4 ms·

I would personally never contribute to a project with non-free license without getting paid. It's basically working for a company without pay.

by andix 3y ago

paxys 3y ago
The problem is that an open source project you contribute to can become non-free from under you at any point. This pattern is becoming more and more common now.
- wmf 3y ago
  There are ways to prevent that which in retrospect we should have paid more attention to. For example, (L)GPL with no CLA cannot be changed later.
  - andix 3y ago
    That's the decade old philosophical fight about what to consider free software. GPL/GNU vs BSD. I think both opinions are fine, if you don't want your contributions to end up in a commercial product, you can't contribute to a project with BSD/MIT license. On the other hand most companies prefer to support projects with a permissive license over projects with copyleft (GPL). For many projects (except the big ones like GNU/Linux) copyleft seems to be more of a burden.
  - btilly 3y ago
    In retrospect, Redis Labs is about to learn a lesson that many have learned before. Community willingness to maintain popular software under the old license means that attempting to make free non-free will result in a fork taking over. As a prior example look at what happened a few years back when Oracle tried to make Hudson non-free. Now nobody has heard of Hudson, but everybody uses Jenkins. Which name was chosen for the sheer mockery value and reference to the then infamous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyOj_QD4a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyOj_QD4a4. There are people who think we need the legal protection of the GPL. But there are others who trust in community pressures to make the right thing happen.
    - andix 3y ago
      A lot of younger folks probably never heard of XFree86 or OpenOffice.org. In a few years Terraform and now Redis might end up just like them.
    - Macha 3y ago
      Was Jenkins a Leeroy Jenkins reference? Seemed to be just continuing the butler theme from Hudson.
      - btilly 3y ago
        It served as both, but at the time I definitely saw people referring to it as a Leeroy Jenkins reference. With the fact that can also refer to a butler as a bonus. Though I'm sure some saw it the other way. It's a kind of pun that programmers like. For example when I asked, Larry Wall said that he named Perl, Perl after he had two acronyms. Namely Practical Extraction and Reporting Language and Perfectly Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
  - skybrian 3y ago
    antirez wanted to allow it, not prevent it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39863371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39863371
    - andix 3y ago
      Thanks, that's a perfect summary of the problem and the reasons why the BSD license was picked. It's perfectly fine though to disagree and do it differently.
- andix 3y ago
  This is only half true in my opinion. Only future versions will be non-free, all the contributions before the license change stay free and can be forked. Any project with a permissive license (BSD/MIT) can always be made into a commercial product. I could fork Valkey any minute, change the name and start selling it.
madeofpalk 3y ago
I would never contribute to commercially backed, freely licensed project unless I was being paid. Saying this as a developer who is paid for exactly that, not it any inside knowledge that points to ulterior motives, but just the idea of giving a company free labour is unsettling.
- objektif 3y ago
  It is almost same as transferring your hard earned money to the founders of the company. Of course it is unsettling.
  - nijave 3y ago
    Technically you do that all the time when you buy any sort of product. Ideally you derive value of some sort for your payment.
- anacrolix 3y ago
  Like the Go project?
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    Of course "it depends", and people should make their own mind up with what they're comfortable with. Google doesn't monetise Go, so I would have less problems contributing to it. Redis, before the license change, is a perfect example of what I wouldn't contribute to.
- sdesol 3y ago
  > I would never contribute to commercially backed, freely licensed project unless I was being paid. Based on what I've seen, a lot of people contribute to VC/commercially backed projects for resume/career growth reasons.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    It's fair to say that in the early days of the FOSS movement, people were contributing for prestige and recognition. The commercialization into "Open Source" meant that work was appropriated for profit by organizations that weren't interested in either the "free as in beer" or "free as in freedom" aspects. Naturally people followed their mercenary lead and started to work on them for the financial benefits.

I would personally never contribute to a project with non-free license without getting paid. It's basically working for a company without pay.

by andix 3y ago

I would personally never contribute to a project with non-free license without getting paid. It's basically working for a company without pay.

paxys 3y ago

The problem is that an open source project you contribute to can become non-free from under you at any point. This pattern is becoming more and more common now.

wmf 3y ago
There are ways to prevent that which in retrospect we should have paid more attention to. For example, (L)GPL with no CLA cannot be changed later.
- andix 3y ago
  That's the decade old philosophical fight about what to consider free software. GPL/GNU vs BSD. I think both opinions are fine, if you don't want your contributions to end up in a commercial product, you can't contribute to a project with BSD/MIT license. On the other hand most companies prefer to support projects with a permissive license over projects with copyleft (GPL). For many projects (except the big ones like GNU/Linux) copyleft seems to be more of a burden.
- btilly 3y ago
  In retrospect, Redis Labs is about to learn a lesson that many have learned before. Community willingness to maintain popular software under the old license means that attempting to make free non-free will result in a fork taking over. As a prior example look at what happened a few years back when Oracle tried to make Hudson non-free. Now nobody has heard of Hudson, but everybody uses Jenkins. Which name was chosen for the sheer mockery value and reference to the then infamous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyOj_QD4a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyOj_QD4a4. There are people who think we need the legal protection of the GPL. But there are others who trust in community pressures to make the right thing happen.
  - andix 3y ago
    A lot of younger folks probably never heard of XFree86 or OpenOffice.org. In a few years Terraform and now Redis might end up just like them.
  - Macha 3y ago
    Was Jenkins a Leeroy Jenkins reference? Seemed to be just continuing the butler theme from Hudson.
    - btilly 3y ago
      It served as both, but at the time I definitely saw people referring to it as a Leeroy Jenkins reference. With the fact that can also refer to a butler as a bonus. Though I'm sure some saw it the other way. It's a kind of pun that programmers like. For example when I asked, Larry Wall said that he named Perl, Perl after he had two acronyms. Namely Practical Extraction and Reporting Language and Perfectly Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
- skybrian 3y ago
  antirez wanted to allow it, not prevent it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39863371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39863371
  - andix 3y ago
    Thanks, that's a perfect summary of the problem and the reasons why the BSD license was picked. It's perfectly fine though to disagree and do it differently.
andix 3y ago
This is only half true in my opinion. Only future versions will be non-free, all the contributions before the license change stay free and can be forked. Any project with a permissive license (BSD/MIT) can always be made into a commercial product. I could fork Valkey any minute, change the name and start selling it.

madeofpalk 3y ago

I would never contribute to commercially backed, freely licensed project unless I was being paid. Saying this as a developer who is paid for exactly that, not it any inside knowledge that points to ulterior motives, but just the idea of giving a company free labour is unsettling.

objektif 3y ago
It is almost same as transferring your hard earned money to the founders of the company. Of course it is unsettling.
- nijave 3y ago
  Technically you do that all the time when you buy any sort of product. Ideally you derive value of some sort for your payment.
anacrolix 3y ago
Like the Go project?
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  Of course "it depends", and people should make their own mind up with what they're comfortable with. Google doesn't monetise Go, so I would have less problems contributing to it. Redis, before the license change, is a perfect example of what I wouldn't contribute to.
sdesol 3y ago
> I would never contribute to commercially backed, freely licensed project unless I was being paid. Based on what I've seen, a lot of people contribute to VC/commercially backed projects for resume/career growth reasons.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  It's fair to say that in the early days of the FOSS movement, people were contributing for prestige and recognition. The commercialization into "Open Source" meant that work was appropriated for profit by organizations that weren't interested in either the "free as in beer" or "free as in freedom" aspects. Naturally people followed their mercenary lead and started to work on them for the financial benefits.