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It is bothersome to see people who obviously don’t believe in free software ideology and software freedoms (otherwise you would never produce nonfree software)

by sneak 2y ago

It is bothersome to see people who obviously don’t believe in free software ideology and software freedoms (otherwise you would never produce nonfree software) (ab)using the open source community in this way. Software freedoms exist as a concept for a reason, not just a bullet point to get people to click a download link that doesn’t even include source anyway. I call such projects “open source cosplay”. It’s an outfit you put on for conferences, then take off when back at the office working on the nonfree valuable parts.

danenania 2y ago
Atuin's CLI for shell history is open source, has been free for years, and is a very useful tool. If the author now wants to build a product on top so she can make a living, that's a win for everyone: the author, the open source users (since the project will keep being maintained), and people who get value out of the new product she's building. The irony of this purist mindset is that it's actually very corporatist, big-tech, and proprietary in its implications. If open source devs are discouraged by the culture from building products and making a living independently, it means that the only people who can devote significant time to open source are employees of established companies (who themselves often sell closed source proprietary products) and people who are wealthy enough to work for free. Is that the world you want?
- sneak 2y ago
  This only logically follows if you believe in the mistaken premise and false dichotomy that it is impossible to make money with foss software.
shawabawa3 2y ago
This kind of attitude is why less and less people are open sourcing software Why would I waste my time releasing any of my projects for free when people will attack me and call me a poser anyway Might as well charge people money, who by the way will actually be grateful to do so, that try to keep up with the open source community's purity treadmill
- sneak 2y ago
  There’s no treadmill. Belief in software freedoms has always been belief in software freedoms. It’s ok if you don’t believe in software freedoms, but you shouldn’t pretend to be someone who does by releasing some software that respects users’ software freedoms. It’s deceptive. Either you care about software freedoms, or you don’t. If you don’t, why are you releasing any software under free software licenses? If you do, why are you releasing any nonfree software? Also, do you have a single bit of backing data to suggest that your first sentence is true? I don’t believe that it is. It seems to me there is more free software than ever before.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    > It’s ok if you don’t believe in software freedoms, but you shouldn’t pretend to be someone who does by releasing some software that respects users’ software freedoms. It’s deceptive. As long as the different parts are clearly marked/indicated as such, why would you impose such a ridiculous standard? In your world, if a company makes 99% of their software GPL, and then releases some proprietary tool, they're suddenly being deceptive? Would you prefer to just lose the 99%?
    - sneak 2y ago
      I would prefer companies be up front about whether or not they believe in software freedoms for users. In the example case, they plainly do not, otherwise they would not subject their users to nonfree software. I don’t think wishing vendors to be honest is a ridiculous standard.
- freedomben 2y ago
  I agree GP's attitude is ridiculous, but if a very small number of purists on the internet is the reason less people are open sourcing software, then those people are just as guilty of bad reasoning/judgment as the purists. IMHO the real reason is that the threat of hostile/competing forks has gone up. It used to be gauche at best, evil at worst, to take somebody's open source code and compete with them, but increasingly the landscape is changing. I think that's the real problem, and IMHO the answer to that is the AGPL, not to go proprietary.

by sneak 2y ago

danenania 2y ago

Atuin's CLI for shell history is open source, has been free for years, and is a very useful tool. If the author now wants to build a product on top so she can make a living, that's a win for everyone: the author, the open source users (since the project will keep being maintained), and people who get value out of the new product she's building. The irony of this purist mindset is that it's actually very corporatist, big-tech, and proprietary in its implications. If open source devs are discouraged by the culture from building products and making a living independently, it means that the only people who can devote significant time to open source are employees of established companies (who themselves often sell closed source proprietary products) and people who are wealthy enough to work for free. Is that the world you want?

sneak 2y ago
This only logically follows if you believe in the mistaken premise and false dichotomy that it is impossible to make money with foss software.

shawabawa3 2y ago

This kind of attitude is why less and less people are open sourcing software Why would I waste my time releasing any of my projects for free when people will attack me and call me a poser anyway Might as well charge people money, who by the way will actually be grateful to do so, that try to keep up with the open source community's purity treadmill

sneak 2y ago
There’s no treadmill. Belief in software freedoms has always been belief in software freedoms. It’s ok if you don’t believe in software freedoms, but you shouldn’t pretend to be someone who does by releasing some software that respects users’ software freedoms. It’s deceptive. Either you care about software freedoms, or you don’t. If you don’t, why are you releasing any software under free software licenses? If you do, why are you releasing any nonfree software? Also, do you have a single bit of backing data to suggest that your first sentence is true? I don’t believe that it is. It seems to me there is more free software than ever before.
- freedomben 2y ago
  > It’s ok if you don’t believe in software freedoms, but you shouldn’t pretend to be someone who does by releasing some software that respects users’ software freedoms. It’s deceptive. As long as the different parts are clearly marked/indicated as such, why would you impose such a ridiculous standard? In your world, if a company makes 99% of their software GPL, and then releases some proprietary tool, they're suddenly being deceptive? Would you prefer to just lose the 99%?
  - sneak 2y ago
    I would prefer companies be up front about whether or not they believe in software freedoms for users. In the example case, they plainly do not, otherwise they would not subject their users to nonfree software. I don’t think wishing vendors to be honest is a ridiculous standard.
freedomben 2y ago
I agree GP's attitude is ridiculous, but if a very small number of purists on the internet is the reason less people are open sourcing software, then those people are just as guilty of bad reasoning/judgment as the purists. IMHO the real reason is that the threat of hostile/competing forks has gone up. It used to be gauche at best, evil at worst, to take somebody's open source code and compete with them, but increasingly the landscape is changing. I think that's the real problem, and IMHO the answer to that is the AGPL, not to go proprietary.