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"I've decided to become vegetarian. From now on I only eat meat on Wednesdays." "That's not what vegetarian means!" BSL is not open source.

by dmm 3y ago

danpalmer 3y ago
To extend the metaphor though... only eating meat on Wednesdays is much better than eating it every day, and releasing the source and accepting contributions, even if under a licence not recognised as meeting the full open-source standards, is still much of the value.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  Completely agree, and if BSL allows the project to continue making enough money to sustain itself instead of being turned completely over to the community and risk becoming abandoned, then I’m all for it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Sure it's better, but if you do that and then call yourself a vegetarian people are still going to call you a liar. Nobody's objecting to the change, just the dishonesty.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. If you feel that the term "open source" has become meaningless as a result, I'd recommend using the term "free software" instead to mean software that is both source-available and licenced in a way that supports software freedom.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      > Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. ...terms like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software , OTOH, are exactly useful for describing what you seem to want, and are perfectly clear. As opposed to muddying the waters by trying to redefine an existing term. > I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. Right, which is why everyone in the comments here agrees with that. Are you sure your definition is the one that society is using? > If you feel that the term "open source" has become meaningless as a result, I'd recommend using the term "free software" instead to mean software that is both source-available and licenced in a way that supports software freedom. LOL - you think it's fine to redefine Open Source because of how you think most people read the term and "shared source" is confusing, but you think we should call Open Source "free software"? A term that every single non-techie will read as "gratis software"? That's a non-starter if ever I heard one.
      - danpalmer 3y ago
        In my experience, most engineers have barely any understanding of the licencing side of open-source, but all of them use GitHub for "open-source". To me that indicates a change in the societal meaning, as much as I agree that it is incorrect. You're right that people would and do mistake "free software" for "gratis", and sure that's something we need to work on. I just think the battle is lost with "open-source" and has been for a number of years now, and I can't fault a company, and specifically a marketing department, for getting on board with the way the term has changed rather than taking a principled stance.
    - sontek 3y ago
      I just responded with the same thing but think you said it in a better way! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971490#36973675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971490#36973675 This is open source to most of us. I can read the code, use the code, and contribute to the project. I don't care if I can't make a SaaS offering of it.
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? I just don’t understand the criticism of a company transparently acting in its best interest (in what I would consider to be a completely reasonable way).
- koolba 3y ago
  They could just as easily word the press release ETL be “… releasing the source code”. “Open Source” has a specific meaning. It’d be like saying “…is now free!” with “free” defined as some price I consider to round to zero. It’s clearly misrepresenting the word which has a specific meaning.
  - orra 3y ago
    '[Old versions] will be open source' would, I think, also be a fair description. Right now it's source available proprietary freeware; in three and a half years it (specifically, the now-current version) will be open source. For this reason, I think the Business Source License (BSL) (with an Open Source Change License) is less nefarious than the Server Side Public License (SSPL).
- dmm 3y ago
  > Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? I just want them to stop using deceptive language. > I just don’t understand the criticism of a company transparently acting in its best interest (in what I would consider to be a completely reasonable way). They are lying in order to benefit from the good will and legitimacy that open source brings.
- cxr 3y ago
  > Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? What you are doing right now is a pretty transparent motte-and-bailey <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy> Don't do that.
waithuh 3y ago
They are making an effort though. Public-available code and open source go hand in hand, even if they have overwhelmingly different principles. They, as a business, found it more advantageous to make their product available to the public. There are of course business interests rooted in it, (like ending support for their paid product, or gaining free publicity/more sponsorships) but shooing away acts like these just make going open source all around a worse business choice.
- dmm 3y ago
  > They are making an effort though. Releasing the source is nice but they shouldn't use deceptive language. > found it more advantageous to make their product available to the public. That's fine but they should call it something else.
- tedivm 3y ago
  I completely disagree with this- they aren't making an effort at all here, they're actively damaging a movement. They could have just said they were going shared source or one of the other "closed for use, but open for audit" licenses that exist. Instead they lied about what they're doing, and did so in a way that damages open source development. Making an effort only counts as a good thing if they're making an effort to do good things. This isn't that though.
- ahtihn 3y ago
  > shooing away acts like these just make going open source all around a worse business choice I don't understand? They're not going open source so why is the reaction in this thread making actually going open source a worse choice? You can't expect a good reaction when you announce that a product is now "Open Source" and then not actually use an Open Source license.
the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
I think the BSL constitutes as Open Source. I’m obviously biased here as someone working at Sentry but here is my reasoning. If you download source today and just wait long enough it is 100%, unquestionably Open Source as per OSI Definition. There are projects that only release Open Source licensed code in very irregular intervals and they are still Open Source. BSL is rolling Open Source with delay.
- tedivm 3y ago
  >BSL is rolling Open Source with delay. .... which means it's not open source. The "irregular interval" companies general release the source at the same time they deliver a new software version. It's not a fair comparison at all, since you can always get the open source code for the software you're running.
- mdaniel 3y ago
  I'm sure I'm going to regret weighing into this, but the reason your "with delay" means it is not open source in my mind is that: - it would require a fork since there is no way Sentry (the project stewards, not the company) is going to review and merge 5 year old code [I'm aware there's already a pseudo-fork but this bullet is to highlight what _contribution_ means in the context of 5 year old code] - if I'm using Sentry today, and I find a bug or want to submit an improvement that scratches my itch, I donate that work to Sentry the corporation - if corporate raiders continue to appropriate the term Open Source to mean "whatever marketing says we can get away with claiming" then in dilutes the goodwill from companies who really do use Open Source I have an special bitterness in my heart for companies that start out with a FOSS license and then rug pull to a non free license. I will never forgive you nor SourceGraph for that betrayal
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    In practice the first point relates to the second: on many projects you need to accept a CLA which gives the original right holder more permissions. That is entirely separately from BSL or else. That is not a donation. In practical terms most of Sentry at this point is fully Apache 2 licensed. > I have an special bitterness in my heart for companies that start out with a FOSS license and then rug pull to a non free license. I will never forgive you […] for that betrayal BSL is for me personally something I can fully stand behind. I understand others do not and I cannot change that. However I believe we all in the Open Source community need to find better ways to have commercial and Open Source community incentives to align. BSL is the best I personally found so far. It means we can work in the open, don’t need to do things we would not stand behind to protect the business etc. You can today like 10 years ago do what you want with Sentry what you want. > I'm aware there's already a pseudo-fork but this bullet is to highlight what _contribution_ means in the context of 5 year old code The rolling Sentry commits are already ahead of the ancient BSD forks I’m aware of.
that_guy_iain 3y ago
> BSL is not open source. I love BSL, it's my license of choice for my projects. However, I fully agree it's not open source and it annoys me when others claim to be open source while using BSL. I specifically have the first question in my faq about being open source where I say it's not open source. I've had feedback that some people just stopped paying attention at that point and others where they found it refreshing it wasn't pretending to be open source.
jahsome 3y ago
Dogmatic idealism is the enemy of progress.
whit537 3y ago
> BSL is not open source. No, but Apache 2.0 is, which is what we revert to after three years. The better analogy would be, "I've decided to become vegetarian, starting in three days." But then actually legally guaranteeing that you'll follow through vs. always pushing it off into the future which is what it sounds like with the vegetarian example, I know I wouldn't believe myself if I said that. :D [disclosure: I'm Head of Open Source at Sentry, which owns Codecov.]
- whit537 3y ago
  And until then you can do whatever you want except build a competing business, and if you're that eager to build a code coverage business then you should just come work with us lol. https://sentry.io/careers/ https://sentry.io/careers/
- tedivm 3y ago
  Open source has meaning, and you're polluting that meaning. It would be one thing if you were honest about it, but by continuing to call closed source software open you're proving that this isn't just a mistake but is actually maliciousness on your part. Just say "We're making our source public, and after three years our legacy code will automatically become open source". Don't claim you're making something open source, but then have all these nasty hidden caveats. It's dishonest.
  - arp242 3y ago
    IMHO it's also dishonest to claim there is "one true definition" of the term "Open Source", when in fact 1) there have been a zillion discussion like this now, which demonstrates this consensus doesn't exist, 2) "Open Source" has seen usage going back to as far as 1985 at the least.[1] All of this is reminds me of the "if people keep misusing your design, then it sucks"[2] story from the other day. If you don't want people to "misuse" [common and obvious adjective] + [common noun] then choose a better term. [1]: https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html#pre-1998-usage https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html#pre-1998-usage [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939648
  - 3y ago
paulddraper 3y ago
BSL is a heck of a lot closer to "open source" than to "closed source". It's open source, except that you can't use it in a competing commercial product. So for 99% of uses, open source.
- cosmojg 3y ago
  There's a term for that already: source-available.
thinkmassive 3y ago
The license switches to Apache after four years. To complete the metaphor: “I will only eat meat on Wednesdays for the next four years, after which I will be 100% vegetarian.” As someone who is annoyed anytime proprietary-licensed software tries to capitalize on FOSS terminology, I concede that being immediately source-available with a guarantee of being OSS within a reasonable timeframe is still better than we’re likely to get from the majority of projects.
- whit537 3y ago
  Three years here (four is the BSL default).
  - thinkmassive 3y ago
    Here’s the exact line from your license file: Change Date:2023-06-29 2027-01-01 Seems like it should really be interpreted to mean the Apache license started applying on June 29, 2023.
    - whit537 3y ago
      (Addressed elsewhere in the comments, this is obviously a mistake.)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
sontek 3y ago
Practically speaking from an enduser standpoint who: - Likes to self-host stuff for homelab purposes - Has business needs for shipping self-hosted services in airgapped and on-prem solutions where SaaS isn't available. Every piece of BSL licensed software that I run (CockroachDB, Couchbase, MariaDB, Sentry, etc) are all open source to me. I can read the code, I can contribute, and I can track changes being added by others. Your metaphor doesn't hold up because from an user standpoint this IS opensource. I'm not creative enough to come up with a good metaphor but it'd be something closer to: "I've created a community book collection that anyone is free to take from. But you aren't allowed to take the books and sell them"

"I've decided to become vegetarian. From now on I only eat meat on Wednesdays." "That's not what vegetarian means!" BSL is not open source.

by dmm 3y ago

"I've decided to become vegetarian. From now on I only eat meat on Wednesdays." "That's not what vegetarian means!" BSL is not open source.

danpalmer 3y ago

To extend the metaphor though... only eating meat on Wednesdays is much better than eating it every day, and releasing the source and accepting contributions, even if under a licence not recognised as meeting the full open-source standards, is still much of the value.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
Completely agree, and if BSL allows the project to continue making enough money to sustain itself instead of being turned completely over to the community and risk becoming abandoned, then I’m all for it.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Sure it's better, but if you do that and then call yourself a vegetarian people are still going to call you a liar. Nobody's objecting to the change, just the dishonesty.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. If you feel that the term "open source" has become meaningless as a result, I'd recommend using the term "free software" instead to mean software that is both source-available and licenced in a way that supports software freedom.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > Colloquially, almost all of the perceived value of "open source" code is that the source is available. Terms like "shared source" are unclear and not useful. ...terms like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software , OTOH, are exactly useful for describing what you seem to want, and are perfectly clear. As opposed to muddying the waters by trying to redefine an existing term. > I think the constructive criticism is useful here, but for all but the most in-the-know this is open source as they see it, and describing it as such is just using terminology in the way that society has decided it should be used. Right, which is why everyone in the comments here agrees with that. Are you sure your definition is the one that society is using? > If you feel that the term "open source" has become meaningless as a result, I'd recommend using the term "free software" instead to mean software that is both source-available and licenced in a way that supports software freedom. LOL - you think it's fine to redefine Open Source because of how you think most people read the term and "shared source" is confusing, but you think we should call Open Source "free software"? A term that every single non-techie will read as "gratis software"? That's a non-starter if ever I heard one.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      In my experience, most engineers have barely any understanding of the licencing side of open-source, but all of them use GitHub for "open-source". To me that indicates a change in the societal meaning, as much as I agree that it is incorrect. You're right that people would and do mistake "free software" for "gratis", and sure that's something we need to work on. I just think the battle is lost with "open-source" and has been for a number of years now, and I can't fault a company, and specifically a marketing department, for getting on board with the way the term has changed rather than taking a principled stance.
  - sontek 3y ago
    I just responded with the same thing but think you said it in a better way! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971490#36973675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971490#36973675 This is open source to most of us. I can read the code, use the code, and contribute to the project. I don't care if I can't make a SaaS offering of it.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago

Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? I just don’t understand the criticism of a company transparently acting in its best interest (in what I would consider to be a completely reasonable way).

koolba 3y ago
They could just as easily word the press release ETL be “… releasing the source code”. “Open Source” has a specific meaning. It’d be like saying “…is now free!” with “free” defined as some price I consider to round to zero. It’s clearly misrepresenting the word which has a specific meaning.
- orra 3y ago
  '[Old versions] will be open source' would, I think, also be a fair description. Right now it's source available proprietary freeware; in three and a half years it (specifically, the now-current version) will be open source. For this reason, I think the Business Source License (BSL) (with an Open Source Change License) is less nefarious than the Server Side Public License (SSPL).
dmm 3y ago
> Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? I just want them to stop using deceptive language. > I just don’t understand the criticism of a company transparently acting in its best interest (in what I would consider to be a completely reasonable way). They are lying in order to benefit from the good will and legitimacy that open source brings.
cxr 3y ago
> Would you rather they just keep their source completely closed then? What you are doing right now is a pretty transparent motte-and-bailey <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy> Don't do that.

waithuh 3y ago

They are making an effort though. Public-available code and open source go hand in hand, even if they have overwhelmingly different principles. They, as a business, found it more advantageous to make their product available to the public. There are of course business interests rooted in it, (like ending support for their paid product, or gaining free publicity/more sponsorships) but shooing away acts like these just make going open source all around a worse business choice.

dmm 3y ago
> They are making an effort though. Releasing the source is nice but they shouldn't use deceptive language. > found it more advantageous to make their product available to the public. That's fine but they should call it something else.
tedivm 3y ago
I completely disagree with this- they aren't making an effort at all here, they're actively damaging a movement. They could have just said they were going shared source or one of the other "closed for use, but open for audit" licenses that exist. Instead they lied about what they're doing, and did so in a way that damages open source development. Making an effort only counts as a good thing if they're making an effort to do good things. This isn't that though.
ahtihn 3y ago
> shooing away acts like these just make going open source all around a worse business choice I don't understand? They're not going open source so why is the reaction in this thread making actually going open source a worse choice? You can't expect a good reaction when you announce that a product is now "Open Source" and then not actually use an Open Source license.

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago

I think the BSL constitutes as Open Source. I’m obviously biased here as someone working at Sentry but here is my reasoning. If you download source today and just wait long enough it is 100%, unquestionably Open Source as per OSI Definition. There are projects that only release Open Source licensed code in very irregular intervals and they are still Open Source. BSL is rolling Open Source with delay.

tedivm 3y ago
>BSL is rolling Open Source with delay. .... which means it's not open source. The "irregular interval" companies general release the source at the same time they deliver a new software version. It's not a fair comparison at all, since you can always get the open source code for the software you're running.
mdaniel 3y ago
I'm sure I'm going to regret weighing into this, but the reason your "with delay" means it is not open source in my mind is that: - it would require a fork since there is no way Sentry (the project stewards, not the company) is going to review and merge 5 year old code [I'm aware there's already a pseudo-fork but this bullet is to highlight what _contribution_ means in the context of 5 year old code] - if I'm using Sentry today, and I find a bug or want to submit an improvement that scratches my itch, I donate that work to Sentry the corporation - if corporate raiders continue to appropriate the term Open Source to mean "whatever marketing says we can get away with claiming" then in dilutes the goodwill from companies who really do use Open Source I have an special bitterness in my heart for companies that start out with a FOSS license and then rug pull to a non free license. I will never forgive you nor SourceGraph for that betrayal
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  In practice the first point relates to the second: on many projects you need to accept a CLA which gives the original right holder more permissions. That is entirely separately from BSL or else. That is not a donation. In practical terms most of Sentry at this point is fully Apache 2 licensed. > I have an special bitterness in my heart for companies that start out with a FOSS license and then rug pull to a non free license. I will never forgive you […] for that betrayal BSL is for me personally something I can fully stand behind. I understand others do not and I cannot change that. However I believe we all in the Open Source community need to find better ways to have commercial and Open Source community incentives to align. BSL is the best I personally found so far. It means we can work in the open, don’t need to do things we would not stand behind to protect the business etc. You can today like 10 years ago do what you want with Sentry what you want. > I'm aware there's already a pseudo-fork but this bullet is to highlight what _contribution_ means in the context of 5 year old code The rolling Sentry commits are already ahead of the ancient BSD forks I’m aware of.

that_guy_iain 3y ago

> BSL is not open source. I love BSL, it's my license of choice for my projects. However, I fully agree it's not open source and it annoys me when others claim to be open source while using BSL. I specifically have the first question in my faq about being open source where I say it's not open source. I've had feedback that some people just stopped paying attention at that point and others where they found it refreshing it wasn't pretending to be open source.

jahsome 3y ago

Dogmatic idealism is the enemy of progress.

whit537 3y ago

> BSL is not open source. No, but Apache 2.0 is, which is what we revert to after three years. The better analogy would be, "I've decided to become vegetarian, starting in three days." But then actually legally guaranteeing that you'll follow through vs. always pushing it off into the future which is what it sounds like with the vegetarian example, I know I wouldn't believe myself if I said that. :D [disclosure: I'm Head of Open Source at Sentry, which owns Codecov.]

whit537 3y ago
And until then you can do whatever you want except build a competing business, and if you're that eager to build a code coverage business then you should just come work with us lol. https://sentry.io/careers/ https://sentry.io/careers/
tedivm 3y ago
Open source has meaning, and you're polluting that meaning. It would be one thing if you were honest about it, but by continuing to call closed source software open you're proving that this isn't just a mistake but is actually maliciousness on your part. Just say "We're making our source public, and after three years our legacy code will automatically become open source". Don't claim you're making something open source, but then have all these nasty hidden caveats. It's dishonest.
- arp242 3y ago
  IMHO it's also dishonest to claim there is "one true definition" of the term "Open Source", when in fact 1) there have been a zillion discussion like this now, which demonstrates this consensus doesn't exist, 2) "Open Source" has seen usage going back to as far as 1985 at the least.[1] All of this is reminds me of the "if people keep misusing your design, then it sucks"[2] story from the other day. If you don't want people to "misuse" [common and obvious adjective] + [common noun] then choose a better term. [1]: https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html#pre-1998-usage https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html#pre-1998-usage [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939648
- 3y ago

paulddraper 3y ago

BSL is a heck of a lot closer to "open source" than to "closed source". It's open source, except that you can't use it in a competing commercial product. So for 99% of uses, open source.

cosmojg 3y ago
There's a term for that already: source-available.

thinkmassive 3y ago

The license switches to Apache after four years. To complete the metaphor: “I will only eat meat on Wednesdays for the next four years, after which I will be 100% vegetarian.” As someone who is annoyed anytime proprietary-licensed software tries to capitalize on FOSS terminology, I concede that being immediately source-available with a guarantee of being OSS within a reasonable timeframe is still better than we’re likely to get from the majority of projects.

whit537 3y ago
Three years here (four is the BSL default).
- thinkmassive 3y ago
  Here’s the exact line from your license file: Change Date:2023-06-29 2027-01-01 Seems like it should really be interpreted to mean the Apache license started applying on June 29, 2023.
  - whit537 3y ago
    (Addressed elsewhere in the comments, this is obviously a mistake.)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sontek 3y ago

Practically speaking from an enduser standpoint who: - Likes to self-host stuff for homelab purposes - Has business needs for shipping self-hosted services in airgapped and on-prem solutions where SaaS isn't available. Every piece of BSL licensed software that I run (CockroachDB, Couchbase, MariaDB, Sentry, etc) are all open source to me. I can read the code, I can contribute, and I can track changes being added by others. Your metaphor doesn't hold up because from an user standpoint this IS opensource. I'm not creative enough to come up with a good metaphor but it'd be something closer to: "I've created a community book collection that anyone is free to take from. But you aren't allowed to take the books and sell them"