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I’m a full time engineer, working on OSS for more than a decade. As much as I love open-souce, I get the point that there are a bunch of freeloaders using stuf
by hashtag-til 3y ago
I’m a full time engineer, working on OSS for more than a decade.
As much as I love open-souce, I get the point that there are a bunch of freeloaders using stuff and not contributing back.
- Exuma 3y agoOut of curiosity what is your definition of a freeloader? Is someone who’s been coding but hasn’t made a single OSS commit a freeloader ?
- wmf 3y agoIt sounds like there are companies selling Terraform with a wrapper on top and not paying Hashicorp anything.
- yellowapple 3y agoI know of precisely zero such companies, and I can't imagine how such a company would even have customers in the first place when Terraform already has a $0 pricetag. I could maybe understand this for Consul or Vault, since those are actual hostable services that could probably be resold - but I don't know of anyone reselling those, either.
- chunk_waffle 3y agoMaybe Gruntwork.io, makers of Terragrunt, I think? I always just stuck to vanilla Terraform but recall coming across them at some point.
- yellowapple 3y agoI wouldn't call them a competitor by any stretch; more like a partner. A Terragrunt codebase just wraps Terraform, with the same exact backends (including Hashicorp's SaaS offerings) and the same exact providers and everything.
- comprev 3y agoHow long before HashiCorp integrate Gruntwork’s “solution” into their own Terraform codebase I wonder?
- lijok 3y agoPulumi, scalr, env0, spacelift, digger, controlmonkey, terrateam, terrakube Dozens of them out there I wonder with great interest which one of these got hashicorp worries about their wallet enough to make this move. Could it be env0 raising 42M earlier this year?
- eppp 3y agoI would imagine that its someone who builds a profitable offering on the back of OSS and doesn't give back anything.
- hashtag-til 3y agoYes, exactly.
- tensor 3y agoSo every person who uses Linux for work and doesn't make a kernel contribution is a freeloader? A plant shop keeper running Linux on their work computer is a freeloader? I don't think that's even the intent of the GNU movement let alone all of open source.
- skrowl 3y ago[dead]
- webmobdev 3y agoIf you don't want "free"loaders using your software why is it "free" in the first place?
- mavelikara 3y agoFree as in freedom, not beer.
- yellowapple 3y agoExcept that the BUSL is the literal opposite: free as in beer, not freedom.
- phatfish 3y agoIt does guarantee transition to a free as in freedom open source license after a set period. Seems to be (at most?) 4 years.
- yellowapple 3y agoIt's a pretty weak guarantee. If it's possible to switch to the BUSL, then it's just as possible to switch to something even further from FOSS later.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kdmccormick 3y agoBecause they want it to be developed collaboratively, in the public eye, and for the good of all contributors. In other words, free as in freedom, but not free as in beer.
- iavael 3y agoOriginally it's "free as in speech" not "free as in freedom" But BSL is definitely not free as in speech. So if it's neither free as beer, so what part of it is "free"?
- version_five 3y agoI'll never understand this attitude. Are some people contributing to open source principally for a kind of quid-pro-quo? I think it's nice when people contribute back, but it's certainly not a motivation for me to open source stuff - other than to set an example. People can do what they want with the software, that's the whole point. Full disclosure, I'm a shitty open source contributor, but I have some projects on github that I know others have gotten use from, and that makes me happy, not concerned someone is "freeloading".
- hashtag-til 3y agoIt’s not quid-pro-quo. At the same time, does that seem ethical (even if it is legal) to build some dysfunctional business models exploiting somebody’s open source for profit and not contributing back? There are many motivations such as mindshare, not reinventing the wheel and creating standards that motivate people and companies to contribute to open-source. Ripping-off other’s work - even when legally ok - is not right. The system is designed to foster collaboration and not to enable shitty business models.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 3y ago> does that seem ethical (even if it is legal) to build some dysfunctional business models exploiting somebody’s open source for profit and not contributing back? You're describing a thing that happens here, and not even bothering to make an ethical argument against it. People are just supposed to accept the premise, and go on to discuss the implications of it. > The system is designed to foster collaboration and not to enable shitty business models. "Spirit of open source" people are arguing that the system wasn't designed at all. You're arguing that open source licenses themselves have little or nothing to do with open source licensing. Instead, it has something vaguely to do with freedom and friendly and collaborative and other nice words. You don't have to be friendly or collaborative to produce either open source or Free Software.
- api 3y ago
- kodablah 3y agoI also work on open source full time. I personally am happy to give my work away unconditionally to both freeloaders and contributors and fortunately my employer feels the same way (I am often a freeloader myself on unrelated projects). Ideally your moneymaker can compete on its own without being dependent upon gatekeeping how the open source part is used. But with project ownership means you can change the rules for your competitors, but it's also a sign that you fear your offering is not competitive enough without the rule change.
- hashtag-til 3y agoI find it brave we had this generation of companies creating open-source business models. It’s a shame it didn’t work out for them due to bad actors. The trend I see is for the next generation of good open-source great ideas to be much more protective around their intellectual property. Such a loss, again, due to bad actors.
- kodablah 3y agoI don't think the loss is due to bad actors. These actors aren't bad, they're rational. I think the loss is due to giving away things unconditionally without thinking about what that means. Many companies aren't reneging on open source. The ones that are reneging can't compete on what they are selling, so they have to compete on what they're not selling.
- hashtag-til 3y agoBad actors want to take advantage no matter what. It is the same case as Red Hat recent moves not to provide easy-to-rebrand linux distribution sources. Before they went the extra mile to foster collaboration, but were forced to be less friendly because of freeloaders. Similar point here. Hashicorp have very good products that are open source as a way to foster collaboration. Freeloaders rebrand it and re-sell with no added value, so Hashicorp are forced to close it (or more like put a timer) to protect their investment. As I said, I'm a big fan of open-source, and have been working on it for a long time, but am growing more and more frustrated with the current state of things, so much so, that it makes a lot of sense to me that companies that start with great collaboration spirit are forced to tighten their sources due to bad actors in the system.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago> As much as I love open-souce, I get the point that there are a bunch of freeloaders using stuff and not contributing back. Freeloaders like HashiCorp using other people's compilers and libraries?
- hashtag-til 3y agoYou missed the point. Hashicorp were probably not packaging a compiler+libraries and selling it and didn’t have a business model around compilers.
- ris 3y ago> not contributing back Have you ever looked at the number of unreviewed PRs on Hashicorp projects?
- comprev 3y agoReviewing those PRs require engineer time from a HashiCorp employee - how many resources should be diverted to it?
- ris 3y ago> Reviewing those PRs require engineer time from a HashiCorp employee No it doesn't. There's nothing stopping them delegating that task to community members apart from the desire to retain corporate control.
- jen20 3y agoIt need not be HashiCorp employees. I merged as many (if not more) PRs into Terraform after leaving as I did while working there - the notion of community maintainers was nixed in 2018, though that was never communicated.
- mqus 3y agoIn this case in particular, their stuff was under MPL (which has copyleft). If there were other companies offering Hashicorp services with hasicorp software, they also are under the obligation to open-source their changes under the MPL to their users, so hashicorp could get back those "contributions" from "freeloaders". On the other hand, many contributions(PRs) that hashicorp got (for free) are now relicensed to a different license. Who's actually the freeloader here?
- lijok 3y agoIt is, by definition, impossible to use and not contribute. To use is to contribute. As soon as you install a Hashicorp product, before you even run it, you have already contributed.
- m1keil 3y agoWho are these freeloaders and what scarce resource is being consumed by these freeloaders in this case?