4 ms·

Yes, large corps have weaponized open source.

amelius 3y ago
FOSS developers should probably slap a license on it that says it's free unless you are a company that has a revenue greater than $X million dollars. This is still fair to everyone since for the company the price of using the software would be peanuts. And now at least these companies are paying for the development and maintenance.
- an_ko 3y ago
  What stops Amazon from establishing a separate company called Totally Not Amazon, which employs 1 person, and hosts your software for the rest of Amazon, and has revenue much less than 1M$ so they can use it for free? If they need more capacity than 1M would plausibly buy them from themselves, just establish however many more identical companies are necessary, none of which exceed 1M$.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Probably language that suggests if amazon would like to do that they would need to split the entire company into a million pieces to each be under the revenue limit. In practice though amazon engineers would reverse engineer any tool they cant legally use and need.
  - amelius 3y ago
    This shows more what's wrong with corporate law than with the idea behind this license.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Probably the same thing that stops Amazon from establishing a Totally Not Amazon that has zero revenue, so that Amazon can use all sorts of "free for non-commercial use" software.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  MongoDB and HashiCorp did that... and guess what? These kinds of licenses aren't open source.
  - amelius 3y ago
    That's only a problem if you want it to be a problem.
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      It's not practically enforceable.
    - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
      Ironic that people complaining about free riders are trying to be free riders on the goodwill of "Open Source" by repurposing it to mean something else.
      - amelius 3y ago
        I'll happily pay if my company reaches millions in revenue. Which is only fair since my software is built on top of all kinds of open source software. I don't see the problem of paying only if the software brought me success. Meanwhile, you propose to pay nothing at all?
  - indymike 3y ago
    I've been burnt by "open core" in the past. Never again.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  A license like that makes it no longer FOSS. The AGPLv3 will accomplish the same goal while still being FOSS.
  - amelius 3y ago
    Agpl has no clause for large companies, so it's different. Also, may I ask what is your fundamental problem with such a license besides perhaps the name and purity? This license will only affect the insanely rich, and in a way that they will most likely not even feel.
    - CaptainFever 3y ago
      License profileration, which makes it harder for people to know what is acceptable or not. Also, GPL is well-known, well-tested, and already excludes most companies. If they want to use our stuff, they better pay it back and become GPL too. That's the practical concern. The idealistic concern is that free software is all about handing power to the users. Much like how a pen can't restrict how you use it, developers shouldn't be able to restrict how users can use it. Note that the only restriction GPL has is that you cannot further restrict it (tolerance paradox). It's an ethical position to give power to the users, regardless of who they are, because software owners should not have the power to control the users. From here, a software developer decreeing "you may not use my stuff if you make more than X amount per year" is abusing their power over users, which is unethical. Imagine if a pen company told you you cannot use their pens if you met X Y or Z conditions. It's just not right. Stallman covered this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  I came here to make exactly this proposal. Free Software is supposed to create a gift economy. People create and release their work in good faith, others copy and improve, and contribute back to the community. Gift economies work if most continue to gift their work to society in good faith. If some actors decide to largely take and but rarely give out of self-interest, or worse use their gifts to cement their economic position, then the gift economy turns into an exploitation economy. The way to fix such an economy is to intentionally exclude those who are exploitative. Free Software failed to create a gift economy. I am all for abandoning it in favor of the Guarded Free Software economy as you propose.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Linux with its GPL works very well against the exploitation. A huge number of commercial companies are contributing to it all the time.
  - ItsABytecode 3y ago
    I’ve never really understood the difference between a gift economy with the expectation of reciprocity and a regular non-gift economy
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      In a regular economy, every exchange is a two-way transaction. I give you something, you give me something (usually of perceived equal value). In a gift economy. I gift you something. You gift someone something. That someone could be me, but if I don't need/want anything you need, then you just gift to someone else. If there are gifts going around all the time, all in good faith, then most people will receive what they need. You see gift economies in families or friends all the time. People help others according to their abilities. My rich friend takes me out to an expensive dinner, poor me gets us lunch from that famous food truck. I nurse my uncle when he breaks his leg. He lets my brother's son to live with him for free during college. There is no accounting of how much anyone gave. Just give what you can. I recommend reading Cory Doctorow's novel Walkaway which describes gift economies beautifully.
- kazinator 3y ago
  That's not free though. That's something very similar to "free for non-commercial use" (with an extension allowing free commercial use up to a certain scale). It doesn't solve the problem of someone being able to operate the software on a server, where the users have no control of it and their data is held hostage, too.

FOSS developers should probably slap a license on it that says it's free unless you are a company that has a revenue greater than $X million dollars. This is still fair to everyone since for the company the price of using the software would be peanuts. And now at least these companies are paying for the development and maintenance.

an_ko 3y ago
What stops Amazon from establishing a separate company called Totally Not Amazon, which employs 1 person, and hosts your software for the rest of Amazon, and has revenue much less than 1M$ so they can use it for free? If they need more capacity than 1M would plausibly buy them from themselves, just establish however many more identical companies are necessary, none of which exceed 1M$.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Probably language that suggests if amazon would like to do that they would need to split the entire company into a million pieces to each be under the revenue limit. In practice though amazon engineers would reverse engineer any tool they cant legally use and need.
- amelius 3y ago
  This shows more what's wrong with corporate law than with the idea behind this license.
- kazinator 3y ago
  Probably the same thing that stops Amazon from establishing a Totally Not Amazon that has zero revenue, so that Amazon can use all sorts of "free for non-commercial use" software.
JAlexoid 3y ago
MongoDB and HashiCorp did that... and guess what? These kinds of licenses aren't open source.
- amelius 3y ago
  That's only a problem if you want it to be a problem.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    It's not practically enforceable.
  - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
    Ironic that people complaining about free riders are trying to be free riders on the goodwill of "Open Source" by repurposing it to mean something else.
    - amelius 3y ago
      I'll happily pay if my company reaches millions in revenue. Which is only fair since my software is built on top of all kinds of open source software. I don't see the problem of paying only if the software brought me success. Meanwhile, you propose to pay nothing at all?
- indymike 3y ago
  I've been burnt by "open core" in the past. Never again.
josephcsible 3y ago
A license like that makes it no longer FOSS. The AGPLv3 will accomplish the same goal while still being FOSS.
- amelius 3y ago
  Agpl has no clause for large companies, so it's different. Also, may I ask what is your fundamental problem with such a license besides perhaps the name and purity? This license will only affect the insanely rich, and in a way that they will most likely not even feel.
  - CaptainFever 3y ago
    License profileration, which makes it harder for people to know what is acceptable or not. Also, GPL is well-known, well-tested, and already excludes most companies. If they want to use our stuff, they better pay it back and become GPL too. That's the practical concern. The idealistic concern is that free software is all about handing power to the users. Much like how a pen can't restrict how you use it, developers shouldn't be able to restrict how users can use it. Note that the only restriction GPL has is that you cannot further restrict it (tolerance paradox). It's an ethical position to give power to the users, regardless of who they are, because software owners should not have the power to control the users. From here, a software developer decreeing "you may not use my stuff if you make more than X amount per year" is abusing their power over users, which is unethical. Imagine if a pen company told you you cannot use their pens if you met X Y or Z conditions. It's just not right. Stallman covered this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
I came here to make exactly this proposal. Free Software is supposed to create a gift economy. People create and release their work in good faith, others copy and improve, and contribute back to the community. Gift economies work if most continue to gift their work to society in good faith. If some actors decide to largely take and but rarely give out of self-interest, or worse use their gifts to cement their economic position, then the gift economy turns into an exploitation economy. The way to fix such an economy is to intentionally exclude those who are exploitative. Free Software failed to create a gift economy. I am all for abandoning it in favor of the Guarded Free Software economy as you propose.
- fsflover 3y ago
  Linux with its GPL works very well against the exploitation. A huge number of commercial companies are contributing to it all the time.
- ItsABytecode 3y ago
  I’ve never really understood the difference between a gift economy with the expectation of reciprocity and a regular non-gift economy
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    In a regular economy, every exchange is a two-way transaction. I give you something, you give me something (usually of perceived equal value). In a gift economy. I gift you something. You gift someone something. That someone could be me, but if I don't need/want anything you need, then you just gift to someone else. If there are gifts going around all the time, all in good faith, then most people will receive what they need. You see gift economies in families or friends all the time. People help others according to their abilities. My rich friend takes me out to an expensive dinner, poor me gets us lunch from that famous food truck. I nurse my uncle when he breaks his leg. He lets my brother's son to live with him for free during college. There is no accounting of how much anyone gave. Just give what you can. I recommend reading Cory Doctorow's novel Walkaway which describes gift economies beautifully.
kazinator 3y ago
That's not free though. That's something very similar to "free for non-commercial use" (with an extension allowing free commercial use up to a certain scale). It doesn't solve the problem of someone being able to operate the software on a server, where the users have no control of it and their data is held hostage, too.