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> This presumes that commercially friendly licenses help provide funding for FOSS development. Yes, definitely, when compared against a license that bans fundi

> This presumes that commercially friendly licenses help provide funding for FOSS development. Yes, definitely, when compared against a license that bans funding your project. I'm not here to argue that the current state of funding in FOSS is great, I'm here to argue that banning funding is not going to help it. Blender can't use an NC licensed asset in the program, because their software is a commercial product that they are making money off of. What an NC licensed commons does is it guarantees that anyone building on top of the commons can not do so in a sustainable way, regardless of whether or not they're building FOSS software. I think what people miss when they talk about the commons is that FOSS projects are built on top of FOSS projects, and questions about funding necessarily affect not just the immediate developer that releases a project, but the ability of every single downstream CC/FOSS project that is trying to build on top of a shared commons. Philosophically, the idea of a shared commons is that having an open collection of software/content that everyone both contributes to and that everyone builds on top of will be better for society. It is reasonable for people to disagree with that philosophy and to argue that closing down and forcing people to get permission to build anything large on top of the commons is a better model -- that is the model of proprietary software. But people should be aware what they're arguing for. Non-Commercial licenses are an assertion that any other commons material built on top of that content must be unfunded. Future creative commons works can not include content under proprietary dual-licenses to your stuff while remaining FOSS/CC themselves. So they have choice. Either have no funding at all, or reject the Creative Commons and build proprietary stuff using assets that are licensed under Non-Free agreements. In the current world, an assertion that the Creative Commons should require Non-Commercial usage is an assertion that Creative Commons content should not be funded.

ashtonkem 5y ago
> Yes, when compared against a license that bans funding your project. I'm not here to argue that the current state of funding in FOSS is great, I'm here to argue that banning funding is not going to help it. Banning funding that doesn’t exist for most projects isn’t harmful. 50% less than $0 is still $0. Most open source projects get nothing from companies, and count on the free labor of the founder and those “buy me a coffee” buttons (which would still be fine for a non-commercial project). In fact, it’s extremely common to have open source library writers complain that their product is used by unicorns and Fortune 500 companies, yet they’re forced to support development of a product that helps others profit. This is part of why we see such public burnout and ragequits here from time to time. It’s fine to say “well banning commercial funding won’t help”, but let’s be honest; for profit companies aren’t going to give anything back without being forced to do so. We’re covering huge chunks of their labor cost for free, without some mechanism to force them to pay, they never will. > Blender can't use an NC licensed asset in the program, because their software is a commercial product that they are making money off of. What an NC licensed commons does is it guarantees that anyone building on top of the commons can not do so in a sustainable way. Blender is in extremely rarified territory for a FOSS program; it gets direct cash subsidies from for profit companies who see benefit in its development. While it’s obviously true that Blender going NC would ruin them, looking at such outliers to judge the median is like looking at a lottery winner when planning out your finances; you’re going to get a skewed sense of reality. Also, Blender isn’t getting funded by Epic out of the goodness of their hearts or a concern for the commons. Epic sees profit in making it easier for other people to make video games for their platform. Very, very few open source projects will ever end up in this position.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > Banning funding that doesn’t exist for most projects isn’t harmful. Yes it is, if you ever want to get funding. Right now, we are trying to figure out ways to fund FOSS/CC software/content. It's very hard. But at least we don't have legal restrictions stopping us from doing so. > for profit companies aren’t going to give anything back without being forced to do so We also have licenses for this. CC Share Alike. The entire point of the GPL and Share Alike licenses are to force companies to contribute back to the commons and to operate on the same terms as the people making software/commons content. There are some issues that those licenses don't plug, like SaaS software. Those issues will be better solved by targeted licenses like AGPL than they will be by rejecting FOSS concepts entirely. > Also, Blender isn’t getting funded by Epic out of the goodness of their hearts. Who the heck cares? "Very, very few" is better than zero. > We’re covering huge chunks of their labor cost for free And I want to push back on this as well. How much of your software are you actually writing from scratch? The entirety of Open Source today is built on existing Open Source projects. Some of them were developed by exploited developers, some of those developers were compensated. But in every single one of those cases, your ability to even look for funding today is only possible because those developers in the past gave you permission to do so. The fact that we're even talking about funding in any form indicates to me that you don't really want to live in the world you're describing. How would you feel if you went to put your current Open Source project on Patreon and found out you can't because the libraries it's built on restrict you from trying to fund its development? It is difficult to solve the current funding problems in Open Source. But it is impossible to build a sustainable FOSS ecosystem on NC-licensed content. Not unless your idea is that every single FOSS project will reinvent the entire computing stack from scratch for everything they release. What Non-Commercial license advocates are actually saying (whether they realize it or not) is that software built on top of the commons should not be funded. If people want a proprietary world and they want everyone to license every library they use, and they want copyright licenses to propagate down the tech stack like they currently do in the proprietary world of software, then they should just say that.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    > The fact that we're even talking about funding in any form indicates to me that you don't really want to live in the world you're describing. > What Non-Commercial license advocates are actually saying (whether they realize it or not) I’d appreciate it if you didn’t accuse me of being delusional or duplicitous, it’s not nice. Also, what world do you think I’m describing? Because it sure doesn’t seem to match the world I think I’m describing. Here, I’ll make it more clear for you with bullet points: 1. Tying “freedom” to commercialization is a framing that I think is misleading at best, manipulative at worst. It implies that open source creators are less moral people if they don’t want someone else making a profit off their work, which I think is nonsense. 2. A lot (but not all!) of open source contributors would be happier if they chose NC licenses even if it means fewer people use them. The proposed costs of doing so (no Debian, no commercial funding) is a non-factor for the vast majority of projects, while the lower adoption of NC projects might make the overall process more enjoyable and less stressful. 3. The exact definition of success for a project is up to the people creating and running it, not us. You might find it inconvenient if you can’t use someone else’s work because of a license incompatibility, but that doesn’t mean that that project is a failure or bad, it just means it’s not right (or even meant) for you. None of this comes anywhere close to all software being NC, although I think more people should make NC software for the joy of making things that other people will use (point 2). Plenty of open source founders will set high levels of adoption as their goal (point 3), and therefore adopt a commercial friendly license[0]. That’s fine, and I think it’s their right to pick the license that they think best meets their needs. What’s not fine is haranguing those who want their work to remain non-commercial for picking a “non-free” license (point 1). It’s their work, they can do with it as they see fit[0] without the unnecessary moralizing about “freedom”. 0 - Limited of course by the licenses of any libraries they bring in, since those creators have rights too.

ashtonkem 5y ago

> Yes, when compared against a license that bans funding your project. I'm not here to argue that the current state of funding in FOSS is great, I'm here to argue that banning funding is not going to help it. Banning funding that doesn’t exist for most projects isn’t harmful. 50% less than $0 is still $0. Most open source projects get nothing from companies, and count on the free labor of the founder and those “buy me a coffee” buttons (which would still be fine for a non-commercial project). In fact, it’s extremely common to have open source library writers complain that their product is used by unicorns and Fortune 500 companies, yet they’re forced to support development of a product that helps others profit. This is part of why we see such public burnout and ragequits here from time to time. It’s fine to say “well banning commercial funding won’t help”, but let’s be honest; for profit companies aren’t going to give anything back without being forced to do so. We’re covering huge chunks of their labor cost for free, without some mechanism to force them to pay, they never will. > Blender can't use an NC licensed asset in the program, because their software is a commercial product that they are making money off of. What an NC licensed commons does is it guarantees that anyone building on top of the commons can not do so in a sustainable way. Blender is in extremely rarified territory for a FOSS program; it gets direct cash subsidies from for profit companies who see benefit in its development. While it’s obviously true that Blender going NC would ruin them, looking at such outliers to judge the median is like looking at a lottery winner when planning out your finances; you’re going to get a skewed sense of reality. Also, Blender isn’t getting funded by Epic out of the goodness of their hearts or a concern for the commons. Epic sees profit in making it easier for other people to make video games for their platform. Very, very few open source projects will ever end up in this position.

danShumway 5y ago
> Banning funding that doesn’t exist for most projects isn’t harmful. Yes it is, if you ever want to get funding. Right now, we are trying to figure out ways to fund FOSS/CC software/content. It's very hard. But at least we don't have legal restrictions stopping us from doing so. > for profit companies aren’t going to give anything back without being forced to do so We also have licenses for this. CC Share Alike. The entire point of the GPL and Share Alike licenses are to force companies to contribute back to the commons and to operate on the same terms as the people making software/commons content. There are some issues that those licenses don't plug, like SaaS software. Those issues will be better solved by targeted licenses like AGPL than they will be by rejecting FOSS concepts entirely. > Also, Blender isn’t getting funded by Epic out of the goodness of their hearts. Who the heck cares? "Very, very few" is better than zero. > We’re covering huge chunks of their labor cost for free And I want to push back on this as well. How much of your software are you actually writing from scratch? The entirety of Open Source today is built on existing Open Source projects. Some of them were developed by exploited developers, some of those developers were compensated. But in every single one of those cases, your ability to even look for funding today is only possible because those developers in the past gave you permission to do so. The fact that we're even talking about funding in any form indicates to me that you don't really want to live in the world you're describing. How would you feel if you went to put your current Open Source project on Patreon and found out you can't because the libraries it's built on restrict you from trying to fund its development? It is difficult to solve the current funding problems in Open Source. But it is impossible to build a sustainable FOSS ecosystem on NC-licensed content. Not unless your idea is that every single FOSS project will reinvent the entire computing stack from scratch for everything they release. What Non-Commercial license advocates are actually saying (whether they realize it or not) is that software built on top of the commons should not be funded. If people want a proprietary world and they want everyone to license every library they use, and they want copyright licenses to propagate down the tech stack like they currently do in the proprietary world of software, then they should just say that.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > The fact that we're even talking about funding in any form indicates to me that you don't really want to live in the world you're describing. > What Non-Commercial license advocates are actually saying (whether they realize it or not) I’d appreciate it if you didn’t accuse me of being delusional or duplicitous, it’s not nice. Also, what world do you think I’m describing? Because it sure doesn’t seem to match the world I think I’m describing. Here, I’ll make it more clear for you with bullet points: 1. Tying “freedom” to commercialization is a framing that I think is misleading at best, manipulative at worst. It implies that open source creators are less moral people if they don’t want someone else making a profit off their work, which I think is nonsense. 2. A lot (but not all!) of open source contributors would be happier if they chose NC licenses even if it means fewer people use them. The proposed costs of doing so (no Debian, no commercial funding) is a non-factor for the vast majority of projects, while the lower adoption of NC projects might make the overall process more enjoyable and less stressful. 3. The exact definition of success for a project is up to the people creating and running it, not us. You might find it inconvenient if you can’t use someone else’s work because of a license incompatibility, but that doesn’t mean that that project is a failure or bad, it just means it’s not right (or even meant) for you. None of this comes anywhere close to all software being NC, although I think more people should make NC software for the joy of making things that other people will use (point 2). Plenty of open source founders will set high levels of adoption as their goal (point 3), and therefore adopt a commercial friendly license[0]. That’s fine, and I think it’s their right to pick the license that they think best meets their needs. What’s not fine is haranguing those who want their work to remain non-commercial for picking a “non-free” license (point 1). It’s their work, they can do with it as they see fit[0] without the unnecessary moralizing about “freedom”. 0 - Limited of course by the licenses of any libraries they bring in, since those creators have rights too.