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The most recent exploitation of opensource code comes from Amazon & friends making their own paid, hosted versions of redis, elastic search, mongodb, and so on.

The most recent exploitation of opensource code comes from Amazon & friends making their own paid, hosted versions of redis, elastic search, mongodb, and so on. And not making any sort of proportionate contribution to the developers - whose free work their profits entirely rely on. And in this case I’m not sure how gpl helps. With gpl2 you only need to distribute source code if you distribute binaries - so they have no legal obligations there. And Amazon isn’t really making meaningful changes to elasticsearch and friends anyway, so having the license require them to opensource their changes is a bit moot.

colejohnson66 5y ago
That’s a shortcoming of the GPL: it doesn’t consider interactions over the network “distribution”. It’s the reason the AGPL exists. IMHO, GPL software that could be expected to run in SaaS form should be AGPL.
- Macha 5y ago
  It's also worth noting that GPL become more accepted in the corporate world because SaaSS defanged it. AGPL is toxic to companies now, but when everyone was releasing desktop software, GPL was treated the same way.
lnxg33k1 5y ago
Can someone with legalese knowledge make a license that states that you have to donate back 5% of the revenue you get from using a software?
- toast0 5y ago
  Not really, or at least the license would be very unappealing. You'd need a method of determining revenue and then apportioning revenue amongst the many parts of a system. Then there's transfer pricing issues. Not to mention audit requirements. See also Hollywood accounting. One of the ways open source gets adoption is because using open source with an acceptable license is often much less hassle than paying for commercial software and complying with commercial software license requirements.
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    Yeah it's frustrating, i would never work on a open source project as i don't really get why companies can make money using something from the unpaid labour of someone else, and for our society that's acceptable
    - toast0 5y ago
      I've done a few open source things, mostly bugfixes or minor enhancements. Most of those I was being paid by my employer for, and it was either something I wanted available more widely and it was worth going through the process or it was a pain to manage patches so it saved me time to get it accepted upstream. Either way, I don't get paid a royalty for work for hire from my past employers, so I don't expect a royalty from anyone else. And I've not worked on a project basis either; so I'm getting paid for having my butt in the seat and anything that happens afterwards is a happy accident. I've open sourced some personal stuff too, although I don't know that anyone has looked at it. That stuff is usually more like nobody should need to write this again. Not much commercial market for a PPPoE client that can handoff to a standby machine anyway, but maybe it will be useful for someone, some day. I've got another project in the works, but it's mostly a bit of glue around other people's open source code. If I wasn't retired, I'd try to get an employer to pay me to write it (and it would get done faster!), but I can't see why anyone would pay for just the software. Consulting on the software, sure; but then again, if you were to rely on it, you'd probably want to cultivate in-house expertise to reduce dependency on outside help.
    - fabianhjr 5y ago
      You would probably be more fond of Anti-Capitalist Software License, CoopyLeft Software License, Proseperity Software License or other Copyfair or Copyfarleft licenses. List and more references: https://github.com/LibreCybernetics/awesome-copyfarleft https://github.com/LibreCybernetics/awesome-copyfarleft
fabianhjr 5y ago
AGPL-like clauses classifying usage through network as distribution would help there and many platform capitalism[1] companies are against AGPL[2] for that reason. [1]: https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-srnicek/ https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-... [2]: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/

colejohnson66 5y ago

That’s a shortcoming of the GPL: it doesn’t consider interactions over the network “distribution”. It’s the reason the AGPL exists. IMHO, GPL software that could be expected to run in SaaS form should be AGPL.

Macha 5y ago
It's also worth noting that GPL become more accepted in the corporate world because SaaSS defanged it. AGPL is toxic to companies now, but when everyone was releasing desktop software, GPL was treated the same way.

lnxg33k1 5y ago

Can someone with legalese knowledge make a license that states that you have to donate back 5% of the revenue you get from using a software?

toast0 5y ago
Not really, or at least the license would be very unappealing. You'd need a method of determining revenue and then apportioning revenue amongst the many parts of a system. Then there's transfer pricing issues. Not to mention audit requirements. See also Hollywood accounting. One of the ways open source gets adoption is because using open source with an acceptable license is often much less hassle than paying for commercial software and complying with commercial software license requirements.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  Yeah it's frustrating, i would never work on a open source project as i don't really get why companies can make money using something from the unpaid labour of someone else, and for our society that's acceptable
  - toast0 5y ago
    I've done a few open source things, mostly bugfixes or minor enhancements. Most of those I was being paid by my employer for, and it was either something I wanted available more widely and it was worth going through the process or it was a pain to manage patches so it saved me time to get it accepted upstream. Either way, I don't get paid a royalty for work for hire from my past employers, so I don't expect a royalty from anyone else. And I've not worked on a project basis either; so I'm getting paid for having my butt in the seat and anything that happens afterwards is a happy accident. I've open sourced some personal stuff too, although I don't know that anyone has looked at it. That stuff is usually more like nobody should need to write this again. Not much commercial market for a PPPoE client that can handoff to a standby machine anyway, but maybe it will be useful for someone, some day. I've got another project in the works, but it's mostly a bit of glue around other people's open source code. If I wasn't retired, I'd try to get an employer to pay me to write it (and it would get done faster!), but I can't see why anyone would pay for just the software. Consulting on the software, sure; but then again, if you were to rely on it, you'd probably want to cultivate in-house expertise to reduce dependency on outside help.
  - fabianhjr 5y ago
    You would probably be more fond of Anti-Capitalist Software License, CoopyLeft Software License, Proseperity Software License or other Copyfair or Copyfarleft licenses. List and more references: https://github.com/LibreCybernetics/awesome-copyfarleft https://github.com/LibreCybernetics/awesome-copyfarleft

fabianhjr 5y ago

AGPL-like clauses classifying usage through network as distribution would help there and many platform capitalism[1] companies are against AGPL[2] for that reason. [1]: https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-srnicek/ https://theceme.org/richard-godden-platform-capitalism-nick-... [2]: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/