4 ms·

This purist mindset is killing the long term viability of open source. If hyperscalers can make money from successful projects but open source founders can't, i

by porker 1y ago

This purist mindset is killing the long term viability of open source. If hyperscalers can make money from successful projects but open source founders can't, in 10 years we'll have fewer open source projects. Licence freedoms don't have to be all or nothing, or apply to everyone in the world. It can be open source and have restrictions. Anything else turns open source into a religion.

rastignack 1y ago
It’s not about religion. PostgreSQL devs do make money right ? Despite RDS.
- porker 1y ago
  Sort-of, we've had a litany of Postgres devshops go bust over the past decade. Some will be for the usual reasons but I wouldn't want to discount the impact of RDS. However I think Postgres is a bit different. It's a bigger market and more widely used. There's a need for tuning services no matter which platform provides the database servers, so there's a level to make money above cloud hosting.
lolinder 1y ago
Not a religion, but a term with a specific meaning, which meaning implies a collection of freedoms granted without discrimination. People are welcome to use licenses that revoke those freedoms, but calling them FOSS is confusing and muddies the waters. See Llama's license: if it can be Open Source while having restrictions, then having an Acceptable Use Policy is okay, right? So Redis could create a license that bans its use if you host adult content, Star Wars fan fiction, or documents containing the letter R? If Open Source doesn't mean a license that indiscriminately grants a set of specific freedoms then it's pretty useless as a term—all I know on hearing it is that a project's source code is available. Which reminds me, we already have a term for that: Source Available.
- zwaps 1y ago
  Language is defined by society and not by some foundation setting definitions Open source means exactly what people say it means and what they want to understand by it

by porker 1y ago

rastignack 1y ago

It’s not about religion. PostgreSQL devs do make money right ? Despite RDS.

porker 1y ago
Sort-of, we've had a litany of Postgres devshops go bust over the past decade. Some will be for the usual reasons but I wouldn't want to discount the impact of RDS. However I think Postgres is a bit different. It's a bigger market and more widely used. There's a need for tuning services no matter which platform provides the database servers, so there's a level to make money above cloud hosting.

lolinder 1y ago

Not a religion, but a term with a specific meaning, which meaning implies a collection of freedoms granted without discrimination. People are welcome to use licenses that revoke those freedoms, but calling them FOSS is confusing and muddies the waters. See Llama's license: if it can be Open Source while having restrictions, then having an Acceptable Use Policy is okay, right? So Redis could create a license that bans its use if you host adult content, Star Wars fan fiction, or documents containing the letter R? If Open Source doesn't mean a license that indiscriminately grants a set of specific freedoms then it's pretty useless as a term—all I know on hearing it is that a project's source code is available. Which reminds me, we already have a term for that: Source Available.

zwaps 1y ago
Language is defined by society and not by some foundation setting definitions Open source means exactly what people say it means and what they want to understand by it