4 ms·

> Just because you didn't manage to build a company around a Open Source library/ecosystem, doesn't mean Open Source is not sustainable. It just means that your

> Just because you didn't manage to build a company around a Open Source library/ecosystem, doesn't mean Open Source is not sustainable. It just means that your company is not sustainable. But I guess it's hard to blame yourself when you see others using your code without paying for it. This almost religious attitude makes no sense to me. Clearly other’s use of that code wasn’t very sustainable, since the author now says they will no longer maintain it for free. You’re essentially describing the “everyone looses” outcome that the OP wants to address, but you seem to think it’s a good outcome.

capableweb 4y ago
The author is saying "we're the only major contributor to Akka, open source isn't sustainable!" without considering/trying to address why they are the only major contributor to Akka. Plenty of big Apache projects have major contributors from multiple projects/ecosystems/companies, without having to change the license to something not Apache. Since it's clearly possible to have sustainable projects licensed under Apache, I'm saying that it sounds more like an excuse rather than a proper argument for the license change.
- hobofan 4y ago
  > Since it's clearly possible to have sustainable projects licensed under Apache Just because it's possible for _some_ projects to live sustainable and be licensed under Apache, doesn't mean that it's possible for all projects to be developed sustainably under that license.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    > doesn't mean that it's possible for all projects to be developed sustainably under that license Absolutely, I agree with that, it doesn't give you the right to be sustainable, merely the chance. What I find weird is claiming that Akka is unsustainable because it's open source, when there are others who are open source and sustainable.
    - msbarnett 4y ago
      > What I find weird is claiming that Akka is unsustainable because it's open source Akka is Open Source. Akka's authors feel that continuing the status quo is unsustainable. Whether or not it's unsustainable because it's open source to some extent doesn't really matter – perhaps with enough elbow grease on their part they could drum up more community maintainers and make it both sustainable and continuously open source, but that would require putting in yet more uncompensated work on the hope that it might lower their burdens at some point down the road, and come with the issue that more volunteers mean more work trying to coordinate everyone. Or they could just make it source available for the first 3 years and ask for money from the companies using it commercially – there's also no guarantee that this will work, but money will solve more problems in the short term, so I can understand why they made the choice they did.
zozbot234 4y ago
> Clearly other’s use of that code wasn’t very sustainable, since the author now says they will no longer maintain it for free. You are not entitled to ongoing, continued maintenance of any FLOSS project. If you have such needs, you can get paid support or fork the project and maintain it yourself.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > You are not entitled to ongoing, continued maintenance of any FLOSS project. If it were just no longer being maintained, nobody would be nearly as upset. But it is still being maintained; it's just no longer FLOSS.
  - balfirevic 4y ago
    The version prior to license change is as open source as ever and unmaintained.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    Those who would have been less upset by it becoming no longer maintained can simply fork and proceed as if that were the case.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      No, because the existence of the proprietary competitor to the fork will make it harder to gain traction.
      - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
        Plus, it’s a legal madness when a fork starts implementing features available in the BSL version, even if those are written in a different way.
Macha 4y ago
Here is Akka's dependency specification: https://github.com/akka/akka/blob/main/project/Dependencies.scala https://github.com/akka/akka/blob/main/project/Dependencies.... How many of these would have to opt for this source available approach before Akka would no longer be sustainable?

capableweb 4y ago

The author is saying "we're the only major contributor to Akka, open source isn't sustainable!" without considering/trying to address why they are the only major contributor to Akka. Plenty of big Apache projects have major contributors from multiple projects/ecosystems/companies, without having to change the license to something not Apache. Since it's clearly possible to have sustainable projects licensed under Apache, I'm saying that it sounds more like an excuse rather than a proper argument for the license change.

hobofan 4y ago
> Since it's clearly possible to have sustainable projects licensed under Apache Just because it's possible for _some_ projects to live sustainable and be licensed under Apache, doesn't mean that it's possible for all projects to be developed sustainably under that license.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > doesn't mean that it's possible for all projects to be developed sustainably under that license Absolutely, I agree with that, it doesn't give you the right to be sustainable, merely the chance. What I find weird is claiming that Akka is unsustainable because it's open source, when there are others who are open source and sustainable.
  - msbarnett 4y ago
    > What I find weird is claiming that Akka is unsustainable because it's open source Akka is Open Source. Akka's authors feel that continuing the status quo is unsustainable. Whether or not it's unsustainable because it's open source to some extent doesn't really matter – perhaps with enough elbow grease on their part they could drum up more community maintainers and make it both sustainable and continuously open source, but that would require putting in yet more uncompensated work on the hope that it might lower their burdens at some point down the road, and come with the issue that more volunteers mean more work trying to coordinate everyone. Or they could just make it source available for the first 3 years and ask for money from the companies using it commercially – there's also no guarantee that this will work, but money will solve more problems in the short term, so I can understand why they made the choice they did.

zozbot234 4y ago

> Clearly other’s use of that code wasn’t very sustainable, since the author now says they will no longer maintain it for free. You are not entitled to ongoing, continued maintenance of any FLOSS project. If you have such needs, you can get paid support or fork the project and maintain it yourself.

josephcsible 4y ago
> You are not entitled to ongoing, continued maintenance of any FLOSS project. If it were just no longer being maintained, nobody would be nearly as upset. But it is still being maintained; it's just no longer FLOSS.
- balfirevic 4y ago
  The version prior to license change is as open source as ever and unmaintained.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  Those who would have been less upset by it becoming no longer maintained can simply fork and proceed as if that were the case.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    No, because the existence of the proprietary competitor to the fork will make it harder to gain traction.
    - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
      Plus, it’s a legal madness when a fork starts implementing features available in the BSL version, even if those are written in a different way.

Macha 4y ago

Here is Akka's dependency specification: https://github.com/akka/akka/blob/main/project/Dependencies.scala https://github.com/akka/akka/blob/main/project/Dependencies.... How many of these would have to opt for this source available approach before Akka would no longer be sustainable?