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I concede the last part, it is slightly a soapbox from my part about the OSI. However, it's not really a strawman because these issues are very much linked toge

I concede the last part, it is slightly a soapbox from my part about the OSI. However, it's not really a strawman because these issues are very much linked together. The definition itself is very strict yet not comprehensive - false positives and false negatives are both common. The sentiment that "VSCode is OSI-compliant so it's morally okay to support it" is very common, and it's substantially derived from the OSI definition. I do not think that it's an irrelevant issue or that it would be misrepresenting the definition. Is it really free (as in freedom) software when it contains DRM? Is it really open source when critical extensions are unusable if you build the software for yourself? It might meet the definition strictly by the words but in my view, this is not much better than TiVo-isation (when the license is adhered to but the user can't effectively use a modified version) or other shady practices.

skybrian 2y ago
No moral qualms here. There are large pieces of it that are useful without VS Code (for example, the Monaco editor and the language server protocol). Not to mention al the use people get out of it for free. It seems like the good well outweighs the bad.
- Pannoniae 2y ago
  >It seems like the good well outweighs the bad. Oh, I definitely agree. While I don't use the editor (mainly because I prefer full IDEs and not glorified text editors personally) I agree that holistically, the existence of VSC is a net positive to the programming community. My argument comes from a moral perspective - even though the good outweighs the bad, the bad parts are really scummy and need more awareness. Like, my perspective is not utilitarian, it comes from a deontological point of view. I see people and companies get regularly flamed (or even harassed/intimidated) for much smaller things such as the crime of creating their non-OSI-compliant licenses and various related things. In contrast to that, the VS Code ecosystem is much more proprietary, grants much less practical freedoms and operates from a way less clean moral background than any of these projects. Yet, many people are willing to excuse this because Microsoft has figured out a way to implement vendor lock-in without breaching any of the four freedoms in techicality. To me, this is way worse than someone saying "no we won't let you use our software for anything"... I am also not a fan of the LSP (good arguments can be found in https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly.html https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly....) but that's another topic :)
  - rectang 2y ago
    > crime of creating their non-OSI-compliant licenses Just don't call it "Open Source" and you won't get nearly as many complaints. The big problem arises when somebody tries to leech off of the goodwill built up by Open Source communities and give their Source Available proprietary offering some FOSS-juice. (Most often VC-backed companies who have failed to understand that "Open Source is not a business model").
    - Pannoniae 2y ago
      Well, this thread is getting off-topic real fast but okay, I'll reply :) This argument would make sense from a strictly logical perspective if these were all the facts but the problem is that the expression "open source" wayyyy predates the OSI. It's been used in the 80s and the 90s on Usenet and in various places, and it simply meant software which was distributed in source code form. (as opposed to binary form) These pieces of software didn't even have a license file attached to them which was implicitly understood as public domain, or "do whatever the fuck you want to do with it". The OSI simply appropriated the term to a narrower, stricter meaning which grants certain freedoms to the user and takes certain freedoms away from the creator. (Such as the freedom to change your mind in licensing! You can't practically change your mind since these are all non-revocable grants) Furthermore, I don't really agree with the "leeching off the goodwill of OSS" framing. From a practical perspective as a user, having the source code available is way closer to OSI-licensed software than proprietary, closed-source software. You can view the code of the program, you can usually share your modifications with others (which is technically disallowed but the developers are very unlikely to care as long as you don't resell it), you can fix bugs in it, you can change functionality you don't like. A less-commonly talked about side effect is that if the source is available, the developers are less incentivised to provide user-hostile features, simply because they know that the users can patch it out relatively easily. There's many cases of rugpulls and forced functionality changes in software nowadays and almost all of it is possible because the user can't simply change the code to change the unwanted behaviour but must put up with it instead. Naturally, this is a huge advantage compared to closed-source software. And if a company is willing to share its source code with its users, this should be lauded and encouraged! Obviously, the developers want some benefit from sharing the code, and one of the huge benefits is goodwill by customers. If the developers are not incentivised - but more commonly, harassed and mocked - to share their source but disallow competitors to steal it, in most cases, they will simply not share the code at all, leaving you, as a user, with way less freedom in practical terms. Both you and the company can't really do anything with paper freedoms - you can't really use paper freedoms and the company can't survive if their licensing permits others to profit off their work while discouraging them of doing so. In this view, having more practical freedoms should be encouraged because it helps both the user in having more usable and more modifiable software, and helps the developers not to go bankrupt when Amazon decides to commoditise their offering or something. EDIT: I conflated "developer" with "company" when writing this post. My apologies. Of course, everything above also applies to natural people who develop software too, not just corporations. I made this mistake because of the subject matter (Microsoft), sorry.
rectang 2y ago
Of course the topic of spirit-vs-letter of Open Source is worth discussing. (I've personally meditated quite a lot on "open governance" vs. "open source", which is tangential but related). But I think your portrayal of FOSS advocates at large as unconcerned about the spirit vs. letter of open source compliance is wildly inaccurate. If anything FOSS communities discuss such topics obsessively. (How many bits have been spilled onto the internet about TiVo-isation?) Also, see pxc's excellent analysis elsethread for an illustration of the utility of the OSD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693457
- Pannoniae 2y ago
  Thank you for your insight, I really appreciate it! >If anything FOSS communities discuss such topics obsessively. I don't see this the same way. Whenever topics like these come up, "quoting the OSI definition word-by-word" is a fairly a common moral argument. (See every Mongo/SSPL or ElasticSearch thread on this site and you'll see) While there is definitely discussion of this, you are entirely right, there's a substantial proportion of people (I'm not claiming that it's necessarily the majority or anything - but influential enough to derail or block things) who do not take the spirit of the Free Software movement into account at all. At a glance, many arguments against these licenses don't come from a viewpoint that these licenses violate the spirit of Free Software - they just mechanically quote the OSI freedoms without any critical evaluation or moral reasoning. pxc's analysis is great and morally I definitely agree with it. I don't think that most people agree with it though - which legitimises the VSCode "open-source" approach.

skybrian 2y ago

No moral qualms here. There are large pieces of it that are useful without VS Code (for example, the Monaco editor and the language server protocol). Not to mention al the use people get out of it for free. It seems like the good well outweighs the bad.

Pannoniae 2y ago
>It seems like the good well outweighs the bad. Oh, I definitely agree. While I don't use the editor (mainly because I prefer full IDEs and not glorified text editors personally) I agree that holistically, the existence of VSC is a net positive to the programming community. My argument comes from a moral perspective - even though the good outweighs the bad, the bad parts are really scummy and need more awareness. Like, my perspective is not utilitarian, it comes from a deontological point of view. I see people and companies get regularly flamed (or even harassed/intimidated) for much smaller things such as the crime of creating their non-OSI-compliant licenses and various related things. In contrast to that, the VS Code ecosystem is much more proprietary, grants much less practical freedoms and operates from a way less clean moral background than any of these projects. Yet, many people are willing to excuse this because Microsoft has figured out a way to implement vendor lock-in without breaching any of the four freedoms in techicality. To me, this is way worse than someone saying "no we won't let you use our software for anything"... I am also not a fan of the LSP (good arguments can be found in https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly.html https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly....) but that's another topic :)
- rectang 2y ago
  > crime of creating their non-OSI-compliant licenses Just don't call it "Open Source" and you won't get nearly as many complaints. The big problem arises when somebody tries to leech off of the goodwill built up by Open Source communities and give their Source Available proprietary offering some FOSS-juice. (Most often VC-backed companies who have failed to understand that "Open Source is not a business model").
  - Pannoniae 2y ago
    Well, this thread is getting off-topic real fast but okay, I'll reply :) This argument would make sense from a strictly logical perspective if these were all the facts but the problem is that the expression "open source" wayyyy predates the OSI. It's been used in the 80s and the 90s on Usenet and in various places, and it simply meant software which was distributed in source code form. (as opposed to binary form) These pieces of software didn't even have a license file attached to them which was implicitly understood as public domain, or "do whatever the fuck you want to do with it". The OSI simply appropriated the term to a narrower, stricter meaning which grants certain freedoms to the user and takes certain freedoms away from the creator. (Such as the freedom to change your mind in licensing! You can't practically change your mind since these are all non-revocable grants) Furthermore, I don't really agree with the "leeching off the goodwill of OSS" framing. From a practical perspective as a user, having the source code available is way closer to OSI-licensed software than proprietary, closed-source software. You can view the code of the program, you can usually share your modifications with others (which is technically disallowed but the developers are very unlikely to care as long as you don't resell it), you can fix bugs in it, you can change functionality you don't like. A less-commonly talked about side effect is that if the source is available, the developers are less incentivised to provide user-hostile features, simply because they know that the users can patch it out relatively easily. There's many cases of rugpulls and forced functionality changes in software nowadays and almost all of it is possible because the user can't simply change the code to change the unwanted behaviour but must put up with it instead. Naturally, this is a huge advantage compared to closed-source software. And if a company is willing to share its source code with its users, this should be lauded and encouraged! Obviously, the developers want some benefit from sharing the code, and one of the huge benefits is goodwill by customers. If the developers are not incentivised - but more commonly, harassed and mocked - to share their source but disallow competitors to steal it, in most cases, they will simply not share the code at all, leaving you, as a user, with way less freedom in practical terms. Both you and the company can't really do anything with paper freedoms - you can't really use paper freedoms and the company can't survive if their licensing permits others to profit off their work while discouraging them of doing so. In this view, having more practical freedoms should be encouraged because it helps both the user in having more usable and more modifiable software, and helps the developers not to go bankrupt when Amazon decides to commoditise their offering or something. EDIT: I conflated "developer" with "company" when writing this post. My apologies. Of course, everything above also applies to natural people who develop software too, not just corporations. I made this mistake because of the subject matter (Microsoft), sorry.

rectang 2y ago

Of course the topic of spirit-vs-letter of Open Source is worth discussing. (I've personally meditated quite a lot on "open governance" vs. "open source", which is tangential but related). But I think your portrayal of FOSS advocates at large as unconcerned about the spirit vs. letter of open source compliance is wildly inaccurate. If anything FOSS communities discuss such topics obsessively. (How many bits have been spilled onto the internet about TiVo-isation?) Also, see pxc's excellent analysis elsethread for an illustration of the utility of the OSD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693457

Pannoniae 2y ago
Thank you for your insight, I really appreciate it! >If anything FOSS communities discuss such topics obsessively. I don't see this the same way. Whenever topics like these come up, "quoting the OSI definition word-by-word" is a fairly a common moral argument. (See every Mongo/SSPL or ElasticSearch thread on this site and you'll see) While there is definitely discussion of this, you are entirely right, there's a substantial proportion of people (I'm not claiming that it's necessarily the majority or anything - but influential enough to derail or block things) who do not take the spirit of the Free Software movement into account at all. At a glance, many arguments against these licenses don't come from a viewpoint that these licenses violate the spirit of Free Software - they just mechanically quote the OSI freedoms without any critical evaluation or moral reasoning. pxc's analysis is great and morally I definitely agree with it. I don't think that most people agree with it though - which legitimises the VSCode "open-source" approach.