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Open source shouldn't be a complete free lunch for for-profit companies. It would be nice if there was some tithe that companies had to pay to open source that

by teeray 2y ago

Open source shouldn't be a complete free lunch for for-profit companies. It would be nice if there was some tithe that companies had to pay to open source that they used. Like, take N% of the revenue your project generated and distribute it equally among the open source projects your project depends on.

dyauspitr 2y ago
Licenses are a solution to this. You can stipulate that if your code is being used for profit by a company with more than 1000 employees, then you need to pay a certain amount into it.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  Or just start by offering it under the (A)GPL with the option of dual licensing.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I wouldn't frame it this way in a vacuum, but the organizing philosophy of open source is precisely to be a free lunch. Meta doesn't pay me when they use my projects, but they also don't charge me when I use React. Introducing mandatory monetary compensation would produce a lot of thorny coordination problems. The free software movement makes it work with in-kind code contributions, of course, but that's a cost most commercial users are unwilling to pay.
pevey 2y ago
And then the software would never be widely adopted. FOSS is what it is and the dynamics around it haven't really changed. What has changed is people wanting the rapid adoption rate possible from being FOSS without actually... being FOSS. I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy. If you want your product to be a paid product, just charge for it. What's that? No one would try it? Just give a free trial. What's that? Not enough people would use it for there to be this large community of people providing help, and tutorials, and addons/extensions/plugins, etc.? The freeloaders are the people releasing their software as FOSS, using the community to get big, and then wanting to change their minds about it.
- cudgy 2y ago
  How are they freeloaders if they haven’t received anything? Indecisive or regretful? Yes, but freloaders?

by teeray 2y ago

dyauspitr 2y ago

Licenses are a solution to this. You can stipulate that if your code is being used for profit by a company with more than 1000 employees, then you need to pay a certain amount into it.

rbanffy 2y ago
Or just start by offering it under the (A)GPL with the option of dual licensing.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

I wouldn't frame it this way in a vacuum, but the organizing philosophy of open source is precisely to be a free lunch. Meta doesn't pay me when they use my projects, but they also don't charge me when I use React. Introducing mandatory monetary compensation would produce a lot of thorny coordination problems. The free software movement makes it work with in-kind code contributions, of course, but that's a cost most commercial users are unwilling to pay.

pevey 2y ago

And then the software would never be widely adopted. FOSS is what it is and the dynamics around it haven't really changed. What has changed is people wanting the rapid adoption rate possible from being FOSS without actually... being FOSS. I'm sorry, I have zero sympathy. If you want your product to be a paid product, just charge for it. What's that? No one would try it? Just give a free trial. What's that? Not enough people would use it for there to be this large community of people providing help, and tutorials, and addons/extensions/plugins, etc.? The freeloaders are the people releasing their software as FOSS, using the community to get big, and then wanting to change their minds about it.

cudgy 2y ago
How are they freeloaders if they haven’t received anything? Indecisive or regretful? Yes, but freloaders?