4 ms·

Also, Free Software creators should get compensated for their work by current free-riders in the system.

kiba 2y ago
Software developers often just give away FOSS for free, not even charging a nominal fee. As a result, proprietary software essentially has an unlimited money cheat that they can use to plow into further development until greed starts seriously degrading the quality of software.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Qem 2y ago
  Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses that lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Kind of, try to get hold of all those GCC forks used by embedded companies before clang came into the picture.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >>As a result, proprietary software essentially has an unlimited money cheat that they can use to plow into further development until greed starts seriously degrading the quality of software. >Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses that lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases. Copyleft only partially solves the problem. A company with enough resources can give you the code and you still can't effectively fork it unless you are also running a huge company, because making an incompatible product that lacks updates would be unacceptable. Other times, companies are so big that they essentially drive a whole open source ecosystem. Look at IBM's disproportionate influence on Linux. We certainly appreciate their contributions but many people disagree about the direction IBM has chosen, and their choices affect everyone because apps are usually built to cater to the lowest common denominator. Another good example is Chromium. That project is copyleft but nobody wants an old out of date web browser because of security concerns. Even Microsoft could not keep up with their feature development so they forked it. But how different is their fork really? If they are to take code from upstream, it can't be very different.
ADeerAppeared 2y ago
It is not "free riding" to take the software that is explicitly given away, for free, gratis, nada, nothing, and not pay anything in return. "I want this to be given away free for ideological reasons but you must also pay me" is a moronic position. Pick one or the other, if you want money, just sell the software. The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
- KingMob 2y ago
  I actually agree with you in many ways, but I think FOSS diehards miss the likely outcome of this line of thought: less FOSS will be written. Everyone still has to pay their bills, but if FOSS-based companies can't survive, the only people writing it will be megacorps funding the likes of Kubernetes, and hobbyists doing stuff for fun. The entire middle-tier of FOSS companies, the ones that turned to source-available licenses when AWS came for their lunch, will not exist in the future. Either they'll continue to switch off FOSS licenses when AWS comes knocking, or they'll conclude FOSS isn't a good strategy in the first place. Anyway, I value FOSS, but I value fair compensation more. I don't believe in giving billionaire Bezos anything for free.
- nurbl 2y ago
  Seems to be precisely what "free-rider" means; entities benefiting from public resources without contributing anything back.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Also, if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes then the software is by definition not FOSS software. That would be a major restriction on their freedom. It is impossible to have a FOSS community that restricts its software from being used in commerce. The emphasis has always been on the F-for-freedom part of FOSS, especially after the schism with the OSS people who don't see freedom as the same level of priority.
    - ADeerAppeared 2y ago
josephcsible 2y ago
If you want the megacorps to pay, then you should license your stuff under the AGPLv3+ and sell exceptions. If you went with a pushover license like MIT, it's your own fault they're freeloading.
- KingMob 2y ago
  I thought this, too, but the AGPL isn't bulletproof. Notably, Amazon has a hosted Grafana service, which is under the AGPL, yet they can still compete Grafana. The idea that a FOSS company can sell services around its code runs into the problem that Amazon can sell many of those same services better, while not bearing the development costs.

kiba 2y ago

Software developers often just give away FOSS for free, not even charging a nominal fee. As a result, proprietary software essentially has an unlimited money cheat that they can use to plow into further development until greed starts seriously degrading the quality of software.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Qem 2y ago
Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses that lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Kind of, try to get hold of all those GCC forks used by embedded companies before clang came into the picture.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  >>As a result, proprietary software essentially has an unlimited money cheat that they can use to plow into further development until greed starts seriously degrading the quality of software. >Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses that lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases. Copyleft only partially solves the problem. A company with enough resources can give you the code and you still can't effectively fork it unless you are also running a huge company, because making an incompatible product that lacks updates would be unacceptable. Other times, companies are so big that they essentially drive a whole open source ecosystem. Look at IBM's disproportionate influence on Linux. We certainly appreciate their contributions but many people disagree about the direction IBM has chosen, and their choices affect everyone because apps are usually built to cater to the lowest common denominator. Another good example is Chromium. That project is copyleft but nobody wants an old out of date web browser because of security concerns. Even Microsoft could not keep up with their feature development so they forked it. But how different is their fork really? If they are to take code from upstream, it can't be very different.

ADeerAppeared 2y ago

It is not "free riding" to take the software that is explicitly given away, for free, gratis, nada, nothing, and not pay anything in return. "I want this to be given away free for ideological reasons but you must also pay me" is a moronic position. Pick one or the other, if you want money, just sell the software. The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound.

KingMob 2y ago
I actually agree with you in many ways, but I think FOSS diehards miss the likely outcome of this line of thought: less FOSS will be written. Everyone still has to pay their bills, but if FOSS-based companies can't survive, the only people writing it will be megacorps funding the likes of Kubernetes, and hobbyists doing stuff for fun. The entire middle-tier of FOSS companies, the ones that turned to source-available licenses when AWS came for their lunch, will not exist in the future. Either they'll continue to switch off FOSS licenses when AWS comes knocking, or they'll conclude FOSS isn't a good strategy in the first place. Anyway, I value FOSS, but I value fair compensation more. I don't believe in giving billionaire Bezos anything for free.
nurbl 2y ago
Seems to be precisely what "free-rider" means; entities benefiting from public resources without contributing anything back.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Also, if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes then the software is by definition not FOSS software. That would be a major restriction on their freedom. It is impossible to have a FOSS community that restricts its software from being used in commerce. The emphasis has always been on the F-for-freedom part of FOSS, especially after the schism with the OSS people who don't see freedom as the same level of priority.
  - ADeerAppeared 2y ago

josephcsible 2y ago

If you want the megacorps to pay, then you should license your stuff under the AGPLv3+ and sell exceptions. If you went with a pushover license like MIT, it's your own fault they're freeloading.

KingMob 2y ago
I thought this, too, but the AGPL isn't bulletproof. Notably, Amazon has a hosted Grafana service, which is under the AGPL, yet they can still compete Grafana. The idea that a FOSS company can sell services around its code runs into the problem that Amazon can sell many of those same services better, while not bearing the development costs.