7 ms·

This comment is in every thread about this, but there has to be a solution that satisfies FOSS purists as well as casual users without allowing a massive, evil

This comment is in every thread about this, but there has to be a solution that satisfies FOSS purists as well as casual users without allowing a massive, evil megacorp to just stomp on every company built around open-source solutions.

Salgat 5y ago
How is AWS stomping all over it? Being able to fork for your own needs is a good thing. You don't make something open source and accept the world's free contributions without acknowledging that.
- skrtskrt 5y ago
  Again, you’re leading with the definition-of-FOSS argument. Step back from FOSS for a second. I think most people would agree that there’s somewhat of a moral issue with just taking someone else’s open source software and just hosting it and making billions, with nothing for the creators, because you are a megacorp who is good at hosting. Now, is there a way to solve that and have the benefits of FOSS? Both Mongo and MariaDB have tried to address this with licensing - MariaDB seems to have done this much less clumsily than Mongo, but both still had FOSS advocates shrieking --- EDIT to include response to below comments so everyone doesn't keep repeating the same things: > Either your product is fully free and you accept that people can fork it, even Amazon, or you choose a restrictive license. You can't make "free" (as in libre) compatible with "but". > I can totally see that you think this is unfair, but they did allow it and they were perfectly happy when being FOSS brought them market share. You have to take the good with the bad > If you have a moral qualm with bigcorps using your work for free, you don’t license in such a way that they can. Make your own license, or slap AGPL3 on it - either way, no bigcorp touches it. > But you cannot be mad when you say “I release this code under these terms” and AWS takes you up on your offer. If everyone stomps their feet and says "there's no solution, otherwise it's not OSS!" then the end result is only going to be a lot less open-source software. I'm not asking if someone who wrote code and chose an existing OSS license that allows any possible usage has any real recourse once they want to make money off of it - obviously not. I am asking, can we find a way to ensure software creators are compensated while still having the generally-recognized benefits of FOSS? > Don't you think there's a moral issue expecting free contributions to something which only you are allowed to monetize? Nowhere in OSS licenses does it include the expectations of free contributions > And how can you satisfy users to the greatest extent while also preventing them from using the provider that is best able to meet their needs? Again, can we just find a way for the creators to be compensated? I'd love for the OSS to be available as a hosted solution to be available on every cloud provider, including if the original creators choose to provide a cloud hosting. I'd also love for the original creators to be able to get some sliver of the money AWS/Google/Azure are making off of it. --- To me it seems like if you were to start a business around your open-source code right now, you would be smart to do one of these two things: 1. a MariaDB/CockroachDB BSL approach, where the newest versions are BSL, with a restriction that you can't provide a product where you just host our software without paying us, then all code automatically is fully open-source (GPL or whatever) after x amount of time, or x major version releases. - this comes with the danger of all the bad PR and gnashing of teeth that comes with non-pure-OSS licenses, or people just not adopting it because they dislike or don't understand the license 2. Open-Core with non-OSS-licensed Enterprise versions, and lean really hard into developing hosting and enterprise integrations to make sure you can make some money off the nonfree portions - this seems even more dangerous, that you have to be distracted on such things that are not the core product in order to defend against ending up like Docker, with everyone using it and no one paying you a dime.
  - owenmarshall 5y ago
    you know that responding to comments tends to make a discussion flow, rather than stealing all our work for your own comment, incorporating them without credit? ;-)
    - skrtskrt 5y ago
      Just figured since there are so many forks reproducing the same work, I would merge the comments upstream to meet the needs of the community ;)
      - owenmarshall 5y ago
        you’re depriving me of my valuable karma! I’m relicensing all comments.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    > Now, is there a way to solve that and have the benefits of FOSS? The answer is simple - no. Either your product is fully free and you accept that people can fork it, even Amazon, or you choose a restrictive license. You can't make "free" (as in libre) compatible with "but". I can totally see that you think this is unfair, but they did allow it and they were perfectly happy when being FOSS brought them market share. You have to take the good with the bad.
    - skrtskrt 5y ago
      If everyone stomps their feet and says "there's no solution, otherwise it's not OSS!" then the end result is only going to be a lot less open-source software.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        Well, it's just the free speech issue all over. Either you censor speech or you risk people saying things that you really don't like. This is exactly the same situation: Either you go FOSS, with all the benefits it entails, and risk getting forked by a major player or you go proprietary and risk not getting adopted at all by major players and open source enthusiasts. Don't get me wrong, I feel with the Elastic team and I can understand why they're unhappy (even if I don't agree with their pettiness). I also don't particularly like the move Amazon did here. But that's why we want free software: If the current owner of the software does something you don't like, you can still use the software. That's the whole point. And you're still free to pay Elastic to manage a cluster on AWS for you; Amazon might have forked the project, but it's still the customer that needs to switch to OpenSearch.
- zakki 5y ago
  Except AWS is not forking open source for their own use. They sell it and get a lot of profit from it.
  - growse 5y ago
    > Except AWS is not forking open source for their own use. They sell it and get a lot of profit from it. They sell a hosted service that uses the software. They're not selling the software. Pretty difficult to see how a company building a SaaS business around some software is not "for their own use".
    - stonemetal12 5y ago
      You also never hear anyone complain about the thousands of hosting providers that build their business around the LAMP stack. I wonder if it is because Amazon is so big, or just the lack of competition.
      - madeofpalk 5y ago
        It is definitely because Amazon/AWS is so big. That's the biggest part of the complaint.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        I think it's a general sense of unease with the probability that future F/OSS looks like "{Project}, sponsored by Amazon" due to cloud market dynamics and size. Coupling that with the fact that, in the past, F/OSS project control or domination by a single party hasn't turned out well.
Nextgrid 5y ago
AGPL?
- skrtskrt 5y ago
  AGPL seems to guarantee mostly that you can obtain changes people are applying downstream in order to host your software, and apply them back up. It does not prevent someone from making billions off of doing nothing but hosting your software because they are better than you at hosting.
  - touisteur 5y ago
    But, if the value-add is hosting more than the software itself, why would you prevent the 'value-adder' making the bulk of the money? I'm like OP, trying to take a step back. What do we want here? As users? As developers? That no one does too much (or any) money hosting our software for other people willing to pay? Profit-sharing? On what basis? Really, naively, apart from the use of the Elastic brand, that I might conceive could cause problems, who's hurting whom?
    - skrtskrt 5y ago
      > But, if the value-add is hosting more than the software itself, why would you prevent the 'value-adder' making the bulk of the money? Sure, but maybe there's a way for the original creators to get more than $0 (while still satisfying OSS people)?
    - 8note 5y ago
      I want anyone to be able to pick up development of the software, not needing permission to do so. If elastic the business goes under, hosted solutions should still be available, with changes still be made on it
      - touisteur 5y ago
        I'm thinking this would first be an API compatibility problem? The service can be implemented in different ways, by different teams. See redpanda vs kafka or wire-compatibility for postgres?
madeofpalk 5y ago
There is. AGPL + dual licensing.
- skrtskrt 5y ago
  How would dual licensing go down, ideally in these cases? I figured if that worked, Elastic, Redis, MariaDB, Mongo, Timescale, and Cockroach Labs would have gone that route
  - Macha 5y ago
    Start out that way, and you'll find it harder to build a user base. So instead companies have done it as a bait and switch (planned or otherwise)
    - skrtskrt 5y ago
      Would it be fair to do something where you start off with the BSL approach where older code automatically becomes fully open source (like GPL or Apache), with the exceptions that the first N versions or N years of work will start off fully open, then the BSL stuff will kick in later?
      - sanxiyn 5y ago
        I think this would be fair, and it has been done. Ghostscript had two branches, Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript, where GNU Ghostscript is approximately one year behind.
  - wmf 5y ago
    The idea behind dual licensing is that hosting providers would pay for a license and others wouldn't. The arguments that AGPL isn't strong enough are pretty speculative.
johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> there has to be a solution that satisfies FOSS purists as well as casual users without allowing a massive, evil megacorp to just stomp on every company built around open-source solutions. The reason for everyone not selling the software in question to prefer F/OSS is exactly that it requires surrendering the kind of exclusive control that is also what allows you to build a company around the software as a product. Yes, this means that F/OSS as such is unlikely to be the key product of a successful company. That's always the way it has been with F/OSS. “But if I can’t center my business on F/OSS-as-product and I can't center my business on commercial software for the same use because F/OSS products, even if somewhat inferior themselves, develop more robust ecosystems, then how am I supposed to compete with free?” one might ask. And the answer is this: “Maybe you’re not: you are entitled to a business model.”

Salgat 5y ago

How is AWS stomping all over it? Being able to fork for your own needs is a good thing. You don't make something open source and accept the world's free contributions without acknowledging that.

skrtskrt 5y ago
Again, you’re leading with the definition-of-FOSS argument. Step back from FOSS for a second. I think most people would agree that there’s somewhat of a moral issue with just taking someone else’s open source software and just hosting it and making billions, with nothing for the creators, because you are a megacorp who is good at hosting. Now, is there a way to solve that and have the benefits of FOSS? Both Mongo and MariaDB have tried to address this with licensing - MariaDB seems to have done this much less clumsily than Mongo, but both still had FOSS advocates shrieking --- EDIT to include response to below comments so everyone doesn't keep repeating the same things: > Either your product is fully free and you accept that people can fork it, even Amazon, or you choose a restrictive license. You can't make "free" (as in libre) compatible with "but". > I can totally see that you think this is unfair, but they did allow it and they were perfectly happy when being FOSS brought them market share. You have to take the good with the bad > If you have a moral qualm with bigcorps using your work for free, you don’t license in such a way that they can. Make your own license, or slap AGPL3 on it - either way, no bigcorp touches it. > But you cannot be mad when you say “I release this code under these terms” and AWS takes you up on your offer. If everyone stomps their feet and says "there's no solution, otherwise it's not OSS!" then the end result is only going to be a lot less open-source software. I'm not asking if someone who wrote code and chose an existing OSS license that allows any possible usage has any real recourse once they want to make money off of it - obviously not. I am asking, can we find a way to ensure software creators are compensated while still having the generally-recognized benefits of FOSS? > Don't you think there's a moral issue expecting free contributions to something which only you are allowed to monetize? Nowhere in OSS licenses does it include the expectations of free contributions > And how can you satisfy users to the greatest extent while also preventing them from using the provider that is best able to meet their needs? Again, can we just find a way for the creators to be compensated? I'd love for the OSS to be available as a hosted solution to be available on every cloud provider, including if the original creators choose to provide a cloud hosting. I'd also love for the original creators to be able to get some sliver of the money AWS/Google/Azure are making off of it. --- To me it seems like if you were to start a business around your open-source code right now, you would be smart to do one of these two things: 1. a MariaDB/CockroachDB BSL approach, where the newest versions are BSL, with a restriction that you can't provide a product where you just host our software without paying us, then all code automatically is fully open-source (GPL or whatever) after x amount of time, or x major version releases. - this comes with the danger of all the bad PR and gnashing of teeth that comes with non-pure-OSS licenses, or people just not adopting it because they dislike or don't understand the license 2. Open-Core with non-OSS-licensed Enterprise versions, and lean really hard into developing hosting and enterprise integrations to make sure you can make some money off the nonfree portions - this seems even more dangerous, that you have to be distracted on such things that are not the core product in order to defend against ending up like Docker, with everyone using it and no one paying you a dime.
- owenmarshall 5y ago
  you know that responding to comments tends to make a discussion flow, rather than stealing all our work for your own comment, incorporating them without credit? ;-)
  - skrtskrt 5y ago
    Just figured since there are so many forks reproducing the same work, I would merge the comments upstream to meet the needs of the community ;)
    - owenmarshall 5y ago
      you’re depriving me of my valuable karma! I’m relicensing all comments.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > Now, is there a way to solve that and have the benefits of FOSS? The answer is simple - no. Either your product is fully free and you accept that people can fork it, even Amazon, or you choose a restrictive license. You can't make "free" (as in libre) compatible with "but". I can totally see that you think this is unfair, but they did allow it and they were perfectly happy when being FOSS brought them market share. You have to take the good with the bad.
  - skrtskrt 5y ago
    If everyone stomps their feet and says "there's no solution, otherwise it's not OSS!" then the end result is only going to be a lot less open-source software.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Well, it's just the free speech issue all over. Either you censor speech or you risk people saying things that you really don't like. This is exactly the same situation: Either you go FOSS, with all the benefits it entails, and risk getting forked by a major player or you go proprietary and risk not getting adopted at all by major players and open source enthusiasts. Don't get me wrong, I feel with the Elastic team and I can understand why they're unhappy (even if I don't agree with their pettiness). I also don't particularly like the move Amazon did here. But that's why we want free software: If the current owner of the software does something you don't like, you can still use the software. That's the whole point. And you're still free to pay Elastic to manage a cluster on AWS for you; Amazon might have forked the project, but it's still the customer that needs to switch to OpenSearch.
zakki 5y ago
Except AWS is not forking open source for their own use. They sell it and get a lot of profit from it.
- growse 5y ago
  > Except AWS is not forking open source for their own use. They sell it and get a lot of profit from it. They sell a hosted service that uses the software. They're not selling the software. Pretty difficult to see how a company building a SaaS business around some software is not "for their own use".
  - stonemetal12 5y ago
    You also never hear anyone complain about the thousands of hosting providers that build their business around the LAMP stack. I wonder if it is because Amazon is so big, or just the lack of competition.
    - madeofpalk 5y ago
      It is definitely because Amazon/AWS is so big. That's the biggest part of the complaint.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I think it's a general sense of unease with the probability that future F/OSS looks like "{Project}, sponsored by Amazon" due to cloud market dynamics and size. Coupling that with the fact that, in the past, F/OSS project control or domination by a single party hasn't turned out well.

Nextgrid 5y ago

AGPL?

skrtskrt 5y ago
AGPL seems to guarantee mostly that you can obtain changes people are applying downstream in order to host your software, and apply them back up. It does not prevent someone from making billions off of doing nothing but hosting your software because they are better than you at hosting.
- touisteur 5y ago
  But, if the value-add is hosting more than the software itself, why would you prevent the 'value-adder' making the bulk of the money? I'm like OP, trying to take a step back. What do we want here? As users? As developers? That no one does too much (or any) money hosting our software for other people willing to pay? Profit-sharing? On what basis? Really, naively, apart from the use of the Elastic brand, that I might conceive could cause problems, who's hurting whom?
  - skrtskrt 5y ago
    > But, if the value-add is hosting more than the software itself, why would you prevent the 'value-adder' making the bulk of the money? Sure, but maybe there's a way for the original creators to get more than $0 (while still satisfying OSS people)?
  - 8note 5y ago
    I want anyone to be able to pick up development of the software, not needing permission to do so. If elastic the business goes under, hosted solutions should still be available, with changes still be made on it
    - touisteur 5y ago
      I'm thinking this would first be an API compatibility problem? The service can be implemented in different ways, by different teams. See redpanda vs kafka or wire-compatibility for postgres?

madeofpalk 5y ago

There is. AGPL + dual licensing.

skrtskrt 5y ago
How would dual licensing go down, ideally in these cases? I figured if that worked, Elastic, Redis, MariaDB, Mongo, Timescale, and Cockroach Labs would have gone that route
- Macha 5y ago
  Start out that way, and you'll find it harder to build a user base. So instead companies have done it as a bait and switch (planned or otherwise)
  - skrtskrt 5y ago
    Would it be fair to do something where you start off with the BSL approach where older code automatically becomes fully open source (like GPL or Apache), with the exceptions that the first N versions or N years of work will start off fully open, then the BSL stuff will kick in later?
    - sanxiyn 5y ago
      I think this would be fair, and it has been done. Ghostscript had two branches, Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript, where GNU Ghostscript is approximately one year behind.
- wmf 5y ago
  The idea behind dual licensing is that hosting providers would pay for a license and others wouldn't. The arguments that AGPL isn't strong enough are pretty speculative.

johndfsgdgdfg 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> there has to be a solution that satisfies FOSS purists as well as casual users without allowing a massive, evil megacorp to just stomp on every company built around open-source solutions. The reason for everyone not selling the software in question to prefer F/OSS is exactly that it requires surrendering the kind of exclusive control that is also what allows you to build a company around the software as a product. Yes, this means that F/OSS as such is unlikely to be the key product of a successful company. That's always the way it has been with F/OSS. “But if I can’t center my business on F/OSS-as-product and I can't center my business on commercial software for the same use because F/OSS products, even if somewhat inferior themselves, develop more robust ecosystems, then how am I supposed to compete with free?” one might ask. And the answer is this: “Maybe you’re not: you are entitled to a business model.”