4 ms·

What smells funny is hashicorp pretending to be open source to win market and mind share, and then doing a rug pull. Everything that follows is a reaction to th

What smells funny is hashicorp pretending to be open source to win market and mind share, and then doing a rug pull. Everything that follows is a reaction to that.

lijok 3y ago
There was no rugpull. The product is MIT licensed up until the commit that introduced the BUSL license.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  What is your definition of a rug pull?
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  lolwut The license change is the very definition of "rugpull": Use permissive license, build up a community of open source users and people who use your product because of its open code base. Once it stops suiting your business desires, revoke that permissive license, and switch to one that excludes a (significant) portion of your code's user base.
  - lijok 3y ago
    The permissive license was not revoked. The license change is not retroactive. You can continue using the product under MPL license, up to the commit in which the license was changed.
    - growse 3y ago
      Meanwhile, hashcorp gets to profit off the contributions of others, whilst denying everyone else the opportunity to do the same.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - evanelias 3y ago
        > profit off the contributions of others But Hashicorp's business hasn't turned a profit to date. And they rarely merge external pull requests. If the company maintained the previous ZIRP-era permissive license status quo and then eventually went bankrupt, wouldn't that be a worse outcome for everyone?
        growse 3y ago
        > But Hashicorp's business hasn't turned a profit to date. And they rarely merge external pull requests. When they started out, they had enormous traction in the community because they were open source. People actively contributed to what they thought was an open ecosystem in a collaborative spirit. Without that, their products would just be another expensive, marginal proprietary piece of softwarewthat most people ignored. Now they're trying to profit off that without reciprocating (their competence at being able actually show a profit is irrelevant). > If the company maintained the previous ZIRP-era permissive license status quo and then eventually went bankrupt, wouldn't that be a worse outcome for everyone? No. It'd be a worse outcome for Hashicorp's investors, sure, but the rest of us would have the code, the comunity, and a little less poison in the well.
        evanelias 3y ago
        > they had enormous traction in the community because they were open source. People don't adopt software only because it is open source. It also has to be useful high-quality software. Attributing the entirety of their success to a permissive open source license is nonsensical. > Now they're trying to profit off that without reciprocating Their products are still free to use and you can still read the code. They continue to improve the products. In what way are they not reciprocating? And considering this is a publicly-traded for-profit enterprise, why shouldn't they be able to profit off their work? Unless your business is directly competing with them, how does the license change directly affect you? > the rest of us would have the code, the comunity, and a little less poison in the well At the cost of losing the creator and primary contributor of these projects, which tends to be a death blow to the software's long-term viability!
    - dangus 3y ago
      If OpenSSL was taken closed source, I'd still have access to the product under the previous open source license, but its utility would evaporate since it's a security product. I would have to migrate to something else, eventually.
  - korhojoa 3y ago
    Consider how happy this made me: I wrote a PR to fix something in Vault, then nothing happened for a while, then I saw that hashicorp is changing their licensing, and soon after that, my fix was merged. My fix sat waiting until they changed their license, and then it was merged before I had time to consider if I wanted to contribute under that license. (Incidentally, sentry also changed their license soon after I interacted with the project. Maybe it's me ruining the OSS world)
    - fishnchips 3y ago
      Can I send you a list of projects to not contribute to? ;) /s
    - zappb 3y ago
      This is why it’s important to check if an OSS project is also developed under an open governance model like at Apache or Linux Foundation.
      - qualitystreet 3y ago
        So, we should check if OpenBAO is then..? I assume this means the assigned copyright holder is a trusted non-commercial body (Apache or Linux Foundation). I saw a similar thing happen with another product recently. It made me realise even though the project was touting itself as open source you couldn't even build the open code into a useable product. So the importance of assigning copyright to a suitable body crystallised for me.
- caboteria 3y ago
  > The product is MIT licensed up until the commit that introduced the rugpull<strike>BUSL license</strike>. Fixed it for ya.
  - lijok 3y ago
    Care to elaborate?

What smells funny is hashicorp pretending to be open source to win market and mind share, and then doing a rug pull. Everything that follows is a reaction to that.

lijok 3y ago

There was no rugpull. The product is MIT licensed up until the commit that introduced the BUSL license.

candiddevmike 3y ago
What is your definition of a rug pull?
geerlingguy 3y ago
lolwut The license change is the very definition of "rugpull": Use permissive license, build up a community of open source users and people who use your product because of its open code base. Once it stops suiting your business desires, revoke that permissive license, and switch to one that excludes a (significant) portion of your code's user base.
- lijok 3y ago
  The permissive license was not revoked. The license change is not retroactive. You can continue using the product under MPL license, up to the commit in which the license was changed.
  - growse 3y ago
    Meanwhile, hashcorp gets to profit off the contributions of others, whilst denying everyone else the opportunity to do the same.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - evanelias 3y ago
      > profit off the contributions of others But Hashicorp's business hasn't turned a profit to date. And they rarely merge external pull requests. If the company maintained the previous ZIRP-era permissive license status quo and then eventually went bankrupt, wouldn't that be a worse outcome for everyone?
      - growse 3y ago
        > But Hashicorp's business hasn't turned a profit to date. And they rarely merge external pull requests. When they started out, they had enormous traction in the community because they were open source. People actively contributed to what they thought was an open ecosystem in a collaborative spirit. Without that, their products would just be another expensive, marginal proprietary piece of softwarewthat most people ignored. Now they're trying to profit off that without reciprocating (their competence at being able actually show a profit is irrelevant). > If the company maintained the previous ZIRP-era permissive license status quo and then eventually went bankrupt, wouldn't that be a worse outcome for everyone? No. It'd be a worse outcome for Hashicorp's investors, sure, but the rest of us would have the code, the comunity, and a little less poison in the well.
        evanelias 3y ago
        > they had enormous traction in the community because they were open source. People don't adopt software only because it is open source. It also has to be useful high-quality software. Attributing the entirety of their success to a permissive open source license is nonsensical. > Now they're trying to profit off that without reciprocating Their products are still free to use and you can still read the code. They continue to improve the products. In what way are they not reciprocating? And considering this is a publicly-traded for-profit enterprise, why shouldn't they be able to profit off their work? Unless your business is directly competing with them, how does the license change directly affect you? > the rest of us would have the code, the comunity, and a little less poison in the well At the cost of losing the creator and primary contributor of these projects, which tends to be a death blow to the software's long-term viability!
  - dangus 3y ago
    If OpenSSL was taken closed source, I'd still have access to the product under the previous open source license, but its utility would evaporate since it's a security product. I would have to migrate to something else, eventually.
- korhojoa 3y ago
  Consider how happy this made me: I wrote a PR to fix something in Vault, then nothing happened for a while, then I saw that hashicorp is changing their licensing, and soon after that, my fix was merged. My fix sat waiting until they changed their license, and then it was merged before I had time to consider if I wanted to contribute under that license. (Incidentally, sentry also changed their license soon after I interacted with the project. Maybe it's me ruining the OSS world)
  - fishnchips 3y ago
    Can I send you a list of projects to not contribute to? ;) /s
  - zappb 3y ago
    This is why it’s important to check if an OSS project is also developed under an open governance model like at Apache or Linux Foundation.
    - qualitystreet 3y ago
      So, we should check if OpenBAO is then..? I assume this means the assigned copyright holder is a trusted non-commercial body (Apache or Linux Foundation). I saw a similar thing happen with another product recently. It made me realise even though the project was touting itself as open source you couldn't even build the open code into a useable product. So the importance of assigning copyright to a suitable body crystallised for me.
caboteria 3y ago
> The product is MIT licensed up until the commit that introduced the rugpull<strike>BUSL license</strike>. Fixed it for ya.
- lijok 3y ago
  Care to elaborate?