10 ms·

The definition of "harmful free-riding" is not good, and its use to justify the license is problematic. > Consequently, the common pool resource may be under-p

by growse 3y ago

The definition of "harmful free-riding" is not good, and its use to justify the license is problematic. > Consequently, the common pool resource may be under-produced, overused, or degraded. Additionally, it has been shown that despite evidence that people tend to be cooperative by nature (a prosocial behaviour), the presence of free-riders causes cooperation to deteriorate, perpetuating the free-rider problem.” Software doesn't wear out, or degrade through use. The analogies offered to other, physical common services are nonsensical. Also, there's plenty of projects that are open source, have an enormous amount of usage, and don't suffer from this problem. The difference between these and projects which perceive they suffer from the "harmful freeloading" problem is not the license, it's a badly-thought-through business model. If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software. Especially don't whine about it and then pretend to open source it. Just do proprietary.

tzs 3y ago
> Software doesn't wear out, or degrade through use. The analogies offered to other, physical common services are nonsensical. But latent bugs are discovered at a rate that is roughly proportional to use, and for application software running under general purpose operating systems on personal computers or servers the operating systems and hardware gets updates which can cause problems for applications. That imposes a maintenance and repair burden if you want to keep applications working that is very similar to the burden imposed by wear and degradation when you want to eep some physical thing running.
geerlingguy 3y ago
I don't understand the philosophy of wanting to use open source and gain the community / benefits of it... but using a proprietary sales model. It just doesn't work, and once you start calling users of your software who contribute nothing back anything resembling "freeloader" (whether or not you use that word), you've lost the whole concept of why most of us care about true open source. We can use it, we can learn from it, and for a very select few, we can even contribute to it or support the main devs monetarily or otherwise.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  > once you start calling users of your software who contribute nothing back anything resembling "freeloader" Who does that? Certainly not us.
  - growse 3y ago
    The entire justification of the existence of the license talks about the problem of the "harmful freeloaders".
    - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
      > "harmful freeloaders". The phrase you quoted "harmful freeloaders" does not appear in any of our texts. The word we used are "free-riders" and that does not refer to our users. Our users are free to use the software without contributions in any matter they want. What is not acceptable is to use it to run a competing SaaS business.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - growse 3y ago
        > The phrase you quoted "harmful freeloaders" does not appear in any of our texts. This is nit-picking pedantry. The term "free-riders" appears six times on this site https://fsl.software/ https://fsl.software/, but my bad for using a slightly different term that has the same meaning. From your very public announcement and linking to the text, it's pretty clear what you think of some of your users. > Our users are free to use the software without contributions in any matter they want. What is not acceptable is to use it to run a competing SaaS business. You're redefining the concept of "user" to suit your own ends.
        zogrodea 3y ago
        Would you mind explaining why you have a problem with a clause stating "use our product however you wish, as long as it is not to compete with us"? It sounds reasonable to me and the opposite which you are defending sounds unsustainable and harmful to the open source ecosystem. (There was a talk given at Strange Loop titled The Economic of Programming Languages by the creator of Elm about this and it sounds like he's hesitant to release something interesting he's been working on because of it. So it's a real issue in my opinion that can lead to a worse outcome for most of us.)
joshuaissac 3y ago
> If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software. I think this is the point of the FSL. Businesses with the business model you described can use it instead of open sourcing the software, and the terms switch to an open source licence only after two years.
- growse 3y ago
  Sure, but then just do proprietary and then release the software under Apache. What's the actual point of the FSL?
  - bentlegen 3y ago
    Proprietary wouldn't allow for free, non-competing use of the software during the 2 year period. The FSL does.
    - growse 3y ago
      Well, it does up until the point you decide an awkward user is "Competing" and then you start legal action :)
  - icambron 3y ago
    I wish the article had spelled this out a little better, but the reason many businesses have open source licenses for their software is to assuage their customers’ concerns about lock in and permanence (will your startup be around later? Will you jack up the price? Don’t worry, it’s open source). The downside, of course, is that it’s harder to sell stuff if it’s also available for free. I believe the theory here is that this license promises to open later to fix the lock in fear, but is closed now to create scarcity. So under its logic, it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting. I’m not sure it’s actually a good idea, just that I think I understand the intended logic of it.
    - bentlegen 3y ago
arp242 3y ago
> If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software. So you would rather have completely closed source instead of Open Source-but-for-one -detail? That's some puritanical ideology-driven nonsense. Be against this license if you wish, that fine and I'll happily debate anyone about it. But this is not a position I consider valid because obviously "more open" is better.
- growse 3y ago
  > So you would rather have completely closed source instead of Open Source-but-for-one -detail? Yes, because it's more honest about its intention. "but-for-one" is not open by definition, and trying to draw an equivocation is, ironically, free-riding off the virtue and benefits of actually open source projects.
  - arp242 3y ago
    > it's more honest about its intention They're not dishonest. That you're unwilling or unable to accept anything other than a black/white worldview is not their problem. And "not open by definition" according to what definition of "open"? It's a vague and nebulous word that can mean any number of things. You don't get to single-handedly define this. Hell, people were using "Open" to mean all sorts of things long before 1998 as it was pretty much the buzzword of the late 80s/early 90s.
    - growse 3y ago
      Pretty much everyone I know in the industry uses the definition of "open" defined by the OSI, in relation to "open source": https://opensource.org/ https://opensource.org/ It's not a new term. > They're not dishonest. That you're unwilling or unable to accept anything other than a black/white worldview is not their problem. You can't be "a little bit open source". You are or you aren't. Some people might not accept that the definition is clear and well-formed, but for a lot of us it is. If you want to write proprietary software, great. People just get annoyed when it's dressed up as "a bit like open source".

by growse 3y ago

tzs 3y ago

> Software doesn't wear out, or degrade through use. The analogies offered to other, physical common services are nonsensical. But latent bugs are discovered at a rate that is roughly proportional to use, and for application software running under general purpose operating systems on personal computers or servers the operating systems and hardware gets updates which can cause problems for applications. That imposes a maintenance and repair burden if you want to keep applications working that is very similar to the burden imposed by wear and degradation when you want to eep some physical thing running.

geerlingguy 3y ago

I don't understand the philosophy of wanting to use open source and gain the community / benefits of it... but using a proprietary sales model. It just doesn't work, and once you start calling users of your software who contribute nothing back anything resembling "freeloader" (whether or not you use that word), you've lost the whole concept of why most of us care about true open source. We can use it, we can learn from it, and for a very select few, we can even contribute to it or support the main devs monetarily or otherwise.

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
> once you start calling users of your software who contribute nothing back anything resembling "freeloader" Who does that? Certainly not us.
- growse 3y ago
  The entire justification of the existence of the license talks about the problem of the "harmful freeloaders".
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    > "harmful freeloaders". The phrase you quoted "harmful freeloaders" does not appear in any of our texts. The word we used are "free-riders" and that does not refer to our users. Our users are free to use the software without contributions in any matter they want. What is not acceptable is to use it to run a competing SaaS business.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - growse 3y ago
      > The phrase you quoted "harmful freeloaders" does not appear in any of our texts. This is nit-picking pedantry. The term "free-riders" appears six times on this site https://fsl.software/ https://fsl.software/, but my bad for using a slightly different term that has the same meaning. From your very public announcement and linking to the text, it's pretty clear what you think of some of your users. > Our users are free to use the software without contributions in any matter they want. What is not acceptable is to use it to run a competing SaaS business. You're redefining the concept of "user" to suit your own ends.
      - zogrodea 3y ago
        Would you mind explaining why you have a problem with a clause stating "use our product however you wish, as long as it is not to compete with us"? It sounds reasonable to me and the opposite which you are defending sounds unsustainable and harmful to the open source ecosystem. (There was a talk given at Strange Loop titled The Economic of Programming Languages by the creator of Elm about this and it sounds like he's hesitant to release something interesting he's been working on because of it. So it's a real issue in my opinion that can lead to a worse outcome for most of us.)

joshuaissac 3y ago

> If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software. I think this is the point of the FSL. Businesses with the business model you described can use it instead of open sourcing the software, and the terms switch to an open source licence only after two years.

growse 3y ago
Sure, but then just do proprietary and then release the software under Apache. What's the actual point of the FSL?
- bentlegen 3y ago
  Proprietary wouldn't allow for free, non-competing use of the software during the 2 year period. The FSL does.
  - growse 3y ago
    Well, it does up until the point you decide an awkward user is "Competing" and then you start legal action :)
- icambron 3y ago
  I wish the article had spelled this out a little better, but the reason many businesses have open source licenses for their software is to assuage their customers’ concerns about lock in and permanence (will your startup be around later? Will you jack up the price? Don’t worry, it’s open source). The downside, of course, is that it’s harder to sell stuff if it’s also available for free. I believe the theory here is that this license promises to open later to fix the lock in fear, but is closed now to create scarcity. So under its logic, it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting. I’m not sure it’s actually a good idea, just that I think I understand the intended logic of it.
  - bentlegen 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

> If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software. So you would rather have completely closed source instead of Open Source-but-for-one -detail? That's some puritanical ideology-driven nonsense. Be against this license if you wish, that fine and I'll happily debate anyone about it. But this is not a position I consider valid because obviously "more open" is better.

growse 3y ago
> So you would rather have completely closed source instead of Open Source-but-for-one -detail? Yes, because it's more honest about its intention. "but-for-one" is not open by definition, and trying to draw an equivocation is, ironically, free-riding off the virtue and benefits of actually open source projects.
- arp242 3y ago
  > it's more honest about its intention They're not dishonest. That you're unwilling or unable to accept anything other than a black/white worldview is not their problem. And "not open by definition" according to what definition of "open"? It's a vague and nebulous word that can mean any number of things. You don't get to single-handedly define this. Hell, people were using "Open" to mean all sorts of things long before 1998 as it was pretty much the buzzword of the late 80s/early 90s.
  - growse 3y ago
    Pretty much everyone I know in the industry uses the definition of "open" defined by the OSI, in relation to "open source": https://opensource.org/ https://opensource.org/ It's not a new term. > They're not dishonest. That you're unwilling or unable to accept anything other than a black/white worldview is not their problem. You can't be "a little bit open source". You are or you aren't. Some people might not accept that the definition is clear and well-formed, but for a lot of us it is. If you want to write proprietary software, great. People just get annoyed when it's dressed up as "a bit like open source".