7 ms·

List of formerly open-source or free software

44 points by ghostDancer 3y ago

Iridescent_ 3y ago
The presence of a game named Tux Racer is an amusing one
- infotainment 3y ago
  Wow, I had no idea they close-sourced Tux Racer, that game iconic for being The Only Game For Linux! Note: I'm joking, there was also Chromium BSU.
  - account42 3y ago
    Don't forget FreedroidRPG, Pingus, SuperTuxKart, Neverball not to mention countless FPSs like Sauerbraten, Nexuiz (also in TFA) and a million clones of iD software games. And that's only open source and freely redistributable games - on the commercial side there was also iD, Loki Games, LGP as well as a couple of indies even before Steam for Linux.
anthk 3y ago
A good thing is that lots of these projects have been forked over.
- account42 3y ago
  But still a good lession never to sign a CLA unless you either don't care about future ownership or 100% trust the organization you are transferring your rights to.
  - apantel 3y ago
    I don’t think you can 100% trust an organization. An organization is not like a person who has a true continuity of identity and personhood. An organization is just the sum of whoever its people are. As people come and go, an organization changes. If enough people change, or have changes of heart, the organization can change completely to one you don’t recognize. Edit: for example, Google: “don’t be evil” lasted as long as Google was run by people who cared about the technology more than profits. It used to be a search engine run by such types. Now it’s an ad engine and competition-extinguisher run by completely different types of people.
    - simne 3y ago
      > I don’t think you can 100% trust an organization But you have to trust. Because lifespan of human is limited (just about 40 years at most), so you cannot consider to make long term foundation based on any human. And unfortunately none human-free technology at the moment could even get close to human or human based bureaucracy as management force. And near only known example of private organization in big tech is Dell (Ford Motor company was build as organization by Ford himself, so it was bureaucracy even when Henry Ford was at head). All others are owned at least by some family (like Walmart), and most others are just open Joint-Stock Companies, good if have large share in one human hands (or one family, like Porsche), but in many cases owned by other JSC or by government (or large municipality, like was Volkswagen) and by widely distributed list of tiny shareholders. I'm agree, organizations are harder to understand from common sense view, but from mathematics view they are more predictable than humans. And I'm agree, it is possible to intentionally make so much HR chaos that organization will change constantly looking unpredictable way. But in real life, even very non-experienced manager, very fast see how to make organization predictable. For about your example, Google is very predictable for its owners and its management, even when we don't like what it become.
mtlynch 3y ago
How do they get away with relicensing GPL code? My understanding is that you can relicense code for which you own the copywright, but if you have any other contributors, those contributions are still under GPL. So, you'd have to either get their permission to relicense or revert all their changes and subsequent derivatives.
- makeworld 3y ago
  Often these projects had a CLA from the beginning, so they own all the code by other contributors.
- taw28 3y ago
  Contributor agreements are often used at the time of contribution to get permission to relicence later.
- dspillett 3y ago
  1. Some projects only really had one maintainer, or a small group, so relicensing is a relatively easy discussion. 2. Some projects have a CLA, so all contributions have the relevant rights transferred before the patches are accepted. 3. Some projects are “open source, not open contribution”, though this wasn't common until recently, effectively making them match point 1. 4. Some relicensing is done without consideration for other contributors, in the hope that no one with skin in the game will notice (or take action if they do), so it won't bite. 5. Sometimes getting the relevant permission after-the-fact, if a CLA was not in place, isn't difficult.
- simne 3y ago
  > but if you have any other contributors, those contributions are still under GPL. You hit the bull eye. These all projects as I could see, have relatively low number of important contributors and narrow circuit, and they are mostly relatively young projects, without large number of inherited old code, so when need to throw out some code, they just need to make internal deal and rewrite all "external" code. Once, they have all code owned by limited group, could make deal within this group, to re-license whole project with other license. And yes, you are right, this is near impossible for big projects, because need too much resources to rewrite "external" code. And in many cases, for big business this mean, for them is easier to just make their own new project from scratch, than to use GPL-licensed code.
jjice 3y ago
Can't believe I missed this Redis change. I know that one path for open source is to build a company around it, but it seems that so many of the big players that have done that do it for the early clout and move to a closed license later on. After doing some quick reading on the SSPL, I actually don't hate it though. It seems to be completely open for those who use it themselves, but prevents the cloud providers from capitalizing on hosting your software as a product. Not truly open, but I think this is probably an okay middle ground if you want open source software from a business that's developing and selling products around that software.
- quesera 3y ago
  The consequence is that the cloud providers just implement the Redis protocol on top of a more conveniently-licensed backend. This turns out to not be that difficult. Postgres can be a great KVS.
  - happymellon 3y ago
    And they all have existing KV storage, so they don't even have to use Postgres. OpenRedis anyone?
- happymellon 3y ago
  > I don't hate it But what's the point? It's not open source, so why bother? Whether you agree with BSD or GPL, OpenSource means you aren't locked to a vendor. The SSPL means that essentially for Redis, you are
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    The point is to deliver value to Redis' investors by taking advantage of customers' sclerotic executives and managers whose lack of code-level knowledge of their products means these people will pay a license fee instead of letting the engineers replace it with a FOSS alternative.
    - happymellon 3y ago
pierat 3y ago
Its a pity more FLOSS software isnt AGPL. That would keep shit companies like Amazon from plundering and never providing back.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  No, it's clearly the wrong license. I would not use any AGPL software in any SaaS.
  - happymellon 3y ago
    Why? In the cloud provider scenario it's clearly the right license, so that it remains opensource
    - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966778
      - happymellon 3y ago
        I would completely agree with this sentiment. The AGPL is to protect the software you made so it can't be bundled as a service and enhancements locked away because "they aren't giving away the software". Enhancements to PostGIS would have to be published if it was AGPL. Not literally everything that's on the network. If someone wants to take community software but not submit fixes then I would agree that they should avoid AGPL. Unless I miss the point of your comment.
        xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
        > Not literally everything that's on the network. Unless you're a lawyer and confident in your ability to represent me in court, then this is in fact the point of my comment. I have zero faith in your statement.
  - 3y ago
lenerdenator 3y ago
It'd be interesting to see a more exhaustive list, and see if that list retains the pattern of more things being closed off after interest rates rose in 2022. Suddenly "you can do whatever you want with it, we love the developer community!" idealism is replaced with "my VC will literally harvest my organs if we don't relicense this and start turning a profit." Sometimes it doesn't even make sense for it to happen.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
doublerabbit 3y ago
I'm surprised LiveJournal was open source. Used it so much as a edgy teenager. I used to host such scripts on my 233mhz pentium 2 that my parents allowed me to have in my bedroom. Exploit ridden PHPNuke anyone?
renegat0x0 3y ago
I used Simple apps from fdroid. They were sold to zippoapps quite nasty company. It was forked. We have fossify suitr now, but it left a bad taste that something like that has been done.
KolenCh 3y ago
Seems very non-exhaustive, notably missing memtest86
FileFormatCom 3y ago
Here is a very useful collection of 3D APIs: https://products.fileformat.com/3d/ https://products.fileformat.com/3d/ It allows developers to Read, Write, Convert & Manipulate 3D Documents via .NET, Java, JavaScript & C++ and more. Most of them are free and can be used with ease.

44 points by ghostDancer 3y ago

Iridescent_ 3y ago

The presence of a game named Tux Racer is an amusing one

infotainment 3y ago
Wow, I had no idea they close-sourced Tux Racer, that game iconic for being The Only Game For Linux! Note: I'm joking, there was also Chromium BSU.
- account42 3y ago
  Don't forget FreedroidRPG, Pingus, SuperTuxKart, Neverball not to mention countless FPSs like Sauerbraten, Nexuiz (also in TFA) and a million clones of iD software games. And that's only open source and freely redistributable games - on the commercial side there was also iD, Loki Games, LGP as well as a couple of indies even before Steam for Linux.

anthk 3y ago

A good thing is that lots of these projects have been forked over.

account42 3y ago
But still a good lession never to sign a CLA unless you either don't care about future ownership or 100% trust the organization you are transferring your rights to.
- apantel 3y ago
  I don’t think you can 100% trust an organization. An organization is not like a person who has a true continuity of identity and personhood. An organization is just the sum of whoever its people are. As people come and go, an organization changes. If enough people change, or have changes of heart, the organization can change completely to one you don’t recognize. Edit: for example, Google: “don’t be evil” lasted as long as Google was run by people who cared about the technology more than profits. It used to be a search engine run by such types. Now it’s an ad engine and competition-extinguisher run by completely different types of people.
  - simne 3y ago
    > I don’t think you can 100% trust an organization But you have to trust. Because lifespan of human is limited (just about 40 years at most), so you cannot consider to make long term foundation based on any human. And unfortunately none human-free technology at the moment could even get close to human or human based bureaucracy as management force. And near only known example of private organization in big tech is Dell (Ford Motor company was build as organization by Ford himself, so it was bureaucracy even when Henry Ford was at head). All others are owned at least by some family (like Walmart), and most others are just open Joint-Stock Companies, good if have large share in one human hands (or one family, like Porsche), but in many cases owned by other JSC or by government (or large municipality, like was Volkswagen) and by widely distributed list of tiny shareholders. I'm agree, organizations are harder to understand from common sense view, but from mathematics view they are more predictable than humans. And I'm agree, it is possible to intentionally make so much HR chaos that organization will change constantly looking unpredictable way. But in real life, even very non-experienced manager, very fast see how to make organization predictable. For about your example, Google is very predictable for its owners and its management, even when we don't like what it become.

mtlynch 3y ago

How do they get away with relicensing GPL code? My understanding is that you can relicense code for which you own the copywright, but if you have any other contributors, those contributions are still under GPL. So, you'd have to either get their permission to relicense or revert all their changes and subsequent derivatives.

makeworld 3y ago
Often these projects had a CLA from the beginning, so they own all the code by other contributors.
taw28 3y ago
Contributor agreements are often used at the time of contribution to get permission to relicence later.
dspillett 3y ago
1. Some projects only really had one maintainer, or a small group, so relicensing is a relatively easy discussion. 2. Some projects have a CLA, so all contributions have the relevant rights transferred before the patches are accepted. 3. Some projects are “open source, not open contribution”, though this wasn't common until recently, effectively making them match point 1. 4. Some relicensing is done without consideration for other contributors, in the hope that no one with skin in the game will notice (or take action if they do), so it won't bite. 5. Sometimes getting the relevant permission after-the-fact, if a CLA was not in place, isn't difficult.
simne 3y ago
> but if you have any other contributors, those contributions are still under GPL. You hit the bull eye. These all projects as I could see, have relatively low number of important contributors and narrow circuit, and they are mostly relatively young projects, without large number of inherited old code, so when need to throw out some code, they just need to make internal deal and rewrite all "external" code. Once, they have all code owned by limited group, could make deal within this group, to re-license whole project with other license. And yes, you are right, this is near impossible for big projects, because need too much resources to rewrite "external" code. And in many cases, for big business this mean, for them is easier to just make their own new project from scratch, than to use GPL-licensed code.

jjice 3y ago

Can't believe I missed this Redis change. I know that one path for open source is to build a company around it, but it seems that so many of the big players that have done that do it for the early clout and move to a closed license later on. After doing some quick reading on the SSPL, I actually don't hate it though. It seems to be completely open for those who use it themselves, but prevents the cloud providers from capitalizing on hosting your software as a product. Not truly open, but I think this is probably an okay middle ground if you want open source software from a business that's developing and selling products around that software.

quesera 3y ago
The consequence is that the cloud providers just implement the Redis protocol on top of a more conveniently-licensed backend. This turns out to not be that difficult. Postgres can be a great KVS.
- happymellon 3y ago
  And they all have existing KV storage, so they don't even have to use Postgres. OpenRedis anyone?
happymellon 3y ago
> I don't hate it But what's the point? It's not open source, so why bother? Whether you agree with BSD or GPL, OpenSource means you aren't locked to a vendor. The SSPL means that essentially for Redis, you are
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  The point is to deliver value to Redis' investors by taking advantage of customers' sclerotic executives and managers whose lack of code-level knowledge of their products means these people will pay a license fee instead of letting the engineers replace it with a FOSS alternative.
  - happymellon 3y ago

pierat 3y ago

Its a pity more FLOSS software isnt AGPL. That would keep shit companies like Amazon from plundering and never providing back.

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
No, it's clearly the wrong license. I would not use any AGPL software in any SaaS.
- happymellon 3y ago
  Why? In the cloud provider scenario it's clearly the right license, so that it remains opensource
  - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966778
    - happymellon 3y ago
      I would completely agree with this sentiment. The AGPL is to protect the software you made so it can't be bundled as a service and enhancements locked away because "they aren't giving away the software". Enhancements to PostGIS would have to be published if it was AGPL. Not literally everything that's on the network. If someone wants to take community software but not submit fixes then I would agree that they should avoid AGPL. Unless I miss the point of your comment.
      - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
        > Not literally everything that's on the network. Unless you're a lawyer and confident in your ability to represent me in court, then this is in fact the point of my comment. I have zero faith in your statement.
- 3y ago

lenerdenator 3y ago

It'd be interesting to see a more exhaustive list, and see if that list retains the pattern of more things being closed off after interest rates rose in 2022. Suddenly "you can do whatever you want with it, we love the developer community!" idealism is replaced with "my VC will literally harvest my organs if we don't relicense this and start turning a profit." Sometimes it doesn't even make sense for it to happen.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

doublerabbit 3y ago

I'm surprised LiveJournal was open source. Used it so much as a edgy teenager. I used to host such scripts on my 233mhz pentium 2 that my parents allowed me to have in my bedroom. Exploit ridden PHPNuke anyone?

renegat0x0 3y ago

I used Simple apps from fdroid. They were sold to zippoapps quite nasty company. It was forked. We have fossify suitr now, but it left a bad taste that something like that has been done.

KolenCh 3y ago

Seems very non-exhaustive, notably missing memtest86

FileFormatCom 3y ago

Here is a very useful collection of 3D APIs: https://products.fileformat.com/3d/ https://products.fileformat.com/3d/ It allows developers to Read, Write, Convert & Manipulate 3D Documents via .NET, Java, JavaScript & C++ and more. Most of them are free and can be used with ease.