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We need to stop taking the OSI or FSF's positions on anything as particularly valuable. The OSI is captured entirely by corporate sponsors. Amazon was paying a

We need to stop taking the OSI or FSF's positions on anything as particularly valuable. The OSI is captured entirely by corporate sponsors. Amazon was paying a full-time salary a year to the OSI when the SSPL issue happened, the OSI had no ability to take a moral pro-labor stance without crippling their own operations. They still do not meaningfully answer to individual users: The OSI recently refused to disclose who won their board election and installed their preferred candidates. And it will be inherently unethical to even consider the position of the FSF as long as it lacks the moral fortitude to permanently punt RMS from the board. If the OSI wasn't owned by corporate interests, and had rightfully declared SSPL as a copyleft license... nobody would argue it isn't. The problem is we've let an extremely problematic organization "define" something in a way that does not serve our interests.

kstrauser 1y ago
Which part of their explanation for rejecting it do you specifically disagree with?
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  The entire claim of https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l... holds down to "the right to make use of the program for any field of endeavor" and the SSPL does not prohibit the use of software in any field of endeavor. The OSI then strays into a lot of nonsense that demonstrates just how bought and paid for they are, such as "the understanding that their work was going towards the greater good", like apparently... being used by a company which does not open source it's platform and treats its employees so poorly they have to pee in bottles. And of course, they immediately claim that "now... contributions are embedded in a proprietary product" because of course, the OSI believes they own the term and definition of open source, and that everything they don't agree with is inherently "proprietary". And then of course, they suggest "relicensing is not evidence of any failure of the open source licensing model" even though it is very clear that businesses being unable to survive producing open source is kinda big flaw in the goal of promoting the public software commons. (Taking it a step further, if the FSF argues free software is a moral imperative, not fixing this is outright immoral.)
  - jhatemyjob 1y ago
    Thank you and immibis for bringing this issue up. Always thought this was fishy. I don't fully understand this yet and will need to do more research. I bet these comments are unpopular because SSPL hurts GCP/AWS, which hurts YC. Not saying the mods of HN are conspiring to bury these comments. But the fish rots from the head in upvote-ordered comment trees
    - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
      I have had my disagreements with dang over the years, but to be clear: I think the HN mods do incredible work. I disagree with some of their choices, but I don't think they moderate with an eye on YC's bottom line. The OSI and the FSF are still extremely popular organizations despite their very big issues, I fully expect to upset some people when I bring this up. ;)
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    I think your entire comment can be reduced to you thinking that some limited subset of discrimination based on usage is acceptable, being justified by the market dynamics. That's a fine viewpoint but it simply isn't the accepted definition of "open source". You might not have been aware of that, or you might think that we'd all be better off if that wasn't the case, but those things simply don't change the reality that there is, in fact, a widely understood definition for the term. The reason people are such sticklers about that particular definition is because the term carries a lot of weight due to the history behind it. Permitting any drift in the ideology enables things that don't match the history to ride on the coattails of the projects that came before. It's worth noting that if the SSPL is really so beneficial with zero or near zero drawbacks then there's no need to become embroiled in debates over the ideology to begin with. Plainly state that it isn't "open source", make clear what the difference is, and no one will have any room to complain. You can even coin a new term to make room for license variants. If it's a beneficial arrangement then people will naturally use the license.
detaro 1y ago
Many people came to the same conclusion about SSPL just by reading it when it was released, before any OSI position on it.
- immibis 1y ago
  Who, that wasn't using motivated reasoning or repeating something they heard from OSI or Amazon?
merb 1y ago
The OSI and FSF make sense by prohibiting stuff like the sspl. Open source should express freedom and by putting restrictions on certain users no matter how evil they are wont express freedom at all
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  You seem to be opposed to software freedom. The SSPL is a viral copyleft open source license, it merely requires users to open source things. The SSPL is only restrictive in the same way as the GPL is, it requires granting users software freedom.
  - merb 1y ago
    The sspl is basically hostile to a certain user base, one could say it’s rassist. And that’s against the spirit of the fsf.
    - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
      Racist against billionaires? C'mon. Also, you're wrong. The FSF's position is basically that software that is non-free is immoral, so any license which forces additional software to be released with a free license is inherently moral. A very copyleft license like the SSPL should be the peak of the FSF's goals.
      - merb 1y ago
        As said no. A license should not discriminate not even against billionaires. Either you start with x and keep it that way or you are not better than the billionaires. Bait and switch is even worse than being a asshole
- immibis 1y ago
  So copyleft licenses are out? The OSI wrote some nonsense that implies copyleft licenses cannot be open source, and the FSF hasn't yet taken any position at all.

kstrauser 1y ago

Which part of their explanation for rejecting it do you specifically disagree with?

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
The entire claim of https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l... holds down to "the right to make use of the program for any field of endeavor" and the SSPL does not prohibit the use of software in any field of endeavor. The OSI then strays into a lot of nonsense that demonstrates just how bought and paid for they are, such as "the understanding that their work was going towards the greater good", like apparently... being used by a company which does not open source it's platform and treats its employees so poorly they have to pee in bottles. And of course, they immediately claim that "now... contributions are embedded in a proprietary product" because of course, the OSI believes they own the term and definition of open source, and that everything they don't agree with is inherently "proprietary". And then of course, they suggest "relicensing is not evidence of any failure of the open source licensing model" even though it is very clear that businesses being unable to survive producing open source is kinda big flaw in the goal of promoting the public software commons. (Taking it a step further, if the FSF argues free software is a moral imperative, not fixing this is outright immoral.)
- jhatemyjob 1y ago
  Thank you and immibis for bringing this issue up. Always thought this was fishy. I don't fully understand this yet and will need to do more research. I bet these comments are unpopular because SSPL hurts GCP/AWS, which hurts YC. Not saying the mods of HN are conspiring to bury these comments. But the fish rots from the head in upvote-ordered comment trees
  - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
    I have had my disagreements with dang over the years, but to be clear: I think the HN mods do incredible work. I disagree with some of their choices, but I don't think they moderate with an eye on YC's bottom line. The OSI and the FSF are still extremely popular organizations despite their very big issues, I fully expect to upset some people when I bring this up. ;)
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  I think your entire comment can be reduced to you thinking that some limited subset of discrimination based on usage is acceptable, being justified by the market dynamics. That's a fine viewpoint but it simply isn't the accepted definition of "open source". You might not have been aware of that, or you might think that we'd all be better off if that wasn't the case, but those things simply don't change the reality that there is, in fact, a widely understood definition for the term. The reason people are such sticklers about that particular definition is because the term carries a lot of weight due to the history behind it. Permitting any drift in the ideology enables things that don't match the history to ride on the coattails of the projects that came before. It's worth noting that if the SSPL is really so beneficial with zero or near zero drawbacks then there's no need to become embroiled in debates over the ideology to begin with. Plainly state that it isn't "open source", make clear what the difference is, and no one will have any room to complain. You can even coin a new term to make room for license variants. If it's a beneficial arrangement then people will naturally use the license.

detaro 1y ago

Many people came to the same conclusion about SSPL just by reading it when it was released, before any OSI position on it.

immibis 1y ago
Who, that wasn't using motivated reasoning or repeating something they heard from OSI or Amazon?

merb 1y ago

The OSI and FSF make sense by prohibiting stuff like the sspl. Open source should express freedom and by putting restrictions on certain users no matter how evil they are wont express freedom at all

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
You seem to be opposed to software freedom. The SSPL is a viral copyleft open source license, it merely requires users to open source things. The SSPL is only restrictive in the same way as the GPL is, it requires granting users software freedom.
- merb 1y ago
  The sspl is basically hostile to a certain user base, one could say it’s rassist. And that’s against the spirit of the fsf.
  - ocdtrekkie 1y ago
    Racist against billionaires? C'mon. Also, you're wrong. The FSF's position is basically that software that is non-free is immoral, so any license which forces additional software to be released with a free license is inherently moral. A very copyleft license like the SSPL should be the peak of the FSF's goals.
    - merb 1y ago
      As said no. A license should not discriminate not even against billionaires. Either you start with x and keep it that way or you are not better than the billionaires. Bait and switch is even worse than being a asshole
immibis 1y ago
So copyleft licenses are out? The OSI wrote some nonsense that implies copyleft licenses cannot be open source, and the FSF hasn't yet taken any position at all.