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Much of your comment is speculation and unfounded accusations. > This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. It ma

Much of your comment is speculation and unfounded accusations. > This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. It makes it clear they intend to ship under the AGPLv3. What's wrong with that? They can change the license at a later date? Just fork! > I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. This is bananas; the AGPLv3 is extremely open source. And again, nothing prevents contributors from forking the code if Element closes it. > What they are doing is a required step to pull the same stunt as terraform. Didn't this result in the creation of OpenTofu? I haven't kept up and don't really have an opinion, but a cursory examination shows that their GitHub project has a gazillion stars [0]. > These folks are very unambiguously screwing over the community and making it sound otherwise. They've contributed an enormous amount of work to try and move the state of the art in messaging forward in a way that respects users (being extremely open, implementing end-to-end encryption, embracing decentralization, etc). Your characterizations of them are super uncharitable. They owe you precisely nothing. [0]: https://github.com/opentofu/opentofu https://github.com/opentofu/opentofu

lannisterstark 3y ago
[flagged]
- camgunz 3y ago
  > the slightest criticism This thread is full of people being super negative about the Element team. It's definitely not "slight" criticism. > a lot of people come out of woodwork with the tried and true "they owe you nothing" line. Criticism is how we improve and I'm a fan, but there's a difference between constructive criticism (which would be something like, "it looks like you're trying to build a sustainable revenue stream to continue your work on Matrix/Element but I'm not sure this is the best way to go about it, here's an alternative") and entitlement. Entitlement is demanding that Element essentially not run a business to fund Matrix/Element development. You might not think you're doing that, but what else could you be doing? - You can't think Element is getting special treatment; anyone could do what they're doing here. - You can't think this change could open the door to some entity buying a proprietary license and "causing problems" because that applies to the Apache version as well (you can close source an Apache 2.0 project). - You can't think Element would lock away community contributions; the community is free to fork Element's version if they do ever close the source. - You can't think they're tricking people into contributing to their versions and profiting unethically from them; they're being super upfront about this (they make you sign the CLA that makes this clear!) and anyone is free to continue contributing to the Apache-licensed versions. And again if you don't like either of those options, make your own fork! Or write your own server, the Matrix/Element people have erected a super open development and standards process (you're welcome!) Thus your only objection must be that Element is forcing people to pay if they want to run a closed-source version of their code. Another way to say that is you feel entitled to run a closed-source version of their code for free. You might say, "but Element's CLA gives them the ability to run a closed-source version of my code for free" which is true. The difference is they're giving you a choice, whereas you're demanding it from them. > A community is allowed to have certain expectations, champ. Please don't condescend, avoid snark, yadda.
krageon 3y ago
> They owe you precisely nothing. This is true. And nobody owes them anything either, something the GP was trying to make clear to the reader (with a reminder that if they do this thing how that will be used). I think this is a reasonable stance to take when any party pulls out the lawyers. Such a move must be mistrusted, lawyers are a mistrustful tool.
- camgunz 3y ago
  > And nobody owes them anything either, something the GP was trying to make clear to the reader (with a reminder that if they do this thing how that will be used). Element's not demanding anything from anyone. I don't understand your point.
KajMagnus 3y ago
> > This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. > It makes it clear they intend to ship under the AGPLv3 The blog post says literally: "or by contacting Element for an alternative license." So, that's what's on their mind. And that's for a fee [1]. (Not saying anyone is doing anything wrong — I'm using AGPL myself for some software I'm developing, + a CLA.) [1] See this comment below: "The reason for the CLA is purely to allow us to sell AGPL exceptions", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181368
- camgunz 3y ago
  You're missing the point. I'm saying people are getting super exercised about the "we might sell alternative licenses", but the code's AGPLv3, which everyone should be fine with.

lannisterstark 3y ago

[flagged]

camgunz 3y ago
> the slightest criticism This thread is full of people being super negative about the Element team. It's definitely not "slight" criticism. > a lot of people come out of woodwork with the tried and true "they owe you nothing" line. Criticism is how we improve and I'm a fan, but there's a difference between constructive criticism (which would be something like, "it looks like you're trying to build a sustainable revenue stream to continue your work on Matrix/Element but I'm not sure this is the best way to go about it, here's an alternative") and entitlement. Entitlement is demanding that Element essentially not run a business to fund Matrix/Element development. You might not think you're doing that, but what else could you be doing? - You can't think Element is getting special treatment; anyone could do what they're doing here. - You can't think this change could open the door to some entity buying a proprietary license and "causing problems" because that applies to the Apache version as well (you can close source an Apache 2.0 project). - You can't think Element would lock away community contributions; the community is free to fork Element's version if they do ever close the source. - You can't think they're tricking people into contributing to their versions and profiting unethically from them; they're being super upfront about this (they make you sign the CLA that makes this clear!) and anyone is free to continue contributing to the Apache-licensed versions. And again if you don't like either of those options, make your own fork! Or write your own server, the Matrix/Element people have erected a super open development and standards process (you're welcome!) Thus your only objection must be that Element is forcing people to pay if they want to run a closed-source version of their code. Another way to say that is you feel entitled to run a closed-source version of their code for free. You might say, "but Element's CLA gives them the ability to run a closed-source version of my code for free" which is true. The difference is they're giving you a choice, whereas you're demanding it from them. > A community is allowed to have certain expectations, champ. Please don't condescend, avoid snark, yadda.

krageon 3y ago

> They owe you precisely nothing. This is true. And nobody owes them anything either, something the GP was trying to make clear to the reader (with a reminder that if they do this thing how that will be used). I think this is a reasonable stance to take when any party pulls out the lawyers. Such a move must be mistrusted, lawyers are a mistrustful tool.

camgunz 3y ago
> And nobody owes them anything either, something the GP was trying to make clear to the reader (with a reminder that if they do this thing how that will be used). Element's not demanding anything from anyone. I don't understand your point.

KajMagnus 3y ago

> > This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. > It makes it clear they intend to ship under the AGPLv3 The blog post says literally: "or by contacting Element for an alternative license." So, that's what's on their mind. And that's for a fee [1]. (Not saying anyone is doing anything wrong — I'm using AGPL myself for some software I'm developing, + a CLA.) [1] See this comment below: "The reason for the CLA is purely to allow us to sell AGPL exceptions", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181368

camgunz 3y ago
You're missing the point. I'm saying people are getting super exercised about the "we might sell alternative licenses", but the code's AGPLv3, which everyone should be fine with.