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It feels like these blog posts come out at least once a year. To me, the issue comes down to the fact that companies are fundamentally relying on software that

It feels like these blog posts come out at least once a year. To me, the issue comes down to the fact that companies are fundamentally relying on software that comes with no promises of support or a warranty. I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free and come with no warranty. So many people act like Open Source is great. But often the love for open source often only goes as far as to say thanks when they're creating a bug report or when they're getting the software for free. Every company I've worked at has used open source code. Only one of them open sourced their code. Many non-decision makers wanted to do open source code but it was never given any time so it would always come down to "You can do it in your free time and release it under our name". So again the company wants free things that benefit them. Personally, I think the way forward is source available. I have a SaaS boilerplate/product framework thing that I'm releasing under the Business Source License where it's free to use for non production and free for folk generating less than $5,000 a month to use in production[1]. To me this provides the best of both worlds, people who aren't making money can use it for free but those who are using it to generate money need to pay to help fund the development. Free users get best efforts in support and paying customers get priority support. I think if it relies on people paying what they can afford it results in many not paying at all even though they can afford it. [1] https://github.com/getparthenon/parthenon#faq https://github.com/getparthenon/parthenon#faq

guggleet 4y ago
> Every company I've worked at has used open source code. Only one of them open sourced their code. Did they have code worth distributing and opening for contribution? It seems like most code I encounter in enterprise environments doesn't really fit those needs.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  I would say one or two had something they could have made available. The one place I worked that did open source code, it was decided very early on it was to be open sourced so it built in a way to make it open source.
ajross 4y ago
> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free [...] So many people act like Open Source is great. But [...] I likewise have trouble understanding how people getting so much great stuff for free, with which they create stunning, society-changing artifacts on a regular basis, think that getting that stuff for free was... bad? I mean, yes, you don't get a warrantee and don't sign a contract and don't have anyone to blame but yourself if it breaks. And it works amazingly well! Objectively and experimentally much better than the proprietary infrastructure that it replaced[1]. And it's not like buying your stuff solves this problem anyway. This very site is filled with complaints and reports of proprietary software failing to work the way its users intend too. [1] Anyone else remember porting software across six Unices in the 90's? I do!
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  > And it's not like buying your stuff solves this problem anyway. This very site is filled with complaints and reports of proprietary software failing to work the way its users intend too. I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us. I've had proprietary software break and got money back for SLAs. You get a fix real quick when there is an SLA. I've had proprietary software have release dates pushed back because we couldn't handle the time to rewrite to the new version and we still had a support contract for that version. We could have choosen just to keep paying for support on the old version at a higher price but obivously choose to rewrite to the newer version. At the same time, I've had pull requests go unmerged even though they had tests and fixed bugs. For me, even if it's just the ability to complain I thnk paying is worth it. You complain to an open source project they're screwing with your stuff you're an entitled user. You complain to a vendor that they're screwing with your stuff, you're an rightfully angry customer that gives them a reason to spend time to fix the issue causing you problems.
  - ajross 4y ago
    > I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us. I write open source software for a living. I've had users come to me with problems that turn out to be bugs in their code. I fix their code for them. This happens pretty much every week. I don't see the distinction, one anecdote is as good as another. Obviously, yes, you can write big checks that ensure people take you seriously, which is fundamentally what you're talking about here. You can write those checks to anyone though, including many, many excellent companies who would love to take your money to maintain their open source projects. It's an orthogonal problem. All I'm saying is don't confuse the two.
nazgulsenpai 4y ago
"The way forward" is very subjective and depends on what your goals are in open-sourcing your project. If you are trying to drive adoption for your product like AMD GPUs on Linux or FSR then open-sourcing with a liberal free software license makes perfect sense. If you worked on a hobby project and you are no longer interested in it and just want to put it out there to help someone else along who might be interested in the future, open-sourcing with a free software license makes sense. If you want to control anything about how your product is used (outside of something like GPL) then using a more restrictive license or only open sourcing parts of your product ("open core") makes sense, like you describe. I don't think there's anything wrong with any approach to open source as long as it's explicitly communicated to the user.
phkahler 4y ago
>> Personally, I think the way forward is source available. I'm not sure that's the best solution either. One thing I think is often overlooked is license compatibility. Open source benefits a LOT at time when code can be taken directly from one project and used in another. In fewer cases it also benefits from the ability to fork a project. In my opinion we should stick to a tiny number of licenses depending on which makes sense for a project: MIT, GPL, and LGPL. Now I realize there is a lot of BSD out there which seems equivalent to MIT. And as everything is moving to the cloud I can actually see AGPL as a good thing, but even that IMHO should have been merged to GPL3 to prevent license proliferation. In the same sense I think the OSI made things worse by "approving" more licenses that are technically open source but just fragment things. Similar for the Apache licenses. So no, we don't really want to solve these problems with another license. OTOH if your product is stand alone and not likely to have code useful outside itself then it might be OK. But then you're just inviting outsiders to contribute to your commercial product while also offering a limited use free version. I'm going to guess you don't get a lot of contributions?
Jaygles 4y ago
What about a system that allows requiring a fee to "open an issue" or "file a bug report". GitHub could add that to the issue creator pretty easily. And maybe there could be tiers. Free issue == no guarantees. $5000 issue == guaranteed fix.
- spaced-out 4y ago
  Sounds like a bad deal for the developer to promise they'll "fix" any issue for a flat rate of $5000 (minus whatever Github takes). What if there's a dispute about whether it's fixed or not, who decides who gets the keep the money?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    One thing that happens all the time, is the old "Since it doesn't do what I want it to do, it's a bug" thing. Lack of a feature is considered a bug. This is often exacerbated by a similar commercial offering, that has the feature. I used to get that crap, all the time, in my work. These days, no one pays any attention to my work, which suits me just fine. I basically write for myself.
  - Jaygles 4y ago
    Well the amount listed could be up to the developer. And it doesn't need to be an instant transaction, if the scope of work is large it could lead to negotiation on cost and expectations
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      This doesn't have to be formalized, though. Any company can do this right now by hiring a contractor to do the work.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  Hell no. If you find a bug and do a reasonable effort at reproducing it, you are helping the project. QA has value and is not a burden.
jefftk 4y ago
> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free and come with no warranty. Sites that use user-generated content, open-source intelligence, fishing, food banks, ...
kweingar 4y ago
> To me, the issue comes down to the fact that companies are fundamentally relying on software that comes with no promises of support or a warranty. Interestingly, software users do this too with free web services, but generally we don't treat it as entitlement when users complain that a free web service is discontinued or migrates to a subscription model.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> So again the company wants free things that benefit them. Pretty much. This is actually the strongest possible reason to use GPL. Licenses that are too permissive enable these companies to succeed while giving nothing back. > To me this provides the best of both worlds, people who aren't making money can use it for free but those who are using it to generate money need to pay to help fund the development. Dual license GPL/proprietary. I'm always reminded of this post: https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.com/essays/why_i_gpl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co... > want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made. > Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.
BerislavLopac 4y ago
> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free and come with no warranty. I can think of plenty examples of such industries: mining, logging, oil, wind and solar energy etc. However, the difference is that any imperfections in the "things", in case of those industries, is literally caused by forces of nature, and measures have been developed over centuries to mitigate or avoid them. With open source, the free "things" are created by humans, and it's too easy to fall into the trap of seeing them as just another set of "vendors", even though the base principles - which make things free on the first place - are actually quite different. I'm my mind, any company depending on open source has only a few possible options: 1. Directly pay someone - either the original authors or someone else, inside the company or outside - to ensure the maintenance and support for the open source code. 2. Not use open source and only go for commercial vendors, which may not always be available.

guggleet 4y ago

> Every company I've worked at has used open source code. Only one of them open sourced their code. Did they have code worth distributing and opening for contribution? It seems like most code I encounter in enterprise environments doesn't really fit those needs.

that_guy_iain 4y ago
I would say one or two had something they could have made available. The one place I worked that did open source code, it was decided very early on it was to be open sourced so it built in a way to make it open source.

ajross 4y ago

> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free [...] So many people act like Open Source is great. But [...] I likewise have trouble understanding how people getting so much great stuff for free, with which they create stunning, society-changing artifacts on a regular basis, think that getting that stuff for free was... bad? I mean, yes, you don't get a warrantee and don't sign a contract and don't have anyone to blame but yourself if it breaks. And it works amazingly well! Objectively and experimentally much better than the proprietary infrastructure that it replaced[1]. And it's not like buying your stuff solves this problem anyway. This very site is filled with complaints and reports of proprietary software failing to work the way its users intend too. [1] Anyone else remember porting software across six Unices in the 90's? I do!

that_guy_iain 4y ago
> And it's not like buying your stuff solves this problem anyway. This very site is filled with complaints and reports of proprietary software failing to work the way its users intend too. I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us. I've had proprietary software break and got money back for SLAs. You get a fix real quick when there is an SLA. I've had proprietary software have release dates pushed back because we couldn't handle the time to rewrite to the new version and we still had a support contract for that version. We could have choosen just to keep paying for support on the old version at a higher price but obivously choose to rewrite to the newer version. At the same time, I've had pull requests go unmerged even though they had tests and fixed bugs. For me, even if it's just the ability to complain I thnk paying is worth it. You complain to an open source project they're screwing with your stuff you're an entitled user. You complain to a vendor that they're screwing with your stuff, you're an rightfully angry customer that gives them a reason to spend time to fix the issue causing you problems.
- ajross 4y ago
  > I've had proprietary software break on me. It was actually our fault. Literally, it resulted in there being a call with a developer at the vendor and they fixed our code for us. I write open source software for a living. I've had users come to me with problems that turn out to be bugs in their code. I fix their code for them. This happens pretty much every week. I don't see the distinction, one anecdote is as good as another. Obviously, yes, you can write big checks that ensure people take you seriously, which is fundamentally what you're talking about here. You can write those checks to anyone though, including many, many excellent companies who would love to take your money to maintain their open source projects. It's an orthogonal problem. All I'm saying is don't confuse the two.

nazgulsenpai 4y ago

"The way forward" is very subjective and depends on what your goals are in open-sourcing your project. If you are trying to drive adoption for your product like AMD GPUs on Linux or FSR then open-sourcing with a liberal free software license makes perfect sense. If you worked on a hobby project and you are no longer interested in it and just want to put it out there to help someone else along who might be interested in the future, open-sourcing with a free software license makes sense. If you want to control anything about how your product is used (outside of something like GPL) then using a more restrictive license or only open sourcing parts of your product ("open core") makes sense, like you describe. I don't think there's anything wrong with any approach to open source as long as it's explicitly communicated to the user.

phkahler 4y ago

>> Personally, I think the way forward is source available. I'm not sure that's the best solution either. One thing I think is often overlooked is license compatibility. Open source benefits a LOT at time when code can be taken directly from one project and used in another. In fewer cases it also benefits from the ability to fork a project. In my opinion we should stick to a tiny number of licenses depending on which makes sense for a project: MIT, GPL, and LGPL. Now I realize there is a lot of BSD out there which seems equivalent to MIT. And as everything is moving to the cloud I can actually see AGPL as a good thing, but even that IMHO should have been merged to GPL3 to prevent license proliferation. In the same sense I think the OSI made things worse by "approving" more licenses that are technically open source but just fragment things. Similar for the Apache licenses. So no, we don't really want to solve these problems with another license. OTOH if your product is stand alone and not likely to have code useful outside itself then it might be OK. But then you're just inviting outsiders to contribute to your commercial product while also offering a limited use free version. I'm going to guess you don't get a lot of contributions?

Jaygles 4y ago

What about a system that allows requiring a fee to "open an issue" or "file a bug report". GitHub could add that to the issue creator pretty easily. And maybe there could be tiers. Free issue == no guarantees. $5000 issue == guaranteed fix.

spaced-out 4y ago
Sounds like a bad deal for the developer to promise they'll "fix" any issue for a flat rate of $5000 (minus whatever Github takes). What if there's a dispute about whether it's fixed or not, who decides who gets the keep the money?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  One thing that happens all the time, is the old "Since it doesn't do what I want it to do, it's a bug" thing. Lack of a feature is considered a bug. This is often exacerbated by a similar commercial offering, that has the feature. I used to get that crap, all the time, in my work. These days, no one pays any attention to my work, which suits me just fine. I basically write for myself.
- Jaygles 4y ago
  Well the amount listed could be up to the developer. And it doesn't need to be an instant transaction, if the scope of work is large it could lead to negotiation on cost and expectations
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    This doesn't have to be formalized, though. Any company can do this right now by hiring a contractor to do the work.
tomjen3 4y ago
Hell no. If you find a bug and do a reasonable effort at reproducing it, you are helping the project. QA has value and is not a burden.

jefftk 4y ago

> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free and come with no warranty. Sites that use user-generated content, open-source intelligence, fishing, food banks, ...

kweingar 4y ago

> To me, the issue comes down to the fact that companies are fundamentally relying on software that comes with no promises of support or a warranty. Interestingly, software users do this too with free web services, but generally we don't treat it as entitlement when users complain that a free web service is discontinued or migrates to a subscription model.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> So again the company wants free things that benefit them. Pretty much. This is actually the strongest possible reason to use GPL. Licenses that are too permissive enable these companies to succeed while giving nothing back. > To me this provides the best of both worlds, people who aren't making money can use it for free but those who are using it to generate money need to pay to help fund the development. Dual license GPL/proprietary. I'm always reminded of this post: https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.com/essays/why_i_gpl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co... > want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made. > Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.

BerislavLopac 4y ago

> I honestly can't think of another industry that relies so heavily on things they get for free and come with no warranty. I can think of plenty examples of such industries: mining, logging, oil, wind and solar energy etc. However, the difference is that any imperfections in the "things", in case of those industries, is literally caused by forces of nature, and measures have been developed over centuries to mitigate or avoid them. With open source, the free "things" are created by humans, and it's too easy to fall into the trap of seeing them as just another set of "vendors", even though the base principles - which make things free on the first place - are actually quite different. I'm my mind, any company depending on open source has only a few possible options: 1. Directly pay someone - either the original authors or someone else, inside the company or outside - to ensure the maintenance and support for the open source code. 2. Not use open source and only go for commercial vendors, which may not always be available.