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I only worked with the Akka ecosystem a little, but if I had made a major career or business investment in it I'd be pretty unhappy about this. There's nothing

I only worked with the Akka ecosystem a little, but if I had made a major career or business investment in it I'd be pretty unhappy about this. There's nothing wrong with closed source software and I want the authors to make money. It's changing the terms on users that pulls the rug out from under people.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
It is not changing the terms for the users of the current version of AKKA. You will be free to use your current version with whatever terms you already have. You can fork the current version, that's the whole idea of Open Source. But you cannot take away the rights of the AKKA team to create their commercial "fork" either. That much was clear from the beginning I assume. License does what it says it does, it doesn't give you free access to all future forks. AKKA coming out with a commercial license does not make things worse for you, you can keep on using what you have under the license terms attached to it. Imagine if AKKA STOPPED making any software. Would that be morally wrong? They are not doing that but they will be providing more software with a different license. Take it or leave it, or fork the existing version with the same license. Ah the beauty of Open Source.
- cheriot 4y ago
  I'm not talking about legal rights. Surely they've managed the contributor agreement to make this option possible. However, they also built a community around open source software and there's more to that relationship than legalities. > AKKA coming out with a commercial license does not make things worse for you If I had invested my career in becoming an advocate for their product I'd now be worse off. It can't be introduced without going through legal and procurement. I can't take it home and build a small business without wondering what next year's pricing model will be. I hope Akka's owners succeed. I also hope none of the tools I invest my time learning and introducing at work do this.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    If you had invested your career in AKKA I would feel your pain and disappointment, and the feeling of being cheated with lofty talk about open source. But you might still have a strong career in supporting customers who use the commercial version of AKKA, they are the ones who could pay your salary. And you could fork it, and be the leader of that community. Until perhaps you decided to make a commercial fork as well. :-) I think it is in a way a good sign when an open-source project creates a commercial fork of itself, it shows there are paying customers for the software, it validates its existence. And I think it shows these guys believe in their product.

galaxyLogic 4y ago

It is not changing the terms for the users of the current version of AKKA. You will be free to use your current version with whatever terms you already have. You can fork the current version, that's the whole idea of Open Source. But you cannot take away the rights of the AKKA team to create their commercial "fork" either. That much was clear from the beginning I assume. License does what it says it does, it doesn't give you free access to all future forks. AKKA coming out with a commercial license does not make things worse for you, you can keep on using what you have under the license terms attached to it. Imagine if AKKA STOPPED making any software. Would that be morally wrong? They are not doing that but they will be providing more software with a different license. Take it or leave it, or fork the existing version with the same license. Ah the beauty of Open Source.

cheriot 4y ago
I'm not talking about legal rights. Surely they've managed the contributor agreement to make this option possible. However, they also built a community around open source software and there's more to that relationship than legalities. > AKKA coming out with a commercial license does not make things worse for you If I had invested my career in becoming an advocate for their product I'd now be worse off. It can't be introduced without going through legal and procurement. I can't take it home and build a small business without wondering what next year's pricing model will be. I hope Akka's owners succeed. I also hope none of the tools I invest my time learning and introducing at work do this.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  If you had invested your career in AKKA I would feel your pain and disappointment, and the feeling of being cheated with lofty talk about open source. But you might still have a strong career in supporting customers who use the commercial version of AKKA, they are the ones who could pay your salary. And you could fork it, and be the leader of that community. Until perhaps you decided to make a commercial fork as well. :-) I think it is in a way a good sign when an open-source project creates a commercial fork of itself, it shows there are paying customers for the software, it validates its existence. And I think it shows these guys believe in their product.