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"[...] it is forbidden to copy, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell the Software." [1] "Open source is source code that is made freely availabl

"[...] it is forbidden to copy, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell the Software." [1] "Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution." [2] [1] https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/blob/master/ee/LICENSE.md https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/blob/master/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

jorams 3y ago
That is the license for the contents of the "ee" directory. The top-level LICENSE is Apache 2.0. I don't know to what extent this code is integrated into the rest, but it's a valid way to develop open-core software.
- Lacerda69 3y ago
  What features of supertokens are not open source and part of that "enterprise" directory?
  - pmontra 3y ago
    I see a feature flag and a license check class. https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/tree/master/ee/src/main/java/io/supertokens/ee https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/tree/master/...
  - hobofan 3y ago
    As of right now, nothing. The only thing that is in there is a license key checker and basic infrastructure for feature flags.
- netzego 3y ago
  "The concept of open-core software has proven to be controversial, as many developers do not consider the business model to be true open-source software. Despite this, open-core models are used by many [...] software companies." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model I rather go with this definition. Opensource != opencore. Despite this, you're right, that is the license for `ee` folder.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Could they make it open source by turning it into a library that a separate EE repo with a different licence includes? Would that stop it being open core?
    - rapnie 3y ago
      I think it depends on the feature set that is available in the open source project. Often that exists to lure people in, but they quickly find out that the project is too limited or even crippled and they need the EE parts for an actual production-ready solution.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        In this case the EE thing just has feature flags and billing things.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    IMO it's fair to call it open source if you can reasonably use the open part of it in its own right, if the core stands alone and there's just some closed source plugins or whatever. Where 'open core' is to be scathingly applied and '!= open source' etc. is, IMO, when you have a system with only some piece open, and other integral pieces not. Like an open backend but closed source clients, keys required so a third-party client wouldn't work anyway, etc.
  - verdverm 3y ago
    That is because you are cherry picking the ideas you want from the wiki page. The first line reads: > The open-core model is a business model for the monetization of commercially produced open-source software. The open core movement is about finding a way to financially support open source development so people can eat and work on open source. It is quite obvious that the model which makes some of the code open source and some of the code not, is the best model we have right now. Some of the best open source is produced by these for profit companies. What are the alternatives? We'll before this model gained popularity, there was low quality open source or closed source alternatives for many of the projects we enjoy and see competition amongst today. All of this leads to a more vibrant software ecosystem. Do you support open source in words or money?
- number6 3y ago
  I am always wondering: If I take the ee directory and garble it through a LLMA, is it protected by copyright? Does GitHub Copilot take the license change into account for the ee directory, or does it take the tag from the main directory?
  - mirekrusin 3y ago
    Good question. Does LLM prompt conversion erase license? Probably no. Does LLM training erase license? ClosedAI argues yes. Legislation is missing around it. There are many smooth sliders that blur line between yes/no where on one extreme it’s definite yes and on the other definite no.
  - number6 3y ago
    Bonus-Question: If I am a malicious actor and just want to argue, obfuscate the fact that I blantly stole the code. Could I just prompt: Refactorate this code? Would somebody notice and could it hold in court?
    - SuperGent 3y ago
      This would, of course, depend on the code. But you could ask it to rewrite the code in another language, and add it; claiming it was your own work (which it is, just using an AI tool) This again opens up the debate of AI generated vs 'hand written' code...
  - saurik 3y ago
    I mean, if you--as a human--read that code yourself, learned how it worked, and then tried to write something similar later--even in a different programming language!--that is highly likely to be contaminated and considered a derivative work <- this is the reason why clean room design--where you have one team look at the original to write documentation which is then cleared by a lawyer to not contain any expressive intent before being handed to a second disjoint team to implement--is a thing people have to do. That GitHub Copilot is somehow afforded some kind magic assumption that it perfectly removes expressive intent is kind of ridiculous and highly unfortunate.
advaitruia 3y ago
All the features you see on github / the website is under the apache 2.0 license - truly open source. The only code in EE so far is the feature flags. We will implement certain "source available" features in the future
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Honestly, I'd just make 2 repos if possible. One open source; the other that includes the first one as a library, that has a commercial licence. Then instead of the "open core" debate (which whenever it can be solved by 2 repos seems specious), you have an open source piece of software and you get points for letting people see your enterprise licenced source code as well.
  - rubenfiszel 3y ago
    Open-source founder of another startup/open-source project with an ee piece [1] Separating the repos is a HUGE hassle which is why you never see it anywhere. Doing it once is a small cost but maintaining is a huge burden on teams that are already too small. In practice it does not change anything so most projects will choose to suffer nit-picks. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I don't think this is a general principle. It just depends on the codebase in question.
    - netzego 3y ago
      Question: Why not call your self an open-core founder? My point is, a license model should not be abused an advertisement term. The definition of open-source is pretty straight forward. Also the term open-core. And i do not agree, that is doesn't change that much. From a marketing standpoint, it really does. As the term "open-core" is so much weaker than "open-source". It is a HUGE hassle so sell this, instead of the other. And is classical wording BS and the wrong label as the open-core is much more precise. At least for me, i would not have clicked on this if labeled open-core. I guess that is why projects don't want to do it. But even worse, and that is why i think it is footgun, after reading the actual license terms, i felt fooled and leaving for ever. And that's sad part of this story.
dingledork69 3y ago
There isn't a singular definition of open source that everyone agrees with.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Bullshit. "Open Source" is well established, and has been for just over two decades: https://opensource.org/osd/ https://opensource.org/osd/ That some people - like yourself - want to muddy the waters is neither here nor there.
  - dingledork69 3y ago
    No. That's just some people who registered a website and put up their organizations definition. The website milk.com doesn't get to define what the word milk means, either. To some people Open Source means that the Source is publicly viewable. It doesn't say anything about your rights to use it commercially. This is why people often bring up definitions such as "libre", "free as in beer" or "free as in speech"
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Heh, yeah good luck with that. The real question is why are you trying to muddy the waters of the existing term, rather than inventing your own term and getting people to use that?
      - dingledork69 3y ago
        Like I already explained to you, not everyone agrees on the definition of open source. You have your definition, the open source foundation has theirs, and other people have their own. It is not a well defined term. Why are you pretending you get to define the english language for everyone?
        justinclift 3y ago
        Yeah, good luck with that. :)

jorams 3y ago

That is the license for the contents of the "ee" directory. The top-level LICENSE is Apache 2.0. I don't know to what extent this code is integrated into the rest, but it's a valid way to develop open-core software.

Lacerda69 3y ago
What features of supertokens are not open source and part of that "enterprise" directory?
- pmontra 3y ago
  I see a feature flag and a license check class. https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/tree/master/ee/src/main/java/io/supertokens/ee https://github.com/supertokens/supertokens-core/tree/master/...
- hobofan 3y ago
  As of right now, nothing. The only thing that is in there is a license key checker and basic infrastructure for feature flags.
netzego 3y ago
"The concept of open-core software has proven to be controversial, as many developers do not consider the business model to be true open-source software. Despite this, open-core models are used by many [...] software companies." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-core_model I rather go with this definition. Opensource != opencore. Despite this, you're right, that is the license for `ee` folder.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Could they make it open source by turning it into a library that a separate EE repo with a different licence includes? Would that stop it being open core?
  - rapnie 3y ago
    I think it depends on the feature set that is available in the open source project. Often that exists to lure people in, but they quickly find out that the project is too limited or even crippled and they need the EE parts for an actual production-ready solution.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      In this case the EE thing just has feature flags and billing things.
- OJFord 3y ago
  IMO it's fair to call it open source if you can reasonably use the open part of it in its own right, if the core stands alone and there's just some closed source plugins or whatever. Where 'open core' is to be scathingly applied and '!= open source' etc. is, IMO, when you have a system with only some piece open, and other integral pieces not. Like an open backend but closed source clients, keys required so a third-party client wouldn't work anyway, etc.
- verdverm 3y ago
  That is because you are cherry picking the ideas you want from the wiki page. The first line reads: > The open-core model is a business model for the monetization of commercially produced open-source software. The open core movement is about finding a way to financially support open source development so people can eat and work on open source. It is quite obvious that the model which makes some of the code open source and some of the code not, is the best model we have right now. Some of the best open source is produced by these for profit companies. What are the alternatives? We'll before this model gained popularity, there was low quality open source or closed source alternatives for many of the projects we enjoy and see competition amongst today. All of this leads to a more vibrant software ecosystem. Do you support open source in words or money?
number6 3y ago
I am always wondering: If I take the ee directory and garble it through a LLMA, is it protected by copyright? Does GitHub Copilot take the license change into account for the ee directory, or does it take the tag from the main directory?
- mirekrusin 3y ago
  Good question. Does LLM prompt conversion erase license? Probably no. Does LLM training erase license? ClosedAI argues yes. Legislation is missing around it. There are many smooth sliders that blur line between yes/no where on one extreme it’s definite yes and on the other definite no.
- number6 3y ago
  Bonus-Question: If I am a malicious actor and just want to argue, obfuscate the fact that I blantly stole the code. Could I just prompt: Refactorate this code? Would somebody notice and could it hold in court?
  - SuperGent 3y ago
    This would, of course, depend on the code. But you could ask it to rewrite the code in another language, and add it; claiming it was your own work (which it is, just using an AI tool) This again opens up the debate of AI generated vs 'hand written' code...
- saurik 3y ago
  I mean, if you--as a human--read that code yourself, learned how it worked, and then tried to write something similar later--even in a different programming language!--that is highly likely to be contaminated and considered a derivative work <- this is the reason why clean room design--where you have one team look at the original to write documentation which is then cleared by a lawyer to not contain any expressive intent before being handed to a second disjoint team to implement--is a thing people have to do. That GitHub Copilot is somehow afforded some kind magic assumption that it perfectly removes expressive intent is kind of ridiculous and highly unfortunate.

advaitruia 3y ago

All the features you see on github / the website is under the apache 2.0 license - truly open source. The only code in EE so far is the feature flags. We will implement certain "source available" features in the future

robertlagrant 3y ago
Honestly, I'd just make 2 repos if possible. One open source; the other that includes the first one as a library, that has a commercial licence. Then instead of the "open core" debate (which whenever it can be solved by 2 repos seems specious), you have an open source piece of software and you get points for letting people see your enterprise licenced source code as well.
- rubenfiszel 3y ago
  Open-source founder of another startup/open-source project with an ee piece [1] Separating the repos is a HUGE hassle which is why you never see it anywhere. Doing it once is a small cost but maintaining is a huge burden on teams that are already too small. In practice it does not change anything so most projects will choose to suffer nit-picks. [1]: https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I don't think this is a general principle. It just depends on the codebase in question.
  - netzego 3y ago
    Question: Why not call your self an open-core founder? My point is, a license model should not be abused an advertisement term. The definition of open-source is pretty straight forward. Also the term open-core. And i do not agree, that is doesn't change that much. From a marketing standpoint, it really does. As the term "open-core" is so much weaker than "open-source". It is a HUGE hassle so sell this, instead of the other. And is classical wording BS and the wrong label as the open-core is much more precise. At least for me, i would not have clicked on this if labeled open-core. I guess that is why projects don't want to do it. But even worse, and that is why i think it is footgun, after reading the actual license terms, i felt fooled and leaving for ever. And that's sad part of this story.

dingledork69 3y ago

There isn't a singular definition of open source that everyone agrees with.

justinclift 3y ago
Bullshit. "Open Source" is well established, and has been for just over two decades: https://opensource.org/osd/ https://opensource.org/osd/ That some people - like yourself - want to muddy the waters is neither here nor there.
- dingledork69 3y ago
  No. That's just some people who registered a website and put up their organizations definition. The website milk.com doesn't get to define what the word milk means, either. To some people Open Source means that the Source is publicly viewable. It doesn't say anything about your rights to use it commercially. This is why people often bring up definitions such as "libre", "free as in beer" or "free as in speech"
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Heh, yeah good luck with that. The real question is why are you trying to muddy the waters of the existing term, rather than inventing your own term and getting people to use that?
    - dingledork69 3y ago
      Like I already explained to you, not everyone agrees on the definition of open source. You have your definition, the open source foundation has theirs, and other people have their own. It is not a well defined term. Why are you pretending you get to define the english language for everyone?
      - justinclift 3y ago
        Yeah, good luck with that. :)