4 ms·

It is a very sad story. Our company committed to open sourcing all of our code (it's in the web3/blockchain space), and we had, and continue to have, spirited

It is a very sad story. Our company committed to open sourcing all of our code (it's in the web3/blockchain space), and we had, and continue to have, spirited discussions about which parts we should maybe license differently, as they contain novel IP. But my main question is: if your code is open-sourced, and the community contributed: fixes, features, actual new products - what gives you the right to close it? Are you going to go back and compensate every contributor? How can you justify revenue made on the backs of contributors. Side note: if what Prusa is alleging about Chinese patents given for open-source code produced in the west, and then having international priority, is true, I think the UN (or whoever handles international patents) should look into that. We can't control what goes on in China, but we can damn well make sure no Chines company makes money outside of China, with co-opted IP.

traverseda 3y ago
>if your code is open-sourced, and the community contributed: fixes, features, actual new products - what gives you the right to close it? Typically you're not able to close source existing code, once it's open it's open. What you can do is make the changes going forward proprietary. Depending on if you got a contributor-license-agreement you may not be able to close source the community contributions, but if the code was licensed under something non-viral like MIT or BSD you have as much right to close source it as literally anyone else does. I guess I really don't understand the question. You have the rights as outlined in the license, people who contribute agree to those license terms.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  There's a legal vs moral distinction there. Legally, you can generally relicense (or add licenses, at least) on permissively-licensed code, or you can force the issue by requiring a CLA that just makes you the owner of everything. However, a person could reasonably argue that you still are morally in the wrong for taking something given to you for free and charging for it.
  - traverseda 3y ago
    Personally that's why if I'm going to contribute to open source I'm probably going to contribute to GPL/AGPL projects. I don't begrudge people who want to license their OSS code under something like the MIT or BSD licenses though. I think that software developers are probably the kind of people who can know what deal their actually getting if anyone can.
    - palata 3y ago
      Unless you sign a CLA, if you contribute to a project, you own the copyright for your contribution. And the owner of the repo cannot re-license your contribution without you. So the question is really whether you are fine contributing to a copyleft/permissive project. On my end, as long as I keep my copyright (i.e. I don't have to sign a CLA), then that's fine for me. If anything, any contribution I make makes it harder for them to re-license their project :-).
      - remram 3y ago
        They can't re-license to any incompatible license. If the original was permissive, that leaves many options.
        palata 3y ago
        That leaves options that are compatible with the original license that the contributor agreed to. Seems fair to me :-).
        remram 3y ago
        For example, you can send your contribution to an MIT or BSD project and have it turn into a closed-source for-profit product.
        palata 3y ago
        Just like if you publish your code as MIT or BSD. It will still require attribution, and they still can't re-license it to something incompatible with the original license. Turns out that closed-source is compatible with MIT/BSD (still requiring attribution). And the "closed-source" part will be only the new code added after your contribution, but the project itself will keep the open source license (so that you can fork it at the state it was when the authors decided to go closed-source).

traverseda 3y ago

>if your code is open-sourced, and the community contributed: fixes, features, actual new products - what gives you the right to close it? Typically you're not able to close source existing code, once it's open it's open. What you can do is make the changes going forward proprietary. Depending on if you got a contributor-license-agreement you may not be able to close source the community contributions, but if the code was licensed under something non-viral like MIT or BSD you have as much right to close source it as literally anyone else does. I guess I really don't understand the question. You have the rights as outlined in the license, people who contribute agree to those license terms.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
There's a legal vs moral distinction there. Legally, you can generally relicense (or add licenses, at least) on permissively-licensed code, or you can force the issue by requiring a CLA that just makes you the owner of everything. However, a person could reasonably argue that you still are morally in the wrong for taking something given to you for free and charging for it.
- traverseda 3y ago
  Personally that's why if I'm going to contribute to open source I'm probably going to contribute to GPL/AGPL projects. I don't begrudge people who want to license their OSS code under something like the MIT or BSD licenses though. I think that software developers are probably the kind of people who can know what deal their actually getting if anyone can.
  - palata 3y ago
    Unless you sign a CLA, if you contribute to a project, you own the copyright for your contribution. And the owner of the repo cannot re-license your contribution without you. So the question is really whether you are fine contributing to a copyleft/permissive project. On my end, as long as I keep my copyright (i.e. I don't have to sign a CLA), then that's fine for me. If anything, any contribution I make makes it harder for them to re-license their project :-).
    - remram 3y ago
      They can't re-license to any incompatible license. If the original was permissive, that leaves many options.
      - palata 3y ago
        That leaves options that are compatible with the original license that the contributor agreed to. Seems fair to me :-).
        remram 3y ago
        For example, you can send your contribution to an MIT or BSD project and have it turn into a closed-source for-profit product.
        palata 3y ago
        Just like if you publish your code as MIT or BSD. It will still require attribution, and they still can't re-license it to something incompatible with the original license. Turns out that closed-source is compatible with MIT/BSD (still requiring attribution). And the "closed-source" part will be only the new code added after your contribution, but the project itself will keep the open source license (so that you can fork it at the state it was when the authors decided to go closed-source).