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I see that you are the author of these "Collective Source"/"Research Solutions" pages, based on the social media username listed on your HN profile. The purpose

I see that you are the author of these "Collective Source"/"Research Solutions" pages, based on the social media username listed on your HN profile. The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. While you are entitled to your own opinion, your statement "The Open Source Initiative was often regarded as a one-man show" is false in light of the easily available evidence that the Open Source Initiative is supported by numerous individuals and organizations. Your entire argument is tarnished by this false claim, since the Open Source Initiative has much more credibility than a "community" consisting of an empty Discourse forum, despite the Discourse forum being newer. Nobody is preventing MongoDB Inc. from restricting how MongoDB can be used with their Server Side Public License, which is a source-available software license. Nobody is preventing Facebook from restricting how its source-available project LLaMA 2 can be used. However, the FOSS community overwhelmingly rejects Meta's and MongoDB's attempts to water down the term open source to apply it to software licenses that restrict how its users can use the software. There is no shame in calling a piece of software source-available, since source-available software still offers more transparency than proprietary software with no published source code. But Meta's and MongoDB's efforts to brand their software as open source when they do not allow the freedoms that FOSS users expect from open source software are harmful marketing exercises that threaten the user freedoms championed by the open source software movement, all for the sake of commercial gain. It is important to distinguish between source-available software and open source software so users can properly determine the software that meets their needs based on the freedoms they afford.

JasonGoldman 3y ago
> The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. The current definition allows all users to use the open source software as they wish. The problem is that, as we have learned through experience, some of those users are multi-billion dollar companies who are happy to exploit this unrestricted freedom at the expense of destroying the open source projects. LLaMA 2 expects you to apply for a license only if you have "greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month". The open source initiative corporation relies on financial help from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It's not surprising that they are vocal about LLaMA's terms. If you don't have 700 million monthly active users and are not sponsored by tech giants, you're probably fighting for the wrong side. The new definition may be "weaker" or "stronger" depending on your agenda. For one, it would give users the right to protect their privacy. But, this also means that it takes away the freedom to collect and monetize information without users' consent.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  Competition is healthy, not hostile. If a project thinks it needs a monopoly on paid hosting and services, we should be very cautious about locking ourselves into it or contributing. The doc ought to cover the history that led into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition (especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...). It didn’t appear out of nowhere and a lot of thought went into it.
  - JasonGoldman 3y ago
    Healthy competition is healthy, but there are competitors who are hostile. If you're referring to projects like MongoDB, the SSPL license doesn't give them (or anyone else) monopoly power. It's quite the opposite: "[The Server Side Public License (SSPL)] includes most of the text and provisions of the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3), and primarily replaces section 13 [...] with a new section that requires that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3's section 13 covers only the program itself (the copyrightable work licensed under AGPL v3)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License
    - commoner 3y ago
      The SSPL does give MongoDB Inc. monopoly power by ensuring that only MongoDB Inc. can offer proprietary closed source software services in conjunction with MongoDB, while other vendors may only offer source-available software services in conjunction with MongoDB (unless they purchase a commercial proprietary software license from MongoDB Inc.). This means without a separate proprietary software license, the SSPL does not allow other vendors to offer something like MongoDB's proprietary closed source Developer Data Platform (https://www.mongodb.com/developer-data-platform https://www.mongodb.com/developer-data-platform) without releasing any of the corresponding source code for the software that interacts with MongoDB. The FOSS community, including the Free Software Foundation, Open Source Initiative, Debian Project, and Fedora Project, all recognize that because the SSPL requires users to release source code for software that the original developer (MongoDB Inc.) did not create, the SSPL is not a free software license or an open source software license. Free and open source software allows any user to use the software for any purpose (even if that purpose involves other proprietary software) and the SSPL does not. MongoDB Inc. decided to restrict competition by using its SSPL instead of a FOSS license. By doing so, the company made MongoDB source-available instead of open source.

JasonGoldman 3y ago

> The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. The current definition allows all users to use the open source software as they wish. The problem is that, as we have learned through experience, some of those users are multi-billion dollar companies who are happy to exploit this unrestricted freedom at the expense of destroying the open source projects. LLaMA 2 expects you to apply for a license only if you have "greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month". The open source initiative corporation relies on financial help from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It's not surprising that they are vocal about LLaMA's terms. If you don't have 700 million monthly active users and are not sponsored by tech giants, you're probably fighting for the wrong side. The new definition may be "weaker" or "stronger" depending on your agenda. For one, it would give users the right to protect their privacy. But, this also means that it takes away the freedom to collect and monetize information without users' consent.

erik_seaberg 3y ago
Competition is healthy, not hostile. If a project thinks it needs a monopoly on paid hosting and services, we should be very cautious about locking ourselves into it or contributing. The doc ought to cover the history that led into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition (especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...). It didn’t appear out of nowhere and a lot of thought went into it.
- JasonGoldman 3y ago
  Healthy competition is healthy, but there are competitors who are hostile. If you're referring to projects like MongoDB, the SSPL license doesn't give them (or anyone else) monopoly power. It's quite the opposite: "[The Server Side Public License (SSPL)] includes most of the text and provisions of the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3), and primarily replaces section 13 [...] with a new section that requires that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3's section 13 covers only the program itself (the copyrightable work licensed under AGPL v3)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License
  - commoner 3y ago
    The SSPL does give MongoDB Inc. monopoly power by ensuring that only MongoDB Inc. can offer proprietary closed source software services in conjunction with MongoDB, while other vendors may only offer source-available software services in conjunction with MongoDB (unless they purchase a commercial proprietary software license from MongoDB Inc.). This means without a separate proprietary software license, the SSPL does not allow other vendors to offer something like MongoDB's proprietary closed source Developer Data Platform (https://www.mongodb.com/developer-data-platform https://www.mongodb.com/developer-data-platform) without releasing any of the corresponding source code for the software that interacts with MongoDB. The FOSS community, including the Free Software Foundation, Open Source Initiative, Debian Project, and Fedora Project, all recognize that because the SSPL requires users to release source code for software that the original developer (MongoDB Inc.) did not create, the SSPL is not a free software license or an open source software license. Free and open source software allows any user to use the software for any purpose (even if that purpose involves other proprietary software) and the SSPL does not. MongoDB Inc. decided to restrict competition by using its SSPL instead of a FOSS license. By doing so, the company made MongoDB source-available instead of open source.