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> I think the main benefit is community involvement in submitting bugs, contributing changes, writing docs, and being part of the project. Even if contributors

> I think the main benefit is community involvement in submitting bugs, contributing changes, writing docs, and being part of the project. Even if contributors do the main work, this long tail of user contribution is so important. I wholly disagree. It depends on the project. For the projects that want contributions, yes, FOSS is what you want. For projects that don't want contributions, there's no loss in switching to SAMS. I said as much in the post. > I think it’s a distraction to try to force this into a good/bad dichotomy. I don’t hear anyone saying that “source available” is bad. And yet there are comments on this very page saying that SAMS gives less freedom, therefore it's bad.

bcrl 3y ago
Let me know when a "source available" project achieves the same widespread acceptance and success as the thousands of open source projects like the Linux kernel, gcc and everything else that have given the industry the ability to be more productive by standing on the shoulders of giants. Edit: if you want an example of where GPL vs BSD license made a huge difference, just look at Juniper's behaviour around their changes to FreeBSD that were used to build JunOS. Juniper was a poor contributor of changes they made to the FreeBSD kernel back to the community. In comparison, the fact that the GPL forces vendors to publish their changes to Linux means that the community has ended up with support for many embedded platforms being merged into mainline. The FreeBSD developer community struggles in part because vendors can take without giving back because of the license, so there is less incentive to participate in the community.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  That's a disingenuous argument when proprietary code such as Windows, AWS, and Google have just as much widespread acceptance, and they often did it by cannibalizing FOSS.
  - bcrl 3y ago
    Last I checked, all those organizations were contributing many changes every release to the Linux kernel to improve performance, fix bugs and add features.
    - gavinhoward 3y ago
      Because they have to for their own purposes. Even Google still "contributes" to Android. But they made it unusable without Play Services, which is entirely proprietary. There are ways to use FOSS to further monopoly and still look like the good guys by contributing. Doesn't make them any less the bad guys.
      - bcrl 3y ago
        Software licensing has almost nothing to do with monopolies you mentioned. Google's monopoly comes from the position of power it has entrenched itself in by controlling search and using that control to make its advertising platform ubiquitous while buying up competitors in the online advertising space. In fact, I would argue that open source licenses makes it easier to compete against the cloud platforms you listed. Smaller companies like Hetzner can build their own private cloud platforms using virtualization software like QEMU (another very healthy project licensed under the GPL) and open source orchestration software. They can obtain and build on this software because it is open source and freely available (free as in both beer and money). "Source available" licenses aren't an improvement on this.
        gavinhoward 3y ago
        Sure, they're not an "improvement" on this, but Hetzner becomes just another cannibal in that case.
        bcrl 3y ago
        WTF? Hetzner has built a platform to deliver services to their customers. They have built a business that takes care of putting in physical infrastructure by constructing buildings to house servers, deliver network connectivity, cooling and power while financing that infrastructure and delivering service as a great monthly price. QEMU is but a small part of that, and I'd venture a guess that the cost of building the software to run their business is around the same order of magnitude as the physical infrastructure. That's hardly a parasitic business. Moreover, Google is the parasite in this case. Hetzner was founded in 1997 before Google even existed, running cloud-like business before Google launched their first service. Google isn't the reason software like QEMU exists, although they have certainly helped improve it. Not sure why you're choosing to be so ignorant of the history of how we got here today.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  To reply to your edit, you are making my case for me. One of my points is that FOSS can be worse for the end user because companies like Juniper can take a lot of it and make it proprietary. This is true even for the GPL in these SaaS days. I personally think that copyleft is a necessary thing for non-FOSS SAMS because of this.
  - prepend 3y ago
    > One of my points is that FOSS can be worse for the end user because companies like Juniper can take a lot of it and make it proprietary. I disagree with this point. They don’t make the FOSS worse. They make a new thing. The original is still available. And if it was SAMS it wouldn’t save it from this fate as it would never be used enough to get to this point. So SAMS isn’t a defense against “abuse.” But I argue that this isn’t abuse at all as the license is used as designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. If I create a project with MIT, I’m perfectly fine with Juniper taking it and bolting it onto their own proprietary software. I don’t think this makes my project worse.
    - gavinhoward 3y ago
      > They don’t make the FOSS worse. They make a new thing. The original is still available. But the new thing is not, and unwitting end users using the new thing probably are never told about the open alternative. > And if it was SAMS it wouldn’t save it from this fate as it would never be used enough to get to this point. If SAMS were as accepted as FOSS, I think SAMS would be used enough to get to that point. > But I argue that this isn’t abuse at all as the license is used as designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I'm not arguing for abolishing FOSS. Projects that want this can still use FOSS as it is. I'm arguing for SAMS to be accepted as a valid alternative. Based on the comments on this page, it is not as accepted.
      - prepend 3y ago
        > If SAMS were as accepted as FOSS But that’s impossible as SAMS is not FOSS.
- cpburns2009 3y ago
  Unreal Engine has been one of the top video-game engines for years and it's "source available".
  - prepend 3y ago
    It’s as “source available” as Windows.
prepend 3y ago
> SAMS gives less freedom This is objectively true. > therefore it’s bad This is subjective, of course, in relation to other license types. I happen to agree with it, but so what.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  > > SAMS gives less freedom > This is objectively true. To only a certain kind of person: non-author dealers.

bcrl 3y ago

Let me know when a "source available" project achieves the same widespread acceptance and success as the thousands of open source projects like the Linux kernel, gcc and everything else that have given the industry the ability to be more productive by standing on the shoulders of giants. Edit: if you want an example of where GPL vs BSD license made a huge difference, just look at Juniper's behaviour around their changes to FreeBSD that were used to build JunOS. Juniper was a poor contributor of changes they made to the FreeBSD kernel back to the community. In comparison, the fact that the GPL forces vendors to publish their changes to Linux means that the community has ended up with support for many embedded platforms being merged into mainline. The FreeBSD developer community struggles in part because vendors can take without giving back because of the license, so there is less incentive to participate in the community.

gavinhoward 3y ago
That's a disingenuous argument when proprietary code such as Windows, AWS, and Google have just as much widespread acceptance, and they often did it by cannibalizing FOSS.
- bcrl 3y ago
  Last I checked, all those organizations were contributing many changes every release to the Linux kernel to improve performance, fix bugs and add features.
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    Because they have to for their own purposes. Even Google still "contributes" to Android. But they made it unusable without Play Services, which is entirely proprietary. There are ways to use FOSS to further monopoly and still look like the good guys by contributing. Doesn't make them any less the bad guys.
    - bcrl 3y ago
      Software licensing has almost nothing to do with monopolies you mentioned. Google's monopoly comes from the position of power it has entrenched itself in by controlling search and using that control to make its advertising platform ubiquitous while buying up competitors in the online advertising space. In fact, I would argue that open source licenses makes it easier to compete against the cloud platforms you listed. Smaller companies like Hetzner can build their own private cloud platforms using virtualization software like QEMU (another very healthy project licensed under the GPL) and open source orchestration software. They can obtain and build on this software because it is open source and freely available (free as in both beer and money). "Source available" licenses aren't an improvement on this.
      - gavinhoward 3y ago
        Sure, they're not an "improvement" on this, but Hetzner becomes just another cannibal in that case.
        bcrl 3y ago
        WTF? Hetzner has built a platform to deliver services to their customers. They have built a business that takes care of putting in physical infrastructure by constructing buildings to house servers, deliver network connectivity, cooling and power while financing that infrastructure and delivering service as a great monthly price. QEMU is but a small part of that, and I'd venture a guess that the cost of building the software to run their business is around the same order of magnitude as the physical infrastructure. That's hardly a parasitic business. Moreover, Google is the parasite in this case. Hetzner was founded in 1997 before Google even existed, running cloud-like business before Google launched their first service. Google isn't the reason software like QEMU exists, although they have certainly helped improve it. Not sure why you're choosing to be so ignorant of the history of how we got here today.
gavinhoward 3y ago
To reply to your edit, you are making my case for me. One of my points is that FOSS can be worse for the end user because companies like Juniper can take a lot of it and make it proprietary. This is true even for the GPL in these SaaS days. I personally think that copyleft is a necessary thing for non-FOSS SAMS because of this.
- prepend 3y ago
  > One of my points is that FOSS can be worse for the end user because companies like Juniper can take a lot of it and make it proprietary. I disagree with this point. They don’t make the FOSS worse. They make a new thing. The original is still available. And if it was SAMS it wouldn’t save it from this fate as it would never be used enough to get to this point. So SAMS isn’t a defense against “abuse.” But I argue that this isn’t abuse at all as the license is used as designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. If I create a project with MIT, I’m perfectly fine with Juniper taking it and bolting it onto their own proprietary software. I don’t think this makes my project worse.
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    > They don’t make the FOSS worse. They make a new thing. The original is still available. But the new thing is not, and unwitting end users using the new thing probably are never told about the open alternative. > And if it was SAMS it wouldn’t save it from this fate as it would never be used enough to get to this point. If SAMS were as accepted as FOSS, I think SAMS would be used enough to get to that point. > But I argue that this isn’t abuse at all as the license is used as designed. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I'm not arguing for abolishing FOSS. Projects that want this can still use FOSS as it is. I'm arguing for SAMS to be accepted as a valid alternative. Based on the comments on this page, it is not as accepted.
    - prepend 3y ago
      > If SAMS were as accepted as FOSS But that’s impossible as SAMS is not FOSS.
cpburns2009 3y ago
Unreal Engine has been one of the top video-game engines for years and it's "source available".
- prepend 3y ago
  It’s as “source available” as Windows.

prepend 3y ago

> SAMS gives less freedom This is objectively true. > therefore it’s bad This is subjective, of course, in relation to other license types. I happen to agree with it, but so what.

gavinhoward 3y ago
> > SAMS gives less freedom > This is objectively true. To only a certain kind of person: non-author dealers.