4 ms·

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent other

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. Hyperscalers like Amazon exploit OSS projects by reselling them as a cloud service and they earn a gigantic sum in the process. But this is not a neutral thing to do - the OSS project is still responsible for maintenance! (And in many places, the "no warranty" clause seems completely disregarded - users and corporations demand bugfixes since it's a "critical library") The most telling sentence is "Open source culture relies on trust. Trust that companies you and I helped build (even without being on the payroll) wouldn't rugpull."... where is any trust in exploiting someone's work without giving anything back? the hyperscalers routinely break the OSS social contract, but because they abide to the letter of the licences, they get a free pass and many white knights from even the OSS community and even OSI itself. A business model of "you can see the source, you can modify it but you can't offer it as a service or resell my work" is much more honest and trustworthy than the "develop a library, a cloud service picks it up then pressures you with PRs and issues until you permanently burn out from the whole thing" This is partly addressed by the post - "But you know what? I'd just prefer honesty. If revenue is so dependent on selling software, just... make the software proprietary. Don't be so coy!". This is not honesty though. Claiming that anything not party-approved.... I mean OSI-approved is not open source and it's proprietary is a very myopic thing. For users and developers, it's much more beneficial if they can see or even modify the source even if they don't have an unrestricted right to use and modify it however they want. This absolutist, black-and-white approach could potentially lead to many pieces of software becoming fully proprietary, all-rights-reserved in the future since the open source community harasses source available projects quite frequently, and not many have the patience to put up with that. And that would be a sad outcome indeed for user freedom, repairability, portability and other values RMS and the FSF dearly holds.

sangnoir 2y ago
> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it... Should OSS solve that "problem"? Free software predates billion-dollar OSS / open-core companies, it also doesn't require the maintainer directly earn a living from it. Perhaps the era of OSS megacorps and the concomitant VC/startup dreams is setting, as these large, formerly OSS companies are rejecting OSS licenses in favor of bigger profits. To that, I say good riddance, not every useful git repository has to be incorporated. > ...and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. The whole point of free and open source software is anyone can use it and improve it - including Amazon and the person you hate. An OSS license is not a growth-hack for adoption: if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL. If you're worried others won't use your AGPL software, then you're growth-hacking. FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React).
- Pannoniae 2y ago
  >Should OSS solve that "problem"? If you don't want a cyberpunk-like dystopia of megacorps controlling everything, yes. This is not just affecting the VC-funded startups' profitability but it also affects ordinary software developers' lifestyle businesses too. Sure, the core principles of OSS don't require that you'd be able to earn money from your work, but then perhaps it is OSS which is not fit for purpose, not the desire to earn money from creating software. >if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL. The AGPL is still not restrictive enough because you can resell the software without contributing anything back if you don't modify it. Stuff like the SSPL or the Commons Clause are much better to prevent that kind of exploitation. >FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React). I find the xz example especially funny because that shows how it is very much not fine. Single developer, burnt out, not getting paid a penny for his thankless work, a bunch of state-sponsored actors pressure him to hand his project over -> backdoor injected. If Lasse Collin could get support for his project, this almost certainly would not have happened. https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ is very relevant here.
  - prepend 2y ago
    > The AGPL is still not restrictive enough because you can resell the software without contributing anything back if you don't modify it Why would you want to restrict reselling? If you want free software then you’re going to have reselling. If you don’t want reselling, then don’t make your software free/open source. I’m not sure why people are getting mixed up. Anyone can make proprietary software and restrict all they want. There’s tons of commercial software. But it doesn’t have the features of free/open source.
    - Pannoniae 2y ago
      >Why would you want to restrict reselling? Depends on what your philosophy is. You believe in the software commons and the free sharing of software? You would want software to remain as a public good so no one can profit from it exclusively. Are you a business who made some software? You don't want others to resell it because it's your work, you made it and you don't want others to freeload. >If you don’t want reselling, then don’t make your software free/open source. Sure, and the consequences of this will be much more all-rights-reserved proprietary software. A huge loss to users and developers. >But it doesn’t have the features of free/open source. Yes it does. Just because it doesn't conform to all tenets of the OSI definition, many useful things are still kept. The most obvious is the right to view the source code - which is highly liberating in an age where many vendors lock their systems down or try to offer everything as a SaaS where you don't even see the binaries. You usually also have the right to modify the software under most of these licences - you are the user but you find a bug in the software, you don't need to wait for the vendor to fix it, you can fix it and share your modifications to other users (either paid or not). You can also have the right to contribute changes if contributions are allowed, which is also a positive for everyone. There are many freedoms which can be granted without necessarily going for a maximalist open-source approach but still preserving the right to exploit your own work and prevent others from exploiting it.
jqpabc123 2y ago
None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it In other words --- developers can not live from Open Source alone. If all software was Open Source, there would likely be a lot fewer developers. And those that remain would be spending a lot more time and effort on survival and less time creating software. Open Source is inherently self limiting and unsustainable. It is a utopian concept that defies the basic economic reality we are all forced to contend with. And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation. It may be noble and good for somebody --- but ultimately not for himself or others like him.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  > "And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation." The funniest part is that this outcome was obvious even in the 1990s. Evangelists were begging businesses to start using FOSS with slogans like "free as in beer and free as in speech" and hailing every corporate adoption as a victory. Meanwhile, business were belching contentedly and asking for another free beer while pointedly not giving a rat's ass about giving back or software freedom. I'm absolutely amazed that it took reality this long to catch up with FOSS.
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    "Evangelists" = People promoting ideas not firmly rooted in reality. The software industry seems to harbor more than it's fair share --- crypto evangelists, open source evangelists. As folks from the ghetto used to say, "You gotta be rich to even think like that".
eadmund 2y ago
> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. You’re begging the question of whether one should be able to earn a living from making free software. Free software is not fundamentally about business or profit: it’s about ethics. It’s about the freedom of software users to use, modify and share their software. How programmers get paid is an interesting question, but it’s not the most important question. The important one is, ‘is it ethical for a programmer to prevent his software’s users from using, inspecting, modifying and sharing modifications to the software they use?’ And the answer in my opinion is a resounding ‘no!’
- Pannoniae 2y ago
  Sure. If it's about ethics then I could argue that corporations are not people. So I can give the right to all people to use, inspect, modify and share modifications to the software they use, but corporations aren't people so they don't get those rights. :D

sangnoir 2y ago

> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it... Should OSS solve that "problem"? Free software predates billion-dollar OSS / open-core companies, it also doesn't require the maintainer directly earn a living from it. Perhaps the era of OSS megacorps and the concomitant VC/startup dreams is setting, as these large, formerly OSS companies are rejecting OSS licenses in favor of bigger profits. To that, I say good riddance, not every useful git repository has to be incorporated. > ...and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. The whole point of free and open source software is anyone can use it and improve it - including Amazon and the person you hate. An OSS license is not a growth-hack for adoption: if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL. If you're worried others won't use your AGPL software, then you're growth-hacking. FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React).

Pannoniae 2y ago
>Should OSS solve that "problem"? If you don't want a cyberpunk-like dystopia of megacorps controlling everything, yes. This is not just affecting the VC-funded startups' profitability but it also affects ordinary software developers' lifestyle businesses too. Sure, the core principles of OSS don't require that you'd be able to earn money from your work, but then perhaps it is OSS which is not fit for purpose, not the desire to earn money from creating software. >if you want to discourage Amazon from using your product, use AGPL. The AGPL is still not restrictive enough because you can resell the software without contributing anything back if you don't modify it. Stuff like the SSPL or the Commons Clause are much better to prevent that kind of exploitation. >FL/OSS will be fine between evening/weekend hackers (xz), small-to-medium companies/consultancies (Rails), and our neo-feudal tech overlords (React). I find the xz example especially funny because that shows how it is very much not fine. Single developer, burnt out, not getting paid a penny for his thankless work, a bunch of state-sponsored actors pressure him to hand his project over -> backdoor injected. If Lasse Collin could get support for his project, this almost certainly would not have happened. https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ is very relevant here.
- prepend 2y ago
  > The AGPL is still not restrictive enough because you can resell the software without contributing anything back if you don't modify it Why would you want to restrict reselling? If you want free software then you’re going to have reselling. If you don’t want reselling, then don’t make your software free/open source. I’m not sure why people are getting mixed up. Anyone can make proprietary software and restrict all they want. There’s tons of commercial software. But it doesn’t have the features of free/open source.
  - Pannoniae 2y ago
    >Why would you want to restrict reselling? Depends on what your philosophy is. You believe in the software commons and the free sharing of software? You would want software to remain as a public good so no one can profit from it exclusively. Are you a business who made some software? You don't want others to resell it because it's your work, you made it and you don't want others to freeload. >If you don’t want reselling, then don’t make your software free/open source. Sure, and the consequences of this will be much more all-rights-reserved proprietary software. A huge loss to users and developers. >But it doesn’t have the features of free/open source. Yes it does. Just because it doesn't conform to all tenets of the OSI definition, many useful things are still kept. The most obvious is the right to view the source code - which is highly liberating in an age where many vendors lock their systems down or try to offer everything as a SaaS where you don't even see the binaries. You usually also have the right to modify the software under most of these licences - you are the user but you find a bug in the software, you don't need to wait for the vendor to fix it, you can fix it and share your modifications to other users (either paid or not). You can also have the right to contribute changes if contributions are allowed, which is also a positive for everyone. There are many freedoms which can be granted without necessarily going for a maximalist open-source approach but still preserving the right to exploit your own work and prevent others from exploiting it.

jqpabc123 2y ago

None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it In other words --- developers can not live from Open Source alone. If all software was Open Source, there would likely be a lot fewer developers. And those that remain would be spending a lot more time and effort on survival and less time creating software. Open Source is inherently self limiting and unsustainable. It is a utopian concept that defies the basic economic reality we are all forced to contend with. And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation. It may be noble and good for somebody --- but ultimately not for himself or others like him.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago
> "And the really crazy part --- even the least educated manual laborer can immediately grasp that giving his work away for free invites exploitation." The funniest part is that this outcome was obvious even in the 1990s. Evangelists were begging businesses to start using FOSS with slogans like "free as in beer and free as in speech" and hailing every corporate adoption as a victory. Meanwhile, business were belching contentedly and asking for another free beer while pointedly not giving a rat's ass about giving back or software freedom. I'm absolutely amazed that it took reality this long to catch up with FOSS.
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  "Evangelists" = People promoting ideas not firmly rooted in reality. The software industry seems to harbor more than it's fair share --- crypto evangelists, open source evangelists. As folks from the ghetto used to say, "You gotta be rich to even think like that".

eadmund 2y ago

> None of these blogposts (including this one) have any realistic solution to the problem of making OSS software and being able to live from it, and prevent others from exploiting you in the process. You’re begging the question of whether one should be able to earn a living from making free software. Free software is not fundamentally about business or profit: it’s about ethics. It’s about the freedom of software users to use, modify and share their software. How programmers get paid is an interesting question, but it’s not the most important question. The important one is, ‘is it ethical for a programmer to prevent his software’s users from using, inspecting, modifying and sharing modifications to the software they use?’ And the answer in my opinion is a resounding ‘no!’

Pannoniae 2y ago
Sure. If it's about ethics then I could argue that corporations are not people. So I can give the right to all people to use, inspect, modify and share modifications to the software they use, but corporations aren't people so they don't get those rights. :D