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Agreed... We are seeing dozens of database companies turn their OSS into basically proprietary shared code licenses. And we seem to still pretend its "open sour

Agreed... We are seeing dozens of database companies turn their OSS into basically proprietary shared code licenses. And we seem to still pretend its "open source" Collaboration, across companies, not ownership by one company is the root of open source. To do that you need some kind of governance model. Essentially "ownership" by one company is conducive to quick progress on specific problems, but not collaboration.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
The flipside is that companies don't seem all that interested in this sort of collaboration, though, nor should they be. It doesn't really make sense for a company that believes its edge is its technology to both give up the secret sauce and accept the dillution of that edge that comes from taking code from outside contributors. The modern version of "open source" is a natural evolution of the concept when this is how companies think.
AceJohnny2 3y ago
To put it another way: many startups today have adopted the "Open Core" business model, and it's really more about marketing than actual open-source. "Open Core" means they open-source the core of their product portfolio, core which some enterprising people may use to develop applications on, but for others will really need the buy into the rest of the portfolio to get the best use out of.
- AceJohnny2 3y ago
  I can't really fault companies for using this model. Development is expensive, and business models around open-source are hard. I mean, just look at what Red Hat ends up doing to fend off copycats. Getting people to try your product and also rely on it is a tricky proposition.
  - softwaredoug 3y ago
    I don't fault them either. In fact I'm a big fan of many of those companies. I think the fault is with the consumers. Many companies consume but do not participate in open source. All the incentives are there for companies to become vendors rather than participants (stewards?) of an open source project.
    - soenkeliebau 3y ago
      I think we are heading towards a bit of a shift in this regard. With the CRA in Europe and similar legislation in the States it will become more important to have "enterprise" services surrounding open source software. This is for example support, but also vulnerability assessment and similar things. I may be mistaken here, but I think we will see pure functionality become less important to enterprise customers, which might (maybe not, but one can hope) proper open source business models more viable again.
  - falalalala 3y ago
    What does Debian do?
    - AceJohnny2 3y ago
      Debian is not a commercial entity. It's a volunteer organization. In fact there's been quite a bit of vitriol about Canonical (company behind Ubuntu) profiting (for what that's worth) from all the hard work from Debian volunteers and not sharing as much of that value back to Debian as was felt was deserved.
      - worthless-trash 3y ago
        I've always wondered about that, I feel like ubuntu sometimes doesn't contribute fixes upstream. When I hear 'it works on ubuntu but not on distro X', it makes me wonder why ubuntu devs didnt post the fixes upstream. * I do realise that different release timings can fudge with the timing, but when fedora is building upstream versions and I hear it, its a bit.. disheartening.
        pxc 3y ago
        > When I hear 'it works on ubuntu but not on distro X', it makes me wonder why ubuntu devs didnt post the fixes upstream. I think this usually doesn't really have to do with Canonical at all, but with third party developers only testing against and building for Ubuntu.
        worthless-trash 3y ago
        Possibly, the examples I chased down are usually patches to the gnome userspace stack.
znpy 3y ago
> We are seeing dozens of database companies turn their OSS into basically proprietary shared code licenses. And we seem to still pretend its "open source" "open source" here is working as intended. the thing is, "open source" is misunderstood by many (most?) individuals. "open source" was explicitly created by Eric Raymond and others in the late 90ies because the Free Software movement was seen as too extremistic by companies still deeply rooted into the proprietary model. "open source" is a nice way out, in order to be able to look cool, while not actually playing it cool. I said it in many posts and i'll say it again: if you're require to give up copyright on your contributions and the license isn't free-software... then it's just a matter of time before a company turns your code into proprietary intellectual property. people that do not agree are simply delusional (or okay with that).
- ptx 3y ago
  Well, sort of. Open source was just a different name to describe free software, with the purpose of emphasizing the collaboration benefits this gives the business rather than the freedom it gives users. But this "business source" stuff is a different thing which is not open source at all.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Not just different names but different licenses.
    - ptx 3y ago
      No, not really. The first three criteria of the Open Source Definition [0] are essentially freedoms 1–3 of the Free Software Definition [1] and freedom 0 more or less maps to criteria 5 and 6. The mainstream FOSS licenses (GPL, BSD, Apache2, etc.) are all included both in the official list of open source licenses [2] and the official list of free software licenses [3], so these licenses are both open source licenses and free software licenses. These lists might have some minor differences, but they share a substantial subset and the definitions broadly speaking define the same thing. [0] https://opensource.org/osd/ https://opensource.org/osd/ [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/ https://opensource.org/licenses/ [3] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html

pclmulqdq 3y ago

The flipside is that companies don't seem all that interested in this sort of collaboration, though, nor should they be. It doesn't really make sense for a company that believes its edge is its technology to both give up the secret sauce and accept the dillution of that edge that comes from taking code from outside contributors. The modern version of "open source" is a natural evolution of the concept when this is how companies think.

AceJohnny2 3y ago

To put it another way: many startups today have adopted the "Open Core" business model, and it's really more about marketing than actual open-source. "Open Core" means they open-source the core of their product portfolio, core which some enterprising people may use to develop applications on, but for others will really need the buy into the rest of the portfolio to get the best use out of.

AceJohnny2 3y ago
I can't really fault companies for using this model. Development is expensive, and business models around open-source are hard. I mean, just look at what Red Hat ends up doing to fend off copycats. Getting people to try your product and also rely on it is a tricky proposition.
- softwaredoug 3y ago
  I don't fault them either. In fact I'm a big fan of many of those companies. I think the fault is with the consumers. Many companies consume but do not participate in open source. All the incentives are there for companies to become vendors rather than participants (stewards?) of an open source project.
  - soenkeliebau 3y ago
    I think we are heading towards a bit of a shift in this regard. With the CRA in Europe and similar legislation in the States it will become more important to have "enterprise" services surrounding open source software. This is for example support, but also vulnerability assessment and similar things. I may be mistaken here, but I think we will see pure functionality become less important to enterprise customers, which might (maybe not, but one can hope) proper open source business models more viable again.
- falalalala 3y ago
  What does Debian do?
  - AceJohnny2 3y ago
    Debian is not a commercial entity. It's a volunteer organization. In fact there's been quite a bit of vitriol about Canonical (company behind Ubuntu) profiting (for what that's worth) from all the hard work from Debian volunteers and not sharing as much of that value back to Debian as was felt was deserved.
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      I've always wondered about that, I feel like ubuntu sometimes doesn't contribute fixes upstream. When I hear 'it works on ubuntu but not on distro X', it makes me wonder why ubuntu devs didnt post the fixes upstream. * I do realise that different release timings can fudge with the timing, but when fedora is building upstream versions and I hear it, its a bit.. disheartening.
      - pxc 3y ago
        > When I hear 'it works on ubuntu but not on distro X', it makes me wonder why ubuntu devs didnt post the fixes upstream. I think this usually doesn't really have to do with Canonical at all, but with third party developers only testing against and building for Ubuntu.
        worthless-trash 3y ago
        Possibly, the examples I chased down are usually patches to the gnome userspace stack.

znpy 3y ago

> We are seeing dozens of database companies turn their OSS into basically proprietary shared code licenses. And we seem to still pretend its "open source" "open source" here is working as intended. the thing is, "open source" is misunderstood by many (most?) individuals. "open source" was explicitly created by Eric Raymond and others in the late 90ies because the Free Software movement was seen as too extremistic by companies still deeply rooted into the proprietary model. "open source" is a nice way out, in order to be able to look cool, while not actually playing it cool. I said it in many posts and i'll say it again: if you're require to give up copyright on your contributions and the license isn't free-software... then it's just a matter of time before a company turns your code into proprietary intellectual property. people that do not agree are simply delusional (or okay with that).

ptx 3y ago
Well, sort of. Open source was just a different name to describe free software, with the purpose of emphasizing the collaboration benefits this gives the business rather than the freedom it gives users. But this "business source" stuff is a different thing which is not open source at all.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Not just different names but different licenses.
  - ptx 3y ago
    No, not really. The first three criteria of the Open Source Definition [0] are essentially freedoms 1–3 of the Free Software Definition [1] and freedom 0 more or less maps to criteria 5 and 6. The mainstream FOSS licenses (GPL, BSD, Apache2, etc.) are all included both in the official list of open source licenses [2] and the official list of free software licenses [3], so these licenses are both open source licenses and free software licenses. These lists might have some minor differences, but they share a substantial subset and the definitions broadly speaking define the same thing. [0] https://opensource.org/osd/ https://opensource.org/osd/ [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/ https://opensource.org/licenses/ [3] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html