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> You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what is, essentially, proprietary soft

> You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what is, essentially, proprietary software: like the proprietary software companies of the 80s, they very much consider the software being produced as their exclusive property. They still intend to capture all the value that derives from it. And thanks to copyright aggregation or permissive licensing, they still can change the license any time they want. So it’s still proprietary: they just choose, for now, to release their software under an Open Source license. This brings to mind two questions: why does open source need to "win" (why can't there be multiple options) and re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property (unless they choose to release it otherwise). Sadly, a lot of the arguments I hear around OSS sound like the "you didn't build those roads" argument when they should be "thank you for making your work accessible to me." It's no surprise that most OSS work gets abandoned due to developer burnout when "open source" is often misinterpreted as "100% free for me to do literally anything I want, whenever I want, and you're evil if you disagree with my entitlement to your efforts." The ideology around OSS has serious NPD vibes. It's worth people revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You" [1]. [1] https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9 https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95...

paulgb 3y ago
The author is not so much against proprietary software, as bait-and-switch tactics that present software as open source. > Anyone who truly thinks that software developed by a diverse set of actors working in an open collaboration is not better should just adopt the proprietary model. But they should be honest about it.
- tensor 3y ago
  I don’t see how it’s bait and switch. You can still used and develop against the last open version. In fact, we’ve seen recent examples of that in Terraform and Redis. Open source does not mean you are entitled to all future improvements unless the license says you are, like the AGPL. Personally, I’m grateful these project made their source open for so long. The alternative would not be AGPL terraform, it would be completely closed terraform.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    It probably feels like bait and switch for the folks that created or used lots of open source in the time period where there was less opportunity/temptation to move the license from GPL/BSD/MIT to something proprietary. In our minds, we attached some altruistic intent to those licenses. Things have changed now, of course.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Why do the actions of HashiCorp and company have any bearing whatsoever on your decision to release and use unrelated open source software?
      - tyingq 3y ago
        I'm not trying to rationalize my emotional reactions and say they make logical sense. Just explaining why they are there. But, if there was a long time period where almost no open source software went commercial...you would be conditioned to not worry about the risk of depending on it. Then when things change, you feel differently. I don't know why that's controversial.
  - dlisboa 3y ago
    I’d also go as far as saying most of the value added to these open core projects is contributed by employees of the companies themselves. The fact that they do it out in the open with the possibility of someone else forking it is a plus, we shouldn’t want this to be solely proprietary. Hashicorp paid for a lot Terraform’s development for instance. Microsoft is paying top computer scientists to develop an editor
  - growse 3y ago
    The bait and switch is the community and social elements, not the code. Inviting the local community to come and improve your space that you opened up for everyone to exist in, and then suddenly locking the doors is both entirely legally justified and a crappy thing to do.
    - 3y ago
linuxftw 3y ago
For me, neither side needs to 'win' but people should understand the facts on ground when they adopt a project for their needs. "Open Source" isn't the full story, you need to consider the motivations or potential motivations of a project's backers. I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. Maybe those people were ill-informed, and shouldn't have contributed in the first place, and this article is trying to publicize the ramifications of a projects stewardship.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. It's definitely possible to take advantage of volunteerism, but in this case I don't see the real issue. The project remains just as open as it ever was, even upon licence change. It can be forked, and the project might change name, but that's all. It's not the nicest outcome, but it's the same as if a sole owner just decides to stop working on a project. The only thing to do is fork and move on.
- rglover 3y ago
  > I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. I think that's the crux of the frustration and fair. But at the same time, the previous version before the license change can still be forked/the contributions are intact so is there a tangible loss or just an emotional one?
  - gmueckl 3y ago
    This can be a very real loss. Third party contributions are driven by specific needs. When the license changes too much, those third parties can either pay for a fork (with money/time investment) and improve their own modifications or get the enhancements in the upstream product without any improvements of their own. There is a middle ground with paid source code access, but I don't see a lot of commercial offerings do that.
mhh__ 3y ago
Wrt winning: Open is the least worst way of doing things. With the xz kerfuffle people say "aha! So much for your security now!" when the alternative is someone tampering with code on an unsecured ftp serve i.e. it's the devil you can see
- tcmart14 3y ago
  For sure, I think that last part is underestimated but powerful. When the SolarWinds or similar attacks occured, we had to rely on investigation reports put out via PR teams and such about how such an attack occured, what processes missed it, etc. With the xz attack, every step of the attack was out in the open for everyone to analyze. Or at least the vast majority, if there were private emails exchanged between "Jia Tan" and the original maintainer, those we can't recover. But we can see pretty much every other aspect of the attack.
zem 3y ago
> re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property (unless they choose to release it otherwise). the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored, so they claim to be less proprietary than they actually are while trying to build mindshare
- rglover 3y ago
  > the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored So in order to get any interest in your project, you have to be open source (and align with the ideology absolutely)?
  - hnoyrnndd 3y ago
    I don’t think this was intended to be a normative statement. Just an observation that “open source as marketing” seems to work, so people use it despite it not actually being true of their project.
  - zem 3y ago
    you don't have to; you could seek interest among fans of proprietary software instead, using whatever marketing techniques work there. apple has had a fair amount of success with that approach e.g.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    In order to get interest in your product among people who believe in the mission of OSS, you do actually have to be OSS. I could agree if we were talking about something unrelated that OSS folks also happen to like but yeah, your product does have to not have meat if you want buy-in from vegetarians.
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  not gonna lie this sounds like a borderline cultish view on things (only OSI-approved open source projects should get recognition, rest should be damned to obscurity and ridicule) having the source available is a huge benefit compared to proprietary software as you can view, introspect and patch your tool - having a permissive licence is a "nice-to-have", not an entitlement.
smarx007 3y ago
> why does open source need to "win" Open source does not need to win. But your ability to be in control of your computer needs to be preserved (restored?). A proprietary fridge cannot control your diet, while a proprietary App Store can control what software you install on YOUR phone (unless you live in EU, hello DMA!). The tail wagging the dog, so to speak. Proprietary software has also been shown to break user workflows or remove functions in an update while leaving users with no choice whatsoever. One alternative to having open source win is to ensure software comes with a robust warranty and other assurances you expect from the things you buy (like the ability to resell it etc.). EU's CRA will make software vulnerabilities in WiFi routers covered by warranty, for example. But that's just a first step. You can also ensure robust and interoperable data storage options. For example, https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/ stores all notes in Markdown, not holding the data hostage in case users will not like how future versions will work. GDPR actually has a provision for data portability (Art. 20), but it does not seem to have a requisite effect on the industry yet. And until the above issues are solved, open source remains the best way to ensure that a software tail cannot be wagging your computer dog.
lolinder 3y ago
From the OSI's old history page [0]: > The conferees decided it was time to dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude that had been associated with "free software" in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape. They brainstormed about tactics and a new label. ... A month later ... the participants voted to promote the use of the term 'open source', and agreed to adopt with it the new rhetoric of pragmatism and market-friendliness that Raymond had been developing. The entire point of Open Source as a concept was to be more flexible and business-friendly than Stallman's Free Software movement. It's both hilarious and frustrating to see people today treat the OSI licenses as some sort of divinely appointed canon of morally good options when the entire concept exists to get away from moralizing. (I should clarify that I actually am more and more sympathetic to Stallman's vision, but I think that if we're going to moralize we should go all the way, not put a halo around the intensely and explicitly pragmatic open source principles.) [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource.org/history/ http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource...
kmeisthax 3y ago
>re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property The more the world is built out of "other people's property", the less freedom you have. And the specific property-like law Congress chose to make people pay for software is incredibly strict within the narrow range of its scope - i.e. perfect if you want literally anything to do with technology to become a coercive monopoly.
gumby 3y ago
> why does open source need to "win" (why can't there be multiple options) and re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? Part of core infrastructure should be in the commons (consider the roads) to lower friction. There are many road builders but to a great extent anybody can drive on any road with any cargo without asking for permission. And that being the case unlocks more innovation.
hodgesrm 3y ago
> It's worth people revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You". Thank you for the reference to Rich Hickey's note. I used to subscribe to his view more or less completely, which is essentially that open source creators owe their users nothing and that if you want something fixed it's your responsibility to do it. Over time, however, I have come around to think that Richard Stallman put his finger on the core issue, which is user rights regarding the code: to understand the code, to make changes to it, to make copies, and to propagate changed versions. [0, 1] This is different and more fundamental than the question of the obligations between members of the open-source community, which are much more amorphous than licenses for code. In the original GNU manifesto, Richard Stallman made a prediction that succeeded beyond all expectation. Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air. This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix license. It means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art. Not all code needs to be open source. But conferring user rights like the four freedoms on the basic building blocks of software system has unleashed enormous human creativity. I want to work on those building blocks and I'm willing to trade that privilege for other things like making more money. In doing do I acknowledge we do owe users rights to use the code as they please. And I want to live in a society where those rights are upheld, at least for certain types of software. [0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

paulgb 3y ago

The author is not so much against proprietary software, as bait-and-switch tactics that present software as open source. > Anyone who truly thinks that software developed by a diverse set of actors working in an open collaboration is not better should just adopt the proprietary model. But they should be honest about it.

tensor 3y ago
I don’t see how it’s bait and switch. You can still used and develop against the last open version. In fact, we’ve seen recent examples of that in Terraform and Redis. Open source does not mean you are entitled to all future improvements unless the license says you are, like the AGPL. Personally, I’m grateful these project made their source open for so long. The alternative would not be AGPL terraform, it would be completely closed terraform.
- tyingq 3y ago
  It probably feels like bait and switch for the folks that created or used lots of open source in the time period where there was less opportunity/temptation to move the license from GPL/BSD/MIT to something proprietary. In our minds, we attached some altruistic intent to those licenses. Things have changed now, of course.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Why do the actions of HashiCorp and company have any bearing whatsoever on your decision to release and use unrelated open source software?
    - tyingq 3y ago
      I'm not trying to rationalize my emotional reactions and say they make logical sense. Just explaining why they are there. But, if there was a long time period where almost no open source software went commercial...you would be conditioned to not worry about the risk of depending on it. Then when things change, you feel differently. I don't know why that's controversial.
- dlisboa 3y ago
  I’d also go as far as saying most of the value added to these open core projects is contributed by employees of the companies themselves. The fact that they do it out in the open with the possibility of someone else forking it is a plus, we shouldn’t want this to be solely proprietary. Hashicorp paid for a lot Terraform’s development for instance. Microsoft is paying top computer scientists to develop an editor
- growse 3y ago
  The bait and switch is the community and social elements, not the code. Inviting the local community to come and improve your space that you opened up for everyone to exist in, and then suddenly locking the doors is both entirely legally justified and a crappy thing to do.
  - 3y ago

linuxftw 3y ago

For me, neither side needs to 'win' but people should understand the facts on ground when they adopt a project for their needs. "Open Source" isn't the full story, you need to consider the motivations or potential motivations of a project's backers. I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. Maybe those people were ill-informed, and shouldn't have contributed in the first place, and this article is trying to publicize the ramifications of a projects stewardship.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. It's definitely possible to take advantage of volunteerism, but in this case I don't see the real issue. The project remains just as open as it ever was, even upon licence change. It can be forked, and the project might change name, but that's all. It's not the nicest outcome, but it's the same as if a sole owner just decides to stop working on a project. The only thing to do is fork and move on.
rglover 3y ago
> I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. I think that's the crux of the frustration and fair. But at the same time, the previous version before the license change can still be forked/the contributions are intact so is there a tangible loss or just an emotional one?
- gmueckl 3y ago
  This can be a very real loss. Third party contributions are driven by specific needs. When the license changes too much, those third parties can either pay for a fork (with money/time investment) and improve their own modifications or get the enhancements in the upstream product without any improvements of their own. There is a middle ground with paid source code access, but I don't see a lot of commercial offerings do that.

mhh__ 3y ago

Wrt winning: Open is the least worst way of doing things. With the xz kerfuffle people say "aha! So much for your security now!" when the alternative is someone tampering with code on an unsecured ftp serve i.e. it's the devil you can see

tcmart14 3y ago
For sure, I think that last part is underestimated but powerful. When the SolarWinds or similar attacks occured, we had to rely on investigation reports put out via PR teams and such about how such an attack occured, what processes missed it, etc. With the xz attack, every step of the attack was out in the open for everyone to analyze. Or at least the vast majority, if there were private emails exchanged between "Jia Tan" and the original maintainer, those we can't recover. But we can see pretty much every other aspect of the attack.

zem 3y ago

> re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property (unless they choose to release it otherwise). the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored, so they claim to be less proprietary than they actually are while trying to build mindshare

rglover 3y ago
> the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being ignored So in order to get any interest in your project, you have to be open source (and align with the ideology absolutely)?
- hnoyrnndd 3y ago
  I don’t think this was intended to be a normative statement. Just an observation that “open source as marketing” seems to work, so people use it despite it not actually being true of their project.
- zem 3y ago
  you don't have to; you could seek interest among fans of proprietary software instead, using whatever marketing techniques work there. apple has had a fair amount of success with that approach e.g.
- Spivak 3y ago
  In order to get interest in your product among people who believe in the mission of OSS, you do actually have to be OSS. I could agree if we were talking about something unrelated that OSS folks also happen to like but yeah, your product does have to not have meat if you want buy-in from vegetarians.
Pannoniae 3y ago
not gonna lie this sounds like a borderline cultish view on things (only OSI-approved open source projects should get recognition, rest should be damned to obscurity and ridicule) having the source available is a huge benefit compared to proprietary software as you can view, introspect and patch your tool - having a permissive licence is a "nice-to-have", not an entitlement.

smarx007 3y ago

> why does open source need to "win" Open source does not need to win. But your ability to be in control of your computer needs to be preserved (restored?). A proprietary fridge cannot control your diet, while a proprietary App Store can control what software you install on YOUR phone (unless you live in EU, hello DMA!). The tail wagging the dog, so to speak. Proprietary software has also been shown to break user workflows or remove functions in an update while leaving users with no choice whatsoever. One alternative to having open source win is to ensure software comes with a robust warranty and other assurances you expect from the things you buy (like the ability to resell it etc.). EU's CRA will make software vulnerabilities in WiFi routers covered by warranty, for example. But that's just a first step. You can also ensure robust and interoperable data storage options. For example, https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/ stores all notes in Markdown, not holding the data hostage in case users will not like how future versions will work. GDPR actually has a provision for data portability (Art. 20), but it does not seem to have a requisite effect on the industry yet. And until the above issues are solved, open source remains the best way to ensure that a software tail cannot be wagging your computer dog.

lolinder 3y ago

From the OSI's old history page [0]: > The conferees decided it was time to dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude that had been associated with "free software" in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape. They brainstormed about tactics and a new label. ... A month later ... the participants voted to promote the use of the term 'open source', and agreed to adopt with it the new rhetoric of pragmatism and market-friendliness that Raymond had been developing. The entire point of Open Source as a concept was to be more flexible and business-friendly than Stallman's Free Software movement. It's both hilarious and frustrating to see people today treat the OSI licenses as some sort of divinely appointed canon of morally good options when the entire concept exists to get away from moralizing. (I should clarify that I actually am more and more sympathetic to Stallman's vision, but I think that if we're going to moralize we should go all the way, not put a halo around the intensely and explicitly pragmatic open source principles.) [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource.org/history/ http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource...

kmeisthax 3y ago

>re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their property The more the world is built out of "other people's property", the less freedom you have. And the specific property-like law Congress chose to make people pay for software is incredibly strict within the narrow range of its scope - i.e. perfect if you want literally anything to do with technology to become a coercive monopoly.

gumby 3y ago

> why does open source need to "win" (why can't there be multiple options) and re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with this? Part of core infrastructure should be in the commons (consider the roads) to lower friction. There are many road builders but to a great extent anybody can drive on any road with any cargo without asking for permission. And that being the case unlocks more innovation.

hodgesrm 3y ago

> It's worth people revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You". Thank you for the reference to Rich Hickey's note. I used to subscribe to his view more or less completely, which is essentially that open source creators owe their users nothing and that if you want something fixed it's your responsibility to do it. Over time, however, I have come around to think that Richard Stallman put his finger on the core issue, which is user rights regarding the code: to understand the code, to make changes to it, to make copies, and to propagate changed versions. [0, 1] This is different and more fundamental than the question of the obligations between members of the open-source community, which are much more amorphous than licenses for code. In the original GNU manifesto, Richard Stallman made a prediction that succeeded beyond all expectation. Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air. This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix license. It means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art. Not all code needs to be open source. But conferring user rights like the four freedoms on the basic building blocks of software system has unleashed enormous human creativity. I want to work on those building blocks and I'm willing to trade that privilege for other things like making more money. In doing do I acknowledge we do owe users rights to use the code as they please. And I want to live in a society where those rights are upheld, at least for certain types of software. [0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html