't really see the US ever being interested in the contributions of a particular software, like cURL, to their industries as a whole. Any levy to support it would be fought at every level. [0] https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html
- ozim 5y ago
  This cURL is just a single example, and as Daniel is Swedish then that would be on Sweden to introduce such levy and pay it out to him. But as other example if someone would be US national and contributed to OpenSSL project, he should get some payment for that. This would possibly fix quite some issues with OSS funding and contributors burnout. Because there are real examples of big corporations taking advantage of open source code without paying anything. Unfortunately OSS contributors are quite small group so their votes are not something that would make government take them seriously. But their work is proven to be important for society and that should be taken into consideration.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > as Daniel is Swedish then that would be on Sweden to introduce such levy and pay it out to him. That just makes the situation even worse; it would be painted (with some justification) as wrecking the Swedish domestic software industry.
    - ozim 5y ago
      How can someone justify: "We are going to tax Microsoft, Apple an Google for using Open Source software created by Swedish developers and pay money collected to those developers" as "wrecking the Swedish domestic software industry"? I would say it would make more Swedish people interested in writing software and getting back value that BigCorps are stealing from Sweden.
ahepp 5y ago
Isn't this problem easily and simply solved by dual licensing GPL/commercial? If Daniel wanted something in return for his code, he should not have MIT licensed it. I don't mean that in a snarky way, I just don't see what more there is to say on the matter.

pjc50 5y ago

> For instance, an independent developer writing an important library should get a share of the business use/revenue, especially if a set of companies that were not involved in writing it end up seizing most of the enterprise business around it. But then it won't be adopted. The modern OSS infrastructure is, for better or worse, a product of being both transactionless and frictionless. You can use such software without round-tripping a conversation, and you can do it without money changing hands - which, for businesses, means you can use it without fighting your internal purchase process. The fantasy of taking a revenue split and distributing it over everyone mentioned in your transitive dependencies is just that: a fantasy. It can't happen that way in a modern business culture. Try to enforce it and businesses will just go back to buying single vendor stacks

ako 5y ago
This. Enterprise Developers use opensource because it empowers them to choose the right compone nts without involving an entire purchasing organization. And why pay for software if there’s no support organization with support contracts and SLA’s?

wvenable 5y ago

> Something like "public source", i.e. source available but not free to use under any condition may be an answer in some cases. What would be the purpose of this? If the source is available but can't be used then there is no reason for the source to be available. No one can do anything with that source. The library in question is already released "without warranty of any kind, express or implied". If the author is burdened by support that they explicitly don't need to provide then the answer is to not provide that support. They are under no obligation to do so. Asking to limit the distribution of their product after explicitly licensing it to allow for distribution "without restriction" and "without limitation" is just plainly the wrong approach.

quanticle 5y ago
Exactly. The remedy for the original package author is to put up a banner on their project that says, "I will not be answering questions about my package on NixOS because I disagree with how NixOS packages my library." Failing that they could release their project under a non-free license that restricts redistribution in a way that excludes NixOS. I don't understand what their intent was in requesting that the NixOS packagers voluntarily give up rights that the author had explicitly granted them, via the MIT License.
- squiggleblaz 5y ago
  > Failing that they could release their project under a non-free license that restricts redistribution in a way that excludes NixOS. He wasn't happy with Fedora doing it either. It's a matter of redistribution, not a matter of NixOS. > I don't understand what their intent was in requesting that the NixOS packagers voluntarily give up rights that the author had explicitly granted them, via the MIT License. The author isn't proposing software that a person might use to solve a problem. He's part of a project (Home Automation) that provides a service, and writes tools to that end. People who fundamentally see themselves as providing a service prefer precisely specified, first party dependencies. They see GNU/Linux distributions (which connect users and developers - or alternatively stand between users and developers) as dead ends and irritations. He was saying "if you want to use this, go knock yourself out" but he's also saying "please don't get in between me and my clients".

d110af5ccf 5y ago

A common solution to this is dual licensing. The project gets open sourced under a strong copy left license (ie GPL or AGPL). Then you offer a commercial license for closed source usage. The downside is that this greatly complicates project stewardship. You can no longer accept contributions to the version you maintain without a CLA. Related, if someone forks you can no longer incorporate any of their changes unless you track them down and convince them to sign a CLA or otherwise license their changes to you. It should work well if you were already planning to do everything yourself. You get to sell your work while also allowing the open source ecosystem to benefit from it free of charge.

type0 5y ago

> A company or startup following the "open source business model" ... Yes, it's the case that open source isn't and can't be a business model in itself

syshum 5y ago

Increased use of copyleft license would be a solution. Over use of MIT license, and the focus of open source dev tools only is the root of the problem We need open source SOFTWARE. not libraries and tooling

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "Something like "public source", i.e. source available but not free to use under any condition may be an answer in some cases." A term for this exists already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software > "For instance, an independent developer writing an important library should get a share of the business use/revenue" No matter how much people try to avoid saying it, this is simply a proprietary license, albeit one that happens to provide source. All the downsides of a proprietary license are there: the user having to pay for it, having to legally evaluate and accept the terms of the license, and having to monitor for license compliance. Beyond that, the author themselves have to build an organization around accepting payments (internationally even), handling taxes on revenue, undertaking legal action against violators, and be bound by legal requirements, such as fitness for merchantability and export restrictions. None of these things can be avoided so they are now playing a game that the proprietary software vendors are literally structured around winning.

ksec 5y ago

>Something like "public source" Somewhat similar to Unreal Engine Model?