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All that I get from this is that HashiCorp is no longer an open source company. > However, there are other vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and t

All that I get from this is that HashiCorp is no longer an open source company. > However, there are other vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and the community work on OSS projects, for their own commercial goals, without providing material contributions back. We don’t believe this is in the spirit of open source. This is 100% in the spirit of open source. If this is a problem for them, why not adopt an open source license that compels developers to open source their code instead, like the AGPL? This is purely a way for HashiCorp to ensure they are the only ones who can commercialize these formerly open source projects. Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for. High level, times have changed. Source should be (my two cents, ymmv) about a mutually beneficial partnership between builders and users, not “give it all away for free or you’re not legit.” Users get to understand and extend what they’re running (via source), while the project steward/maintainer/owner can continue to do so. It is a balance to be maintained in tension, not an equilibrium to be reached.
- version_five 3y ago
  > Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for That sounds like what the GP comment is saying. If someone said "turns out open source doesn't work for our business model" it's hard to argue with. If instead they talk about "evolving open source models" and whatnot, it feels like they want the best of both worlds. It's been happening a lot recently that companies pretend they are "open sourcing" something for the PR but really use a much more restrictive license.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. Source available is the new open source, and what young technologists will grow up grinding on. You’ll have folks complain about it during the transition (as happens with any Overton window sort of event), but they’ll move on eventually and a new crop of tech industry will grow up with this as the new normal. Change is inevitable, broadly speaking.
    - 094459 3y ago
      Yup this is how I see things evolving too. It’s a long game though and I suspect there will be a few twists yet to come.
    - version_five 3y ago
      I agree except I think it's our of short term greed plus arrogance rather than survival. Maybe in some cases that's not true, but when companies like Meta are championing pretend open source, it's not existential for them, it's trying to push for a world where they have more control. Like I said, I don't have a problem with closed source business models, it's the deliberate conflation that's troubling, especially when it's leveraged to get community contributions. On the other hand, if popular software becomes faux-pen source (I read that somewhere recently) and community members stop contributing, it's a loss too because it means we all become takers on whatever company's terms. Your almost certainly right about the window shifting, I'm going to keep complaining anyway.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        I encourage you to continue to complain. Sometimes it’s the only way the rest of us have signal we might be wrong.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      > I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. I don't think this is happening at all. Open source means the same thing it's always meant. Some people are just retreating from open source. Which is fine, they should be writing Free Software anyway if they want the world to have it, or use proprietary licenses if they don't. Otherwise very wealthy people will live on your back.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        I agree. But there are an awful lot of younger devs who really do seem to confuse "open source" with "source available". It's worth educating people about this.
- cmiles74 3y ago
  As they mentioned, this is what the AGPL license is for. No one is suggesting that the people at HashiCorp should not be paid for their work. https://fossa.com/blog/open-source-software-licenses-101-agpl-license/ https://fossa.com/blog/open-source-software-licenses-101-agp...
  - asymmetric 3y ago
    If they made their tools AGPL, they themselves couldn’t build a cloud offering with additional, closed-source features.
    - mperham 3y ago
      A license controls what OTHERS can do with your source. You, the copyright holder, can do anything you want.
      - asymmetric 3y ago
        Thanks, I stand corrected. How does this play with third-party contributions? Others might be the copyright-holders of a sub-section of the code.
        JimDabell 3y ago
        You ask contributors to sign a copyright assignment before accepting their changes.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        duckmysick 3y ago
        Projects can have a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). It gives the owner of the project a right to republish (or copyright) the contributions. You can't contribute to the project without signing it.
- mfer 3y ago
  Looking at the public data [1], Hashicorp looses money every quarter. At some point they need to stop burning cash because they have yet to figure out how to run a sustainable business. I don't know enough about their operations to have good suggestions on how to become sustainable. But, I don't like this move. There are many sustainable open source companies. Moving to source available from open source will likely never be a move I like. [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/HCP:NASDAQ https://www.google.com/finance/quote/HCP:NASDAQ
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    If this doesn't move the needle expect more increases to their licensing. Though I don't know how it could become more expensive.
  - PoachedEggs 3y ago
    > There are many sustainable open source companies. What are some examples?
    - pcthrowaway 3y ago
      SUSE, Canonical, Prisma (though their dashboard is closed source), Gitlab, pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space. And Hashicorp + Red Hat managed to make it work as open source companies for >10 years also There are many more "open core" companies, like TimescaleDB, Docker, etc, who then sell proprietary services on top of the open source software
      - sebastianz 3y ago
        Why do you think "open core", which most of those are, is somehow better than BSL? > pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space The entire "space" has yet to prove to be sustainable. Most of these are hype-driven borderline scams, I would not list them in a _sustainable open source business_ context :)
        3y ago
- Macha 3y ago
  You're free to decide open source isn't working for you. (Well, assuming you're not using any open source software that has decided on viral licenses because that's the payment _they_ expect) You're not free to decide your source available model is open source and reap the marketing benefits of open source without the costs.
  - pydry 3y ago
    I think these projects should just dual license as AGPL and BPL/EPL. That way all the "it's not really technically open source" complainers couldn't day that its not technically open source. It wouldnt substantively change anything of course, but that's somewhat the point. BPL/EPL/SSPL was always fully within the spirit of open source, it just pissed off the same large corporations who also can't stand the AGPL.
    - Macha 3y ago
      I'm way more fine with AGPL (without CLA). That's perfectly within the spirit of open source, as it doesn't privilege one group of users over another. BPL, EPL, SSPL are all "not open source", and AGPL+CLA is "we're setting up for a bait and switch with not open source versions".
      - pydry 3y ago
        I find it curious that Microsoft doesnt get more shit for demanding a CLA, especially given that embrace, extend, extinguish is in their DNA.
        JimDabell 3y ago
        Even GNU projects ask people to sign a CLA.
        teddyh 3y ago
        GNU projects assign the FSF as the copyright holder. The FSF is inherently trustworthy. (Since the FSF controls the GPL.)
- _ea1k 3y ago
  > Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for. It isn't just the need to eat. There's also the issue of keeping investors happy and their continual drive to maintain growth or earnings at stratospheric levels. Strict IP laws are the only safe way to do that, and that is why so much software has leveraged them over the years. The internet era felt like an aberration for a while, but things seem to be shifting back to high double digit margins as the only desirable goal.
LambdaComplex 3y ago
Based on multiple previous employers of mine, it seems like software companies start noticeably going downhill about 1.5 years after they go public. Let's check Wikipedia and see how I did: > On 29 November 2021, HashiCorp set terms for its IPO ...I'm starting to think I'm onto something. (I do welcome anecdata that either helps or hurts my hypothesis)
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  > it seems like software companies start noticeably going downhill about 1.5 years after they go public. I firmly believe this is a fact too. One place I recently worked, I joined as it was going public and it went downhill quickly. The friends I’d made there talked about the fun perks, holidays and benefits the company was known for. Over the space of less than a year most of the culture atrophied, people left in droves and there were exactly zero holidays or perks given out.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    I hate to say it but this feels inevitable. We've accepted that the requirement (legally!) of a public company is to deliver the maximum possible returns to investors, and as such, employees become a cost center to optimize away, and just generally, anything that negatively impacts the quarterly report must be eliminated, even if that thing is the only thing that will keep the next quarterly report in the black. Quarterly scope for fiscal data is one of the most short-sighted decisions humans have ever done. Expecting quarterly up-and-to-the-right, where simple sustenance is not enough, but profit must grow quarterly, on a planet with finite resources in an economy with finite money, is a guaranteed, zero-exceptions, recipe for failure, by definition.
    - scarby2 3y ago
      Fiduciary responsibility isn't entirely about returns, it's about the best interests of the investors. And if you've invested in a company with a certain mission it would be said to be in your interests for that mission to continue. If I were starting a business these days I'd be tempted to found it on the basis that 60% must be owned by employees of the company until the last living descendant of king Charles dies.
fasterik 3y ago
>Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. This seems too black and white. Don't their customers get value from having source code available, even if there are restrictions on how that source code can be used?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Don't their customers get value from having source code available, even if there are restrictions on how that source code can be used? For the most part, no, the main direct customer benefit comes from the absence of lock-in with regard to maintenance and services thar results from the absence of usage restrictions. There's some potential indirect ecosystem benefit for customers from the somewhat lower friction for partners in some source-available-but-use-restricted situations, but otherwise for most customers its the same as any other proprietary license.
  - mst 3y ago
    Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes. I worked for a company a lot of years ago that had BSDi licenses for some of it servers and had paid an extra fee for source access and that -did- actually come in handy to me once or twice. Later, the same went for the Radiator RADIUS server where you got source access automatically with a license purchase. White box versus black box debugging is absolutely something that can make a difference, especially when something goes wrong.
    - pxc 3y ago
      > Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes. Yep. I've definitely noticed this at work with some proprietary ('open-core') software that we use, and it's made me inclined to prefer source-available proprietary products over more restrictive proprietary ones as well. It's not as favorable as actual F/OSS, but it definitely makes a bit difference nonetheless.
rcme 3y ago
Source-available is still hugely beneficial to users, even if it’s not open source.
- falcolas 3y ago
  Closed source can (and does, see Windows) provide source to customers too.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    No, if words have meaning, "closed source" does not provide source. Closed source does not mean "not open source."
    - falcolas 3y ago
      Well then, according to the meaning you are assigning these words, Windows must be open source. Which, of course, is obviously false. Which means the words have different meaning than what you ascribe to them. Source available means you can view the source code, by abiding to the terms the owner of the code sets. Closed source means you can’t change or redistribute that source, regardless of whether you are allowed to view it.
      - pseudalopex 3y ago
        Windows would be not open source and not closed source according to them. I think most people would call it closed source however.
        rcme 3y ago
        It’s obviously a spectrum, but (some) people think of different things when they hear “closed source” vs. “source available”. Also, a company like Microsoft providing source to big customers doesn’t make their products source available, at least not in the commonly understood way. Source available usually means the source is freely available for reading and often compiling. That obviously does not apply to Windows.
pessimizer 3y ago
> Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. The opposite of open source isn't closed source, the opposite of open source is restrictive. You're not forced to refuse to let people see the source when you're not open source. You're not forced to eliminate everything that OSI-approved licenses must have if you're not OSI-approved. There are no OSI cops that bust proprietary vendors for using a subset of their characteristics. Of course it would be better if it were Free software, but it would be better if all software were Free software. They're doing them. edit: My objection comes when people pretend licenses are open source when they are not OSI-approved and couldn't be. HashiCorp is not claiming to have remained open source: they're now "source-available."
da768 3y ago
> without providing material contributions back They need more open PRs? It's not like these contributions would necessarily be welcome.
- pxc 3y ago
  Code contributions are material when Hashicorp makes them, see, but the only contribution from others that matters is cash.
afiori 3y ago
> This is 100% in the spirit of open source That is the spirit of Free Software (ie restricting users as little as possible) Open Source is much smaller in scope.
- riffraff 3y ago
  The open source definition explicitly says that there must be no restrictions on reselling. So restricting competitors is as much against the OS spirit as it is against the FS spirit.
  - afiori 3y ago
    touché
joeduffy 3y ago
Pulumi Founder/CEO here. The blog post is disingenuous. We tried many times to contribute upstream fixes to Terraform providers, but HashiCorp would never accept them. So we've had to maintain forks. They lost their OSS DNA a long time ago, and this move just puts the final nail in the coffin. Thankfully over time, they already pushed responsibility for most Terraform providers back onto their partners, so I'm hopeful the ecosystem of providers can still stay vibrant and open. We are deep believers in open source---heck my last project at Microsoft was to take .NET open source and cross-platform, our CTO helped found TypeScript, and Pulumi is an Apache open source project---it seems HashiCorp no longer is.
- vmatsiiako 3y ago
  I'm a huge fan of Pulumi. After HCP's license switch, I'm even more sure that Pulumi will be a clear winner over Terraform in the long term.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I really don’t think that was ever in doubt. You only need to use it for a very short time to find that the ergonomics are infinitely nicer than Terraform.
    - vbezhenar 3y ago
      My biggest issue with terraform is concept of state file. It seems that Pulumi continues on this model. I wish someone came up with innovative idea of not needing state file.
      - grudg3 3y ago
        Bicep does that, but it's Azure only, and you can't really 'destroy', just apply.
        rirze 3y ago
        From my prelimary search, Bicep does utilize a state file, but it is completely hidden from the end users. Seems to be managed in Azure directly and automagically. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/bicep/overview?tabs=bicep https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manag...
davorak 3y ago
> This is purely a way for HashiCorp to ensure they are the only ones who can commercialize these formerly open source projects. Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. Pragmatically I would rather bsl than closed source and I am more likely to use a product that is bsl, with reasonable transfer time and license, than a 100% closed source product.
- Rapzid 3y ago
  I wish I could give you more upvotes. I'd also much rather have "open source" with commercialization restrictions than closed source. It's still in most people's best interest to contribute to these projects if they were before, or would have before. Many businesses(and this is where most of the contributions get funded from, let's be real) rely on these projects and have no intention of selling them or competing with HashiCorp services.
  - ramses0 3y ago
    "Source Available" please.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  I'd rather have proprietary than "almost open source". Both aren't useful, but only one attempts to damage the common understanding of what "Open Source" means.
  - davorak 3y ago
    I do not call anything under BSL open source. I would prefer if companies when presenting the BSL talk about their schedule to open source, the schedule being when the Change License takes effect, at least if the Change License is an open source one.
    - notpushkin 3y ago
      Under BSL, change license is required to be open source. I haven't seen any precedents yet, but MariaDB owns the BSL trademark, so they can enforce that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sacnoradhq 3y ago
AGPL is a user-hostile license and a license that MAANGs explicitly forbid. AGPL and other pseudo-FOSS are purist idealistic aspirations that are, in reality, self-sabotaging footguns.
unknownian 3y ago
>like the AGPL? As I explained in an earlier thread, MongoDB tried using AGPL. AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. MongoDB ended up using a variant of AGPL that is even stricter (requiring the entire tech stack to be under the same license) but is no longer considered FOSS. Until the attitude changes around what FOSS is, this will keep happening.
- sacnoradhq 3y ago
  AWS forked Elastic because of pseudo-FOSS AGPL-like licensing. Something is either FOSS or it's FOSS-washed crippleware riding the coattails of actual FOSS for $$$.
- wmf 3y ago
  AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. I don't think this is true.
  - iavael 3y ago
    If Amazon don't have a need to change anything in software, they'll just provide it as service without any problems. AGPL permits this. If they have to change something, then they would likely want want to return hose changes in upstream to lower maintenance burden. Or just publish changes on github of upstream doesn't want to accept them. AGPL is fine with this too. If Amazon would like create similar offering but with some secret sauce that they don't want to share, then they'll develop in-house solution from scratch and sell it as a service in AWS.
- thayne 3y ago
  Um. Mongodb changed its license before AWS offered a mongodb compatible service. And since I can't get the source code for documentdb, either it isn't actually using a fork of mongodb, or Amazon isn't complying with the AGPL. I think the latter is pretty unlikely.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
AYBABTME 3y ago
Having it both ways is what I wish for them, as a user. I want their source, I want to be able to use it, I want them to sell it, and I don't want some copycat to undercut them. Open-source isn't a gospel, it's a religion to some but not the end of the story in terms of what humanity can come up with. God(s?) didn't stop at "closed or open source". We can find alternatives while aiming for ideals.
di4na 3y ago
I will say. All that it achieve is making sure noone can build a better product. Aka "yes our product is crap in a lot of places, but we don't want to fix it. Better extract licensing fees by locking you all with us". The behaviour of dying companies. Which make sense. Their business model never worked.
bawolff 3y ago
> This is 100% in the spirit of open source Not just in the spirit but a fundamental tenant.
prmoustache 3y ago
They pretend some companys do not follow the ethics and principles of open source by not contributing but Hashicorp hasn't adopted those principles in the first place. If you make people sign a CLA before contributing, you are not really a good open source player in the first place.
Dylan16807 3y ago
> This is 100% in the spirit of open source. No it's not! It's allowed, but it's not in the spirit. The spirit is everyone sharing. It can be true at the same time that "mechanisms to force sharing are against the spirit" and "entities that don't share are against the spirit".

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for. High level, times have changed. Source should be (my two cents, ymmv) about a mutually beneficial partnership between builders and users, not “give it all away for free or you’re not legit.” Users get to understand and extend what they’re running (via source), while the project steward/maintainer/owner can continue to do so. It is a balance to be maintained in tension, not an equilibrium to be reached.

version_five 3y ago
> Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for That sounds like what the GP comment is saying. If someone said "turns out open source doesn't work for our business model" it's hard to argue with. If instead they talk about "evolving open source models" and whatnot, it feels like they want the best of both worlds. It's been happening a lot recently that companies pretend they are "open sourcing" something for the PR but really use a much more restrictive license.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. Source available is the new open source, and what young technologists will grow up grinding on. You’ll have folks complain about it during the transition (as happens with any Overton window sort of event), but they’ll move on eventually and a new crop of tech industry will grow up with this as the new normal. Change is inevitable, broadly speaking.
  - 094459 3y ago
    Yup this is how I see things evolving too. It’s a long game though and I suspect there will be a few twists yet to come.
  - version_five 3y ago
    I agree except I think it's our of short term greed plus arrogance rather than survival. Maybe in some cases that's not true, but when companies like Meta are championing pretend open source, it's not existential for them, it's trying to push for a world where they have more control. Like I said, I don't have a problem with closed source business models, it's the deliberate conflation that's troubling, especially when it's leveraged to get community contributions. On the other hand, if popular software becomes faux-pen source (I read that somewhere recently) and community members stop contributing, it's a loss too because it means we all become takers on whatever company's terms. Your almost certainly right about the window shifting, I'm going to keep complaining anyway.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      I encourage you to continue to complain. Sometimes it’s the only way the rest of us have signal we might be wrong.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    > I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. I don't think this is happening at all. Open source means the same thing it's always meant. Some people are just retreating from open source. Which is fine, they should be writing Free Software anyway if they want the world to have it, or use proprietary licenses if they don't. Otherwise very wealthy people will live on your back.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      I agree. But there are an awful lot of younger devs who really do seem to confuse "open source" with "source available". It's worth educating people about this.
cmiles74 3y ago
As they mentioned, this is what the AGPL license is for. No one is suggesting that the people at HashiCorp should not be paid for their work. https://fossa.com/blog/open-source-software-licenses-101-agpl-license/ https://fossa.com/blog/open-source-software-licenses-101-agp...
- asymmetric 3y ago
  If they made their tools AGPL, they themselves couldn’t build a cloud offering with additional, closed-source features.
  - mperham 3y ago
    A license controls what OTHERS can do with your source. You, the copyright holder, can do anything you want.
    - asymmetric 3y ago
      Thanks, I stand corrected. How does this play with third-party contributions? Others might be the copyright-holders of a sub-section of the code.
      - JimDabell 3y ago
        You ask contributors to sign a copyright assignment before accepting their changes.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - duckmysick 3y ago
        Projects can have a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). It gives the owner of the project a right to republish (or copyright) the contributions. You can't contribute to the project without signing it.
mfer 3y ago
Looking at the public data [1], Hashicorp looses money every quarter. At some point they need to stop burning cash because they have yet to figure out how to run a sustainable business. I don't know enough about their operations to have good suggestions on how to become sustainable. But, I don't like this move. There are many sustainable open source companies. Moving to source available from open source will likely never be a move I like. [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/HCP:NASDAQ https://www.google.com/finance/quote/HCP:NASDAQ
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  If this doesn't move the needle expect more increases to their licensing. Though I don't know how it could become more expensive.
- PoachedEggs 3y ago
  > There are many sustainable open source companies. What are some examples?
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    SUSE, Canonical, Prisma (though their dashboard is closed source), Gitlab, pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space. And Hashicorp + Red Hat managed to make it work as open source companies for >10 years also There are many more "open core" companies, like TimescaleDB, Docker, etc, who then sell proprietary services on top of the open source software
    - sebastianz 3y ago
      Why do you think "open core", which most of those are, is somehow better than BSL? > pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space The entire "space" has yet to prove to be sustainable. Most of these are hype-driven borderline scams, I would not list them in a _sustainable open source business_ context :)
      - 3y ago
Macha 3y ago
You're free to decide open source isn't working for you. (Well, assuming you're not using any open source software that has decided on viral licenses because that's the payment _they_ expect) You're not free to decide your source available model is open source and reap the marketing benefits of open source without the costs.
- pydry 3y ago
  I think these projects should just dual license as AGPL and BPL/EPL. That way all the "it's not really technically open source" complainers couldn't day that its not technically open source. It wouldnt substantively change anything of course, but that's somewhat the point. BPL/EPL/SSPL was always fully within the spirit of open source, it just pissed off the same large corporations who also can't stand the AGPL.
  - Macha 3y ago
    I'm way more fine with AGPL (without CLA). That's perfectly within the spirit of open source, as it doesn't privilege one group of users over another. BPL, EPL, SSPL are all "not open source", and AGPL+CLA is "we're setting up for a bait and switch with not open source versions".
    - pydry 3y ago
      I find it curious that Microsoft doesnt get more shit for demanding a CLA, especially given that embrace, extend, extinguish is in their DNA.
      - JimDabell 3y ago
        Even GNU projects ask people to sign a CLA.
        teddyh 3y ago
        GNU projects assign the FSF as the copyright holder. The FSF is inherently trustworthy. (Since the FSF controls the GPL.)
_ea1k 3y ago
> Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for. It isn't just the need to eat. There's also the issue of keeping investors happy and their continual drive to maintain growth or earnings at stratospheric levels. Strict IP laws are the only safe way to do that, and that is why so much software has leveraged them over the years. The internet era felt like an aberration for a while, but things seem to be shifting back to high double digit margins as the only desirable goal.

LambdaComplex 3y ago

Based on multiple previous employers of mine, it seems like software companies start noticeably going downhill about 1.5 years after they go public. Let's check Wikipedia and see how I did: > On 29 November 2021, HashiCorp set terms for its IPO ...I'm starting to think I'm onto something. (I do welcome anecdata that either helps or hurts my hypothesis)

FridgeSeal 3y ago
> it seems like software companies start noticeably going downhill about 1.5 years after they go public. I firmly believe this is a fact too. One place I recently worked, I joined as it was going public and it went downhill quickly. The friends I’d made there talked about the fun perks, holidays and benefits the company was known for. Over the space of less than a year most of the culture atrophied, people left in droves and there were exactly zero holidays or perks given out.
- klardotsh 3y ago
  I hate to say it but this feels inevitable. We've accepted that the requirement (legally!) of a public company is to deliver the maximum possible returns to investors, and as such, employees become a cost center to optimize away, and just generally, anything that negatively impacts the quarterly report must be eliminated, even if that thing is the only thing that will keep the next quarterly report in the black. Quarterly scope for fiscal data is one of the most short-sighted decisions humans have ever done. Expecting quarterly up-and-to-the-right, where simple sustenance is not enough, but profit must grow quarterly, on a planet with finite resources in an economy with finite money, is a guaranteed, zero-exceptions, recipe for failure, by definition.
  - scarby2 3y ago
    Fiduciary responsibility isn't entirely about returns, it's about the best interests of the investors. And if you've invested in a company with a certain mission it would be said to be in your interests for that mission to continue. If I were starting a business these days I'd be tempted to found it on the basis that 60% must be owned by employees of the company until the last living descendant of king Charles dies.

fasterik 3y ago

>Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. This seems too black and white. Don't their customers get value from having source code available, even if there are restrictions on how that source code can be used?

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Don't their customers get value from having source code available, even if there are restrictions on how that source code can be used? For the most part, no, the main direct customer benefit comes from the absence of lock-in with regard to maintenance and services thar results from the absence of usage restrictions. There's some potential indirect ecosystem benefit for customers from the somewhat lower friction for partners in some source-available-but-use-restricted situations, but otherwise for most customers its the same as any other proprietary license.
- mst 3y ago
  Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes. I worked for a company a lot of years ago that had BSDi licenses for some of it servers and had paid an extra fee for source access and that -did- actually come in handy to me once or twice. Later, the same went for the Radiator RADIUS server where you got source access automatically with a license purchase. White box versus black box debugging is absolutely something that can make a difference, especially when something goes wrong.
  - pxc 3y ago
    > Being able to tear through the source code of something to figure out why it's doing what it's doing is valuable even if you never make changes. Yep. I've definitely noticed this at work with some proprietary ('open-core') software that we use, and it's made me inclined to prefer source-available proprietary products over more restrictive proprietary ones as well. It's not as favorable as actual F/OSS, but it definitely makes a bit difference nonetheless.

rcme 3y ago

Source-available is still hugely beneficial to users, even if it’s not open source.

falcolas 3y ago
Closed source can (and does, see Windows) provide source to customers too.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  No, if words have meaning, "closed source" does not provide source. Closed source does not mean "not open source."
  - falcolas 3y ago
    Well then, according to the meaning you are assigning these words, Windows must be open source. Which, of course, is obviously false. Which means the words have different meaning than what you ascribe to them. Source available means you can view the source code, by abiding to the terms the owner of the code sets. Closed source means you can’t change or redistribute that source, regardless of whether you are allowed to view it.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      Windows would be not open source and not closed source according to them. I think most people would call it closed source however.
      - rcme 3y ago
        It’s obviously a spectrum, but (some) people think of different things when they hear “closed source” vs. “source available”. Also, a company like Microsoft providing source to big customers doesn’t make their products source available, at least not in the commonly understood way. Source available usually means the source is freely available for reading and often compiling. That obviously does not apply to Windows.

pessimizer 3y ago

> Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. The opposite of open source isn't closed source, the opposite of open source is restrictive. You're not forced to refuse to let people see the source when you're not open source. You're not forced to eliminate everything that OSI-approved licenses must have if you're not OSI-approved. There are no OSI cops that bust proprietary vendors for using a subset of their characteristics. Of course it would be better if it were Free software, but it would be better if all software were Free software. They're doing them. edit: My objection comes when people pretend licenses are open source when they are not OSI-approved and couldn't be. HashiCorp is not claiming to have remained open source: they're now "source-available."

da768 3y ago

> without providing material contributions back They need more open PRs? It's not like these contributions would necessarily be welcome.

pxc 3y ago
Code contributions are material when Hashicorp makes them, see, but the only contribution from others that matters is cash.

afiori 3y ago

> This is 100% in the spirit of open source That is the spirit of Free Software (ie restricting users as little as possible) Open Source is much smaller in scope.

riffraff 3y ago
The open source definition explicitly says that there must be no restrictions on reselling. So restricting competitors is as much against the OS spirit as it is against the FS spirit.
- afiori 3y ago
  touché

joeduffy 3y ago

Pulumi Founder/CEO here. The blog post is disingenuous. We tried many times to contribute upstream fixes to Terraform providers, but HashiCorp would never accept them. So we've had to maintain forks. They lost their OSS DNA a long time ago, and this move just puts the final nail in the coffin. Thankfully over time, they already pushed responsibility for most Terraform providers back onto their partners, so I'm hopeful the ecosystem of providers can still stay vibrant and open. We are deep believers in open source---heck my last project at Microsoft was to take .NET open source and cross-platform, our CTO helped found TypeScript, and Pulumi is an Apache open source project---it seems HashiCorp no longer is.

vmatsiiako 3y ago
I'm a huge fan of Pulumi. After HCP's license switch, I'm even more sure that Pulumi will be a clear winner over Terraform in the long term.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I really don’t think that was ever in doubt. You only need to use it for a very short time to find that the ergonomics are infinitely nicer than Terraform.
  - vbezhenar 3y ago
    My biggest issue with terraform is concept of state file. It seems that Pulumi continues on this model. I wish someone came up with innovative idea of not needing state file.
    - grudg3 3y ago
      Bicep does that, but it's Azure only, and you can't really 'destroy', just apply.
      - rirze 3y ago
        From my prelimary search, Bicep does utilize a state file, but it is completely hidden from the end users. Seems to be managed in Azure directly and automagically. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/bicep/overview?tabs=bicep https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manag...

davorak 3y ago

> This is purely a way for HashiCorp to ensure they are the only ones who can commercialize these formerly open source projects. Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. Pragmatically I would rather bsl than closed source and I am more likely to use a product that is bsl, with reasonable transfer time and license, than a 100% closed source product.

Rapzid 3y ago
I wish I could give you more upvotes. I'd also much rather have "open source" with commercialization restrictions than closed source. It's still in most people's best interest to contribute to these projects if they were before, or would have before. Many businesses(and this is where most of the contributions get funded from, let's be real) rely on these projects and have no intention of selling them or competing with HashiCorp services.
- ramses0 3y ago
  "Source Available" please.
JoshTriplett 3y ago
I'd rather have proprietary than "almost open source". Both aren't useful, but only one attempts to damage the common understanding of what "Open Source" means.
- davorak 3y ago
  I do not call anything under BSL open source. I would prefer if companies when presenting the BSL talk about their schedule to open source, the schedule being when the Change License takes effect, at least if the Change License is an open source one.
  - notpushkin 3y ago
    Under BSL, change license is required to be open source. I haven't seen any precedents yet, but MariaDB owns the BSL trademark, so they can enforce that.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sacnoradhq 3y ago

AGPL is a user-hostile license and a license that MAANGs explicitly forbid. AGPL and other pseudo-FOSS are purist idealistic aspirations that are, in reality, self-sabotaging footguns.

unknownian 3y ago

>like the AGPL? As I explained in an earlier thread, MongoDB tried using AGPL. AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. MongoDB ended up using a variant of AGPL that is even stricter (requiring the entire tech stack to be under the same license) but is no longer considered FOSS. Until the attitude changes around what FOSS is, this will keep happening.

sacnoradhq 3y ago
AWS forked Elastic because of pseudo-FOSS AGPL-like licensing. Something is either FOSS or it's FOSS-washed crippleware riding the coattails of actual FOSS for $$$.
wmf 3y ago
AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. I don't think this is true.
- iavael 3y ago
  If Amazon don't have a need to change anything in software, they'll just provide it as service without any problems. AGPL permits this. If they have to change something, then they would likely want want to return hose changes in upstream to lower maintenance burden. Or just publish changes on github of upstream doesn't want to accept them. AGPL is fine with this too. If Amazon would like create similar offering but with some secret sauce that they don't want to share, then they'll develop in-house solution from scratch and sell it as a service in AWS.
thayne 3y ago
Um. Mongodb changed its license before AWS offered a mongodb compatible service. And since I can't get the source code for documentdb, either it isn't actually using a fork of mongodb, or Amazon isn't complying with the AGPL. I think the latter is pretty unlikely.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

AYBABTME 3y ago

Having it both ways is what I wish for them, as a user. I want their source, I want to be able to use it, I want them to sell it, and I don't want some copycat to undercut them. Open-source isn't a gospel, it's a religion to some but not the end of the story in terms of what humanity can come up with. God(s?) didn't stop at "closed or open source". We can find alternatives while aiming for ideals.

di4na 3y ago

I will say. All that it achieve is making sure noone can build a better product. Aka "yes our product is crap in a lot of places, but we don't want to fix it. Better extract licensing fees by locking you all with us". The behaviour of dying companies. Which make sense. Their business model never worked.

bawolff 3y ago

> This is 100% in the spirit of open source Not just in the spirit but a fundamental tenant.

prmoustache 3y ago

They pretend some companys do not follow the ethics and principles of open source by not contributing but Hashicorp hasn't adopted those principles in the first place. If you make people sign a CLA before contributing, you are not really a good open source player in the first place.

Dylan16807 3y ago

> This is 100% in the spirit of open source. No it's not! It's allowed, but it's not in the spirit. The spirit is everyone sharing. It can be true at the same time that "mechanisms to force sharing are against the spirit" and "entities that don't share are against the spirit".