4 ms·

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

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
    > if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes then the software is by definition not FOSS software. Okay but like, who cares. The definition of "Free Software" is just whatever RMS screeches about. The OSI is rather biased towards them, and importantly, does not own the trademark. > That would be a major restriction on their freedom. Then why complain that they excercise that freedom. Either commercial use without paying back is an explicitly granted and supported freedom, and then companies doing that is fine. Or it is not, in which case restrict commercial use on the free license if you want companies to pay up.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      > Okay but like, who cares. People who care about freedom. The question answers itself. If the person writing the software is laying down the law about how it is going to be used then, as a simple and practical matter, the user is being denied freedom. If code can't be used for business purposes it is a bit of stretch to say it is free software. We may as well call pirated software free software if we're being that loose with language that we only mean price; people don't pay for it either. The "free" stands for freedom. > Then why complain that they excercise that freedom. They've just legally given up all the coercive options, so the only tool left is complaint. That is one of the major points of the whole thing - for everyone to have the most freedom communities have to try and resolve disputes by clear communication, vocalising concerns, argument and persuasion. Although I think you've misread KingMob's comment. Exactly what they meant is open to interpreting, but what they actually said isn't a complaint. "Free-riders" is a technical term for what most FOSS software users are doing. It might be explicitly endorsed by the software maintainer but it is still free-riding.
      - ADeerAppeared 2y ago
        > They've just legally given up all the coercive options, so the only tool left is complaint My previous comment on this was unclear. The very act of complaining about it betrays the idea that it's "freedom". Either companies have the freedom to take without giving back, in which case forcing them to buy the software breaks those freedoms, but you shouldn't complain. Or they do not have the freedom, in which case just sell the software normally.
- ADeerAppeared 2y ago
  Public transit companies that make tickets explicitly free and then get upset nobody pays them would get laughed out the room for bemoaning "free-riders". It may be a "technically correct" use of the word, but it's not a useful definition to include this.
  - jcelerier 2y ago
    The public transit companies are being paid though ? Through tax instead of through direct payment
- remram 2y ago
  Are they "public resources" or are they gifts? If you have a precise idea in mind about how you want it to be used and how they should reward you, put that in the license. You even have OSI-approved options here, like AGPL.
Qem 2y ago
> The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound. The self-inflicted wound is non-copyleft licenses. Under copyleft you pay for free code with more code, by making freely available any modifications you publish over the original. Permissive licenses break this, causing a self-inflicted wound. Corporations can just build upon your codebase and privatize your base effort, giving just the middle finger back to community.
- ADeerAppeared 2y ago
  > Under copyleft you pay for free code with more code You do not. There is nothing in the GPL that mandates you contribute. You can simply use the software as-is, and never contribute. Sit on your hands when there's a major exploit and wait until someone else fixes it, then take their fix. It is, in fact, piss easy to get around the GPL because it only applies to distribution. If you SaaS or simply do not distribute the software, you can do whatever you want. You can dynamic link all day against evil proprietary software so long as you make the user download the GPL'd bit from a third party. And this is obvious to all because the AGPL exists to fix this, but is an even worse shitshow. > Corporations can just build upon your codebase and privatize your base effort, giving just the middle finger back to community. And the humble non-commercial clause trivially resolves this while the copyleft licenses have spent decades trying and failing.
lolinder 2y ago
> "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. Exactly—it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now exposed in gory detail as not just a moronic position but an unethical one. You want to get paid? Put it in a contract up front. You want to release Free Software with no extra contracts? Don't expect to get paid—sponsorships are a nice bonus, not something you're entitled to. The "I should be able to release Free Software for free with no strings attached and also you are morally obligated to pay me" position is inherently an unethical bait and switch. You're only entitled to the compensation that you communicate up front in writing. Red Hat does this right, Canonical does this right, JetBrains does this right.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > Exactly—it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now exposed in gory detail as not just a moronic position but an unethical one. You're not obligated to give away your services. Red Hat was putting (still puts?) in their support contracts that to share GPL patches that they distribute to you as a customer will cancel the contract. Matt Mullenweg distributes Free Software that anybody has the right to fork freely, although he may obligate them to strip the trademark out (although he hasn't until now.) How could Red Hat possibly be doing something right if he's doing something wrong? What is CentOS supposed to be?
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Matt has been very clear that he's attempting to use the trademark as a bludgeon to get WP Engine to "give back" (whatever that means). There was no contract ahead of time that required anyone to give back, and the trademark policy has for more than a decade condoned WP Engine's usage as an explicit permission. All the written communication has always been in favor of WP Engine's rights to use all the IP exactly as they have been with no obligation to do anything, yet Matt has decided that he's owed something. Red Hat, meanwhile, puts a clause into a written contract that says that they will continue to provide support as long as you don't forward what they give you to other people. We can get into debates all day long about which one is truer to the "spirit of Open Source" or some such philosophical abstraction, but one of the two organizations we're talking about put their expectations for compensation into a detailed written contract and the other, to put it generously, didn't.
Kim_Bruning 2y ago
Since this is HN, someone has to be the stickler for definitions I suppose. :-P It's not given away for free. You are granted certain freedoms (liberties), to wit: 1. freedom to run the program 2. Freedom to study and alter it 3. freedom to redistribute copies 4. freedom to redistribute changes So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer. In lots of languages there's two separate words for these concepts: eg german ('Frei' vs 'Gratis') or french ('Libre' vs 'Gratuit). It's entirely possible to sell free software. It's something I do! Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all.
- ADeerAppeared 2y ago
  > So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer. See how in my comment I use 4 synonyms for "free", including "gratis"? That was not just trying to sound cool. That was trying (and evidently, failing, given you're not the only one) to pre-empt this exact point. > It's entirely possible to sell free software. This is much more controversial in the FOSS space than it seems to outsiders. There is the obvious problem that one of the Freedoms involves the ability to take your purchased copy and give it away 'gratis' to everyone else, thus undercutting the market for the original author. And this begs the question: Can I practically charge money for the freedoms? Must it be gratis? It would be relatively easy to write a license with a royalty fee. Every time you distribute a copy of the fork, you must pay the original author. This would be a cromulent way to get around the piracy problem. Except it is deeply controversial. To the point where even the FSF tries to play games around "selling the software" versus "selling the service of providing a download of the software". In practice, no you can't really sell Free Software. Just look at all the startups that were Open Source and immediately shut that down when the infinite free venture capital ran out. > Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all. I simply do not care about the designation of "Free Software". It sucks and has painted itself into a corner. Modern policing of it's meaning (especially by the OSI which hilariously tries to pretend that "Open Source" is subject to FOSS definitions) is entirely just hypocrisy favouring the GPL. If you want to get paid, cash money, just fucking put it in the license. Use a user agreement like everyone else on the planet. If you want it to be Free, slap a 'gratis' license on there and don't get upset when companies don't give anything back.

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
  > if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes then the software is by definition not FOSS software. Okay but like, who cares. The definition of "Free Software" is just whatever RMS screeches about. The OSI is rather biased towards them, and importantly, does not own the trademark. > That would be a major restriction on their freedom. Then why complain that they excercise that freedom. Either commercial use without paying back is an explicitly granted and supported freedom, and then companies doing that is fine. Or it is not, in which case restrict commercial use on the free license if you want companies to pay up.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > Okay but like, who cares. People who care about freedom. The question answers itself. If the person writing the software is laying down the law about how it is going to be used then, as a simple and practical matter, the user is being denied freedom. If code can't be used for business purposes it is a bit of stretch to say it is free software. We may as well call pirated software free software if we're being that loose with language that we only mean price; people don't pay for it either. The "free" stands for freedom. > Then why complain that they excercise that freedom. They've just legally given up all the coercive options, so the only tool left is complaint. That is one of the major points of the whole thing - for everyone to have the most freedom communities have to try and resolve disputes by clear communication, vocalising concerns, argument and persuasion. Although I think you've misread KingMob's comment. Exactly what they meant is open to interpreting, but what they actually said isn't a complaint. "Free-riders" is a technical term for what most FOSS software users are doing. It might be explicitly endorsed by the software maintainer but it is still free-riding.
    - ADeerAppeared 2y ago
      > They've just legally given up all the coercive options, so the only tool left is complaint My previous comment on this was unclear. The very act of complaining about it betrays the idea that it's "freedom". Either companies have the freedom to take without giving back, in which case forcing them to buy the software breaks those freedoms, but you shouldn't complain. Or they do not have the freedom, in which case just sell the software normally.
ADeerAppeared 2y ago
Public transit companies that make tickets explicitly free and then get upset nobody pays them would get laughed out the room for bemoaning "free-riders". It may be a "technically correct" use of the word, but it's not a useful definition to include this.
- jcelerier 2y ago
  The public transit companies are being paid though ? Through tax instead of through direct payment
remram 2y ago
Are they "public resources" or are they gifts? If you have a precise idea in mind about how you want it to be used and how they should reward you, put that in the license. You even have OSI-approved options here, like AGPL.

Qem 2y ago

> The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound. The self-inflicted wound is non-copyleft licenses. Under copyleft you pay for free code with more code, by making freely available any modifications you publish over the original. Permissive licenses break this, causing a self-inflicted wound. Corporations can just build upon your codebase and privatize your base effort, giving just the middle finger back to community.

ADeerAppeared 2y ago
> Under copyleft you pay for free code with more code You do not. There is nothing in the GPL that mandates you contribute. You can simply use the software as-is, and never contribute. Sit on your hands when there's a major exploit and wait until someone else fixes it, then take their fix. It is, in fact, piss easy to get around the GPL because it only applies to distribution. If you SaaS or simply do not distribute the software, you can do whatever you want. You can dynamic link all day against evil proprietary software so long as you make the user download the GPL'd bit from a third party. And this is obvious to all because the AGPL exists to fix this, but is an even worse shitshow. > Corporations can just build upon your codebase and privatize your base effort, giving just the middle finger back to community. And the humble non-commercial clause trivially resolves this while the copyleft licenses have spent decades trying and failing.

lolinder 2y ago

> "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. Exactly—it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now exposed in gory detail as not just a moronic position but an unethical one. You want to get paid? Put it in a contract up front. You want to release Free Software with no extra contracts? Don't expect to get paid—sponsorships are a nice bonus, not something you're entitled to. The "I should be able to release Free Software for free with no strings attached and also you are morally obligated to pay me" position is inherently an unethical bait and switch. You're only entitled to the compensation that you communicate up front in writing. Red Hat does this right, Canonical does this right, JetBrains does this right.

pessimizer 2y ago
> Exactly—it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now exposed in gory detail as not just a moronic position but an unethical one. You're not obligated to give away your services. Red Hat was putting (still puts?) in their support contracts that to share GPL patches that they distribute to you as a customer will cancel the contract. Matt Mullenweg distributes Free Software that anybody has the right to fork freely, although he may obligate them to strip the trademark out (although he hasn't until now.) How could Red Hat possibly be doing something right if he's doing something wrong? What is CentOS supposed to be?
- lolinder 2y ago
  Matt has been very clear that he's attempting to use the trademark as a bludgeon to get WP Engine to "give back" (whatever that means). There was no contract ahead of time that required anyone to give back, and the trademark policy has for more than a decade condoned WP Engine's usage as an explicit permission. All the written communication has always been in favor of WP Engine's rights to use all the IP exactly as they have been with no obligation to do anything, yet Matt has decided that he's owed something. Red Hat, meanwhile, puts a clause into a written contract that says that they will continue to provide support as long as you don't forward what they give you to other people. We can get into debates all day long about which one is truer to the "spirit of Open Source" or some such philosophical abstraction, but one of the two organizations we're talking about put their expectations for compensation into a detailed written contract and the other, to put it generously, didn't.

Kim_Bruning 2y ago

Since this is HN, someone has to be the stickler for definitions I suppose. :-P It's not given away for free. You are granted certain freedoms (liberties), to wit: 1. freedom to run the program 2. Freedom to study and alter it 3. freedom to redistribute copies 4. freedom to redistribute changes So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer. In lots of languages there's two separate words for these concepts: eg german ('Frei' vs 'Gratis') or french ('Libre' vs 'Gratuit). It's entirely possible to sell free software. It's something I do! Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all.

ADeerAppeared 2y ago
> So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer. See how in my comment I use 4 synonyms for "free", including "gratis"? That was not just trying to sound cool. That was trying (and evidently, failing, given you're not the only one) to pre-empt this exact point. > It's entirely possible to sell free software. This is much more controversial in the FOSS space than it seems to outsiders. There is the obvious problem that one of the Freedoms involves the ability to take your purchased copy and give it away 'gratis' to everyone else, thus undercutting the market for the original author. And this begs the question: Can I practically charge money for the freedoms? Must it be gratis? It would be relatively easy to write a license with a royalty fee. Every time you distribute a copy of the fork, you must pay the original author. This would be a cromulent way to get around the piracy problem. Except it is deeply controversial. To the point where even the FSF tries to play games around "selling the software" versus "selling the service of providing a download of the software". In practice, no you can't really sell Free Software. Just look at all the startups that were Open Source and immediately shut that down when the infinite free venture capital ran out. > Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all. I simply do not care about the designation of "Free Software". It sucks and has painted itself into a corner. Modern policing of it's meaning (especially by the OSI which hilariously tries to pretend that "Open Source" is subject to FOSS definitions) is entirely just hypocrisy favouring the GPL. If you want to get paid, cash money, just fucking put it in the license. Use a user agreement like everyone else on the planet. If you want it to be Free, slap a 'gratis' license on there and don't get upset when companies don't give anything back.