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> The trouble is when a big customer wants to license or an investor wants to invest, they want to understand their risks, and that includes consideration of ri

> The trouble is when a big customer wants to license or an investor wants to invest, they want to understand their risks, and that includes consideration of risks coming from ambiguous code ownership--or clear but problematic ownership Fair enough, then whoever makes money out of the big customer/investor has also the burden of doing whatever engineers who make money out of software do - maintain it, patch it, provide support etc. That's why many projects have a community edition (the core product, maintained by volunteers who only abide to the standard license of the software) and an enterprise edition (the one maintained by a business that makes money from shipping something that checks all the enterprise boxes out of the community project). This model has worked for most of the businesses out there for at least the past three decades. Companies like Red Hat (the old one) made a lot of money out of it. Inverting this business model means ending up in a situation where the enterprise side has the power of imposing an enterprise-like license to the FOSS community, instead of having a product released under a FOSS license that can also be forked into enterprise implementations - with their own custom EULAs, CLAs etc. that only apply to those enterprise implementations. I don't think that is something that we should tolerate.

keepamovin 3y ago
BTW I really like your blog layout! Did you do that yourself? If not, what design did you use. Also where do you get those cute thumbnail graphics you put on each post?? :) Can you share some examples of where inverting the business model leads to that? I'd be interested to peruse those projects on GitHub to understand more. I'm don't really grasp what you're saying about CLAs being evil or not something we should tolerate right now. :)
- blacklight 3y ago
  Thanks! I use madblog for my blogs (https://git.platypush.tech/blacklight/madblog https://git.platypush.tech/blacklight/madblog), it's a small CMS based only on Markdown that I implemented in my spare time. I make most of the thumbnails myself too - usually by putting together or modifying other images I find online. About the inversion of licensing - CLAs are basically inversions of the usual collaboration flow between community and enterprise. The community usually contributes to the FOSS project out of the terms of the FOSS license (which usually includes free redistribution, no warranty etc.). The enterprise maintains, well, an enterprise version of the project, that abides to its own licenses and all. The community has never had to come in contact with the enterprise side so far. I can contribute to the CentOS trunk, without ever signing any agreement with Red Hat. If I need to contribute a patch directly to the Red Hat codebase, then it makes sense to sign a CLAs, otherwise it doesn't.

keepamovin 3y ago

BTW I really like your blog layout! Did you do that yourself? If not, what design did you use. Also where do you get those cute thumbnail graphics you put on each post?? :) Can you share some examples of where inverting the business model leads to that? I'd be interested to peruse those projects on GitHub to understand more. I'm don't really grasp what you're saying about CLAs being evil or not something we should tolerate right now. :)

blacklight 3y ago
Thanks! I use madblog for my blogs (https://git.platypush.tech/blacklight/madblog https://git.platypush.tech/blacklight/madblog), it's a small CMS based only on Markdown that I implemented in my spare time. I make most of the thumbnails myself too - usually by putting together or modifying other images I find online. About the inversion of licensing - CLAs are basically inversions of the usual collaboration flow between community and enterprise. The community usually contributes to the FOSS project out of the terms of the FOSS license (which usually includes free redistribution, no warranty etc.). The enterprise maintains, well, an enterprise version of the project, that abides to its own licenses and all. The community has never had to come in contact with the enterprise side so far. I can contribute to the CentOS trunk, without ever signing any agreement with Red Hat. If I need to contribute a patch directly to the Red Hat codebase, then it makes sense to sign a CLAs, otherwise it doesn't.