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How would you feel if your products were forked by a big business that had already been commercializing your open source code (legally, admittedly) while making

by brabel 3y ago

How would you feel if your products were forked by a big business that had already been commercializing your open source code (legally, admittedly) while making no contributions back?

ahtihn 3y ago
Don't release your products under permissive open source licenses if you're not happy when that happens.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  That’s smart today. But it was always my perception that up until a couple of years ago, when all this ElasticSearch v AWS drama began, that it was historically part of some kind of social contract in open source tooling to use permissive licenses. This was just my perception of consumers of open sourced tooling, so your mileage may vary. Very recently it seems there’s been a surge of people noting acceptance of less permissive licenses, and in this landscape I think it’s more likely that a young Hashicorp would have opted for a license that didn’t allow IBM to eat their lunch.
slyall 3y ago
One of the complaints about Hashicorp products was that they were not accepting any/many contributions from outsiders. Not sure if that was the case with vault.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  It’s generally proper etiquette to discuss a contribution with repository maintainers within an Issue before writing the code. That’s just people putting themselves in awkward situations, in my opinion. The more mature a product company gets the more strict they start getting, too, out of necessity, for code standards and styles. Enforcing styles on community contributions is often a difficult balance between keeping consistency and seeming like a jerk. Sadly, people aren’t always as thoughtful with their contributions as you’d sometimes like them to be. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get some flack for saying this, but I help maintain some popular repositories and this has just been some of my observations. Especially with people not checking with the maintainers in an Issue before writing the code.
kelnos 3y ago
Fine, I guess, if the license I'd chosen allowed that? Certainly there are other licenses I could choose (licenses that still retain a good deal of openness) that would protect against that if that was a concern.
lijok 3y ago
I find this so confusing... I would feel exactly as I felt when I was picking a license and imagining all the different scenarios my choice might lead to.
dig1 3y ago
I'd be thrilled with this. This is free marketing to a much broader customer base than I could achieve. Some customers would circle back for more in-depth knowledge and support from the original author/company. Take, for example, ElasticSearch. They got wider recognition after AWS started "shipping" ES as a service, but sadly, their investors thought they could compete with AWS. Also, as others mentioned, you should consider a license in advance. And remember that many of these companies benefited from big companies: HashiCorp is getting golang, libraries, OS, and tooling for free, ES is getting JDK for free and etc.
- jen20 3y ago
  Quick reminder that when HashiCorp chose Go, there were basically no libraries for it, and Mitchell’s libraries appear to this day in a lot of the more serious Go projects.
  - fishnchips 3y ago
    Not to question Mitchell's generous contributions, but most of his libraries I've seen were convenience wrappers and other creature comforts (eg. go-getter), not foundational work. Happy to be corrected.
    - jen20 3y ago
      By that measure, anything outside of assembly could be defined as “creature comforts” instead of foundational work. I understand why it would be convenient for you if it were true, though.
greatgib 3y ago
Would the product have been widely used and such a success if it wasn't open source in the first place? That is the main question before you pull the rug of the open source license once you start to be successful thanks to the community...

by brabel 3y ago

How would you feel if your products were forked by a big business that had already been commercializing your open source code (legally, admittedly) while making no contributions back?

ahtihn 3y ago

Don't release your products under permissive open source licenses if you're not happy when that happens.

starttoaster 3y ago
That’s smart today. But it was always my perception that up until a couple of years ago, when all this ElasticSearch v AWS drama began, that it was historically part of some kind of social contract in open source tooling to use permissive licenses. This was just my perception of consumers of open sourced tooling, so your mileage may vary. Very recently it seems there’s been a surge of people noting acceptance of less permissive licenses, and in this landscape I think it’s more likely that a young Hashicorp would have opted for a license that didn’t allow IBM to eat their lunch.

slyall 3y ago

One of the complaints about Hashicorp products was that they were not accepting any/many contributions from outsiders. Not sure if that was the case with vault.

starttoaster 3y ago
It’s generally proper etiquette to discuss a contribution with repository maintainers within an Issue before writing the code. That’s just people putting themselves in awkward situations, in my opinion. The more mature a product company gets the more strict they start getting, too, out of necessity, for code standards and styles. Enforcing styles on community contributions is often a difficult balance between keeping consistency and seeming like a jerk. Sadly, people aren’t always as thoughtful with their contributions as you’d sometimes like them to be. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get some flack for saying this, but I help maintain some popular repositories and this has just been some of my observations. Especially with people not checking with the maintainers in an Issue before writing the code.

kelnos 3y ago

Fine, I guess, if the license I'd chosen allowed that? Certainly there are other licenses I could choose (licenses that still retain a good deal of openness) that would protect against that if that was a concern.

lijok 3y ago

I find this so confusing... I would feel exactly as I felt when I was picking a license and imagining all the different scenarios my choice might lead to.

dig1 3y ago

I'd be thrilled with this. This is free marketing to a much broader customer base than I could achieve. Some customers would circle back for more in-depth knowledge and support from the original author/company. Take, for example, ElasticSearch. They got wider recognition after AWS started "shipping" ES as a service, but sadly, their investors thought they could compete with AWS. Also, as others mentioned, you should consider a license in advance. And remember that many of these companies benefited from big companies: HashiCorp is getting golang, libraries, OS, and tooling for free, ES is getting JDK for free and etc.

jen20 3y ago
Quick reminder that when HashiCorp chose Go, there were basically no libraries for it, and Mitchell’s libraries appear to this day in a lot of the more serious Go projects.
- fishnchips 3y ago
  Not to question Mitchell's generous contributions, but most of his libraries I've seen were convenience wrappers and other creature comforts (eg. go-getter), not foundational work. Happy to be corrected.
  - jen20 3y ago
    By that measure, anything outside of assembly could be defined as “creature comforts” instead of foundational work. I understand why it would be convenient for you if it were true, though.

greatgib 3y ago

Would the product have been widely used and such a success if it wasn't open source in the first place? That is the main question before you pull the rug of the open source license once you start to be successful thanks to the community...