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> "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 sel

> "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.

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.