4 ms·

I think we have to see this in context: Muse group, a russian for-profit company that seems to have a shell-headquarters in Cyprus (see https://www.crunchbase.

I think we have to see this in context: Muse group, a russian for-profit company that seems to have a shell-headquarters in Cyprus (see https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group), recently acquired Audacity as part of their expansion into the broader audio-production world. As a first action, they changed their contributor License Agreement making a future change from a GPL license to a closed-source License possible. (it also allows for dual-licensing a paid version) https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 They currently say they're not going to do that, but if they wanted to (and Muse-group is for-profit) they could without the contributor having any recourse. (They have already confirmed a cloud-service for Audacity, which for me already reeks like "we want to have closed-source tools that use our open-source contributors code"). Having a CLA isn't a problem in and off itself, for example, as they correctly state: the FSF requires a CLA because they want to license all their stuff as "GPL 3 or above", which is only possible using some CLA-mechanism. (it's also easier for them to defend GPL related lawsuits if they are the copyright holders) What MuseGroup forgets to mention, is that they are a for-profit company (https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908 https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908) while the FSF is a foundation (specifically a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization), which shifts their incentives a lot. Now, barely a month later, they add the option of collecting data from users and people aren't happy. It is, at the very least, very tone-deaf/stupid from them to add telemetrie only one month after (IMO) showing their hand for what we can expect for the future.

twodave 5y ago
Thanks, I was definitely missing some of this context. Forking is probably the appropriate response if the contributing community no longer trusts the acquiring company. In an active open-source project, the value of the software lies with the contributors anyway, so as long as they're unified Muse group doesn't have much power or recourse. That said, I personally think this fork is a clumsy attempt thus far. If there truly is a rift so wide as the parent comment claims, it probably calls for a total rebrand. The way it's currently positioned makes it look like the author is simply attempting to apply pressure to get Muse to change its behavior, but based on this context I doubt that's going to be a viable long-term strategy.

twodave 5y ago

Thanks, I was definitely missing some of this context. Forking is probably the appropriate response if the contributing community no longer trusts the acquiring company. In an active open-source project, the value of the software lies with the contributors anyway, so as long as they're unified Muse group doesn't have much power or recourse. That said, I personally think this fork is a clumsy attempt thus far. If there truly is a rift so wide as the parent comment claims, it probably calls for a total rebrand. The way it's currently positioned makes it look like the author is simply attempting to apply pressure to get Muse to change its behavior, but based on this context I doubt that's going to be a viable long-term strategy.