12 ms·

Open Source Maintenance Fee

356 points by AndrewDucker 1y ago

yoavm 1y ago
This has nothing to do with Wix, the platform for building websites. It's about "WiX Toolset" - https://wixtoolset.org/ https://wixtoolset.org/
- thinkmassive 1y ago
  > The most powerful set of tools available to create your Windows installation experience. Open Source since 2004!
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    Funny enough, I came across WiX the other day when I was looking into windows installers like msix, nsis, etc. Eventually settled on self-contained exe (and it's only 1.4 mb, woo!) but seeing the name wix took me back, I vaguely remembered it from around 2005 or so when I was first trying to make "real" windows programs (as opposed to visual basic ones). Took 20 years, but I finally did it, and written entirely in C, too! Anyway yeah, different wix than the popular one. Tom, you may want to rename this post.
  - digianarchist 1y ago
    It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows. I've had the displeasure of using Wix and it's an incredibly complicated and poorly documented platform that had us reaching for paid competitors in order to get our installer shipped. I realized shortly after that it's not really Wix's fault. Windows is squarely to blame for the mess that is writing a workable Windows installer. The paid competitors had a lot of the same issues as the open source frameworks.
    - tempodox 1y ago
      > Microsoft aren't heavily involved Be glad of that. Anything where Microsoft aren't involved is a plus. Microsoft is one of those things you don't want to depend on.
    - jhot 1y ago
      I've been out of the windows world for about 10 years or so, but before that I was the one tasked at my company with streamlining our installers from a CI/CD perspective. I do agree that WiX is complicated and you really have to dig through the docs and do a lot of trial and error, but at the time I couldn't find any alternatives that allowed for the automation that I could achieve with WiX. That said it was still somewhat ugly: msbuild the application, potentially copy in some dll's that weren't included in the output, use WiX's "heat" tool to generate installer files from the build output, use a xslt to transform that output to match how we installed shared libraries and such, build the installer with generated files, run automated ui tests and filesystem validations. At the time installshield, advanced installer, and a few other tools I tried did not have the same flexibility to generate installers and automatically pick up file changes like WiX (without opening up a UI). I'm so glad I haven't had to think about the nightmare that is MSI in over a decade.
      - robmensching 1y ago
        Yeah, the build system integration was always one of the core benefits provided by the WiX Toolset. I know you're not working with MSI any longer, but in recent versions of WiX Toolset we _finally_ nailed down how to include files in the .wxs file using the new `Files` element in a way that wouldn't break other MSI features (like patching).
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      > It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows. The history of WiX is that it started internally at Microsoft. IIRC it was a project under the Office organization originally. It's generally considered the first big open source success of Microsoft in spinning a project out to open source community ownership and paved the way for almost every later open source project at Microsoft. I've got a feeling Microsoft doesn't want to support it anymore because they see it as completely legacy today. WiX is one of the better/cheaper/harder ways to build an old school MSI file. MSI installers are an ancient archive format (the old CAB format) wrapping an ancient and dying DB format (the old JET database engine) and a lot of the complexity of the WiX toolkit is just a reflection of the complex legacy of the old terrible MSI output format. Today Microsoft suggests using MSIX which looks a lot more directly like the better/simpler input to a (well crafted greenfield) WiX project, it's a plain ZIP file with XML metadata.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    Oh I remember these guys! One of my first internship projects was modifying a wix installer for some internal corporate software.
- joshgachnang 1y ago
  Ahh, thank you! I assumed it was Wix. They produce a ton of really high quality React Native libraries.
  - amelius 1y ago
    Huh, they were talking about https://www.wix.com/ https://www.wix.com/
    - arthens 1y ago
      That's probably what they meant, wix.com does have a bunch of react native libraries on github: https://github.com/orgs/wix/repositories https://github.com/orgs/wix/repositories
lars_francke 1y ago
Not commenting on the substance but on the https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/ https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/ homepage itself. It only works in dark mode and is unreadable in light mode. The repo doesn't allow opening issues. Maybe the author reads here... (long shot)
- bstsb 1y ago
  you have to pay the fee to submit issues, obviously ;)
  - robmensching 1y ago
    Heh, funny. My goal was to funnel questions and comments into a single location: the Discussion forum.
- robmensching 1y ago
  Oh, snap! That's bad. It's fixed (thanks to a random contributor :)
  - lars_francke 1y ago
    Thank you!
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
mytailorisrich 1y ago
Not a lawyer so confused about how requiring a fee to get the binary is in practice compatible with open source licenses, which grant the right to redistribute said binary. I.e. even if the project itself does not want to give me a copy of the binary, anyone who has obtained that binary can lawfully gice it to me. Basically, my understanding is that as long as the software is released under an open source license it is not possible to require a payment for its use or to limit distribution. If you wish to do that you need to relicence.
- Spivak 1y ago
  You can sell open source software and you can charge for binaries and add additional terms on the binaries that restrict distribution. This is how RHEL works. But what you can't do is prevent someone who acquired the source from distributing the source and their own binaries. Which is how Rocky Linux works.
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    Thanks, I think this is my answer re. binaries. I suppose it also depends on the original license (I think something like the 3-clause BSD license does not allow restricting binaries, for instance).
- woodruffw 1y ago
  I think the distinction being made here is between the source code (which is remaining open source) and the binary (which is effectively becoming proprietary). Users would no longer have a right to redistribute the binary, since it would no longer be open source. (To my understanding, this is similar to Microsoft’s “trick” for discouraging VS Code forks: VS Code and many of its core extensions are open source, but their builds are not.)
- Cheer2171 1y ago
  > license it is not possible to require a payment for its use or to limit distribution Those two are not the same, see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html You can also try to charge $10000 for a gold plated CD copy of the Linux kernel without having committed a line yourself.
scottydelta 1y ago
Looking at the comments, seems it might be a headache to manage this at open source level. The enforcement itself seems to be tough to manage.
- robmensching 1y ago
  Honestly, thus far it's been a relative breeze. I expected the need to work out "bugs" as the idea is new. My hope is that after we address the bulk of the issues that actual consumers have raised about the OSMF, it'll be relatively trivial for other projects to pick up in the future. Note: A few Open Source projects have already added the OSMF. I've not yet followed up to see how it is going for them.
cyberes 1y ago
I understand why they do this. It's sometimes hard to find motivation for a project when there is no revenue, regardless of amount.
nikanj 1y ago
That ticket was opened in March 2025 with enforcement starting in April 2025. Pretty short notice.
- nicman23 1y ago
  you could stay in the last version from what i can tell
- robmensching 1y ago
  The window was definitely smaller than I would consider ideal. But the OSMF only applied to WiX v6 (released in April) and later. So, all the older versions would not be impacted. Also, the timing was never raised as an issue by anyone in the community. If there had been significant pushback, I would have definitely re-evaluated the timing. The launch went really well though.
optymizer 1y ago
Honestly, open source software should come with a price. I think the "starving artist" approach is detrimental long-term. Sure, there is great value in having a free (in both senses) operating system, but at the same time the year of Linux desktop is a running joke. To be blunt, money motivates people to do the work they otherwise would not do. It's soul crushing to run the 400th manual test. It's not sexy to work on a lot of the bugs that affect real users, so, when there's no money in it, the work tends to focus in areas of passion and feature development. Maybe if we all sent $1 to open source projects we use, there'd be enough funding to hire QA people and engineers to fix things like Ubuntu's suspend/resume on my Lenovo laptop, you know?
- pixxel 1y ago
  [dead]
- qwery 1y ago
  While I love the idea of a better deal for free and open source software developers, I don't think a sales/transactional model will actually solve the problem at scale. For one thing, it will eat away at the reasons you like open solutions in the first place. If it became normal/expected to pay for open source software, businesses would control a lot more open source software. > when there's no money in it, the work tends to focus in areas of passion and feature development. But when there is money in it, the work tends to focus on quarterly revenue. > funding to hire QA people and engineers to fix things like Ubuntu's suspend/resume on my Lenovo laptop, you know? Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that? Like there must be $1 in each laptop they sell that could have gone towards even documenting the hardware so some nice developer can implement a working driver/whatever. Really, it's not the Ubuntu or Linux people that need to be paid to solve that problem, Lenovo is free to submit a patch whenever the hell they want to, they just don't want to.
  - optymizer 1y ago
    > businesses would control a lot more open source software Only because individuals would presumably open LLCs > But when there is money in it, the work tends to focus on quarterly revenue. I don't think the choice is between "John works on this project 11pm - 1am on the days he feels like it" and "John wants to IPO his company". I'm advocating for "John works on this project 3 days of the week because people pay him a small fee for using his project". > Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that? The money I gave to Lenovo went to Microsoft for an OEM license to the pre-installed Windows OS. When I download Ubuntu and install that on my laptop, Lenovo couldn't be bothered to see if closing the lid suspends the laptop or not. Should Lenovo write drivers for my custom kernel as well? As a business, why should Lenovo bother to implement resume capabilities for an OS that is a rounding error for their consumer line of laptops?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rock_artist 1y ago
I've used WiX for a specific project in my work when I've needed MSI. TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. There are other open-source libraries that has dual-license with some kind of GPL variant and a commercial license. but there's at least some threshold. Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... I'm all in sponsoring open-source and investing in software but part of being sustainable is making it accessible. so maybe that indie developer who used WiX for their indie project ended up going to 100k/year and now can contribute. But if originally it was capped, they might choose other solution that fits the "indie" tight budget better.
- coldpie 1y ago
  > Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... You can always download the source and build the software yourself, or acquire the binary from another person willing/able to build it. The fee only applies to binary distribution from the project itself, and support from the project.
- nathas 1y ago
  > Small organization (< 20 people): $10/mo If you went to 100k/year and still a solo dev, that's just 0.12% of your ARR. The percentages here are meaningless; $10/month should be doable for anyone that wants to run a business, even someone solo.
- thinkingtoilet 1y ago
  >TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. I have terrific news! You can start your own open source project that people use to make money and don't contribute back to. >Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... I have terrific news! That indie developer can create their own installer or start their own open source project that others can make money off of and not contribute back to. >I'm all in sponsoring open-source and investing in software but part of being sustainable is making it accessible. I have some bad news here. 99% of people aren't all in on this. We see time and time again that even mission critical open source projects struggle to get people to fund it. The projects that do tend to survive are the ones that build businesses around the project. It's very rare to have an open source project be well funded solely for existing with no business around it. Of course there are exceptions, but that model has failed near completely. That's the reality.
opticfluorine 1y ago
I came across this a few months ago when I was evaluating open source installer options for my own open source project. I have no issue with charging for binaries while the source is available under an OSI license, but this from the README rubbed me the wrong way: "To ensure the long-term sustainability of this project, use of the WiX Toolset requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee. While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee. In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Open Source Maintenance Fee is required." I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just a difficult concept to succinctly explain in a short paragraph. But that summary - that revenue-generating use requires payment - feels misleading to me. Under their license, nothing stops me from creating my own build from source and using it per the terms of the MS-RL license, including for commercial purposes. So to me it feels like a scare tactic to coerce commercial users into becoming sponsors for the project. I certainly understand the challenges faced by open source maintainers today, but the specific approach taken here just doesn't feel ethical to me. I ended up passing on WiX for that reason even though I'm not a commercial user.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  Isn't it just a clear statement that they aren't going to give commercial users support for free? I know you are saying it isn't clear, but your quote literally includes the statement "While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE".
  - opticfluorine 1y ago
    I personally think this last sentence from my quote makes it unclear: "In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Open Source Maintenance Fee is required." Perhaps I'm being too semantic, but I don't feel that is an accurate representation of the license terms involved here.
    - Applejinx 1y ago
trjordan 1y ago
I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be: - Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all. - The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue. So even if this doesn't get perfectly enforced (and it won't), that's fine! The maintainers are now free to respond to complaints with "you need to pay us for us to care." Companies that pay get some level of support; hobbyists get the same experience. Only the companies that ignore this warning will see the consequences, and it's particularly effective for reports where the author leans on "but there are a huge number of important users [to me] that are affected." Pay up if it matters! It strikes me as a pretty clean solution to a pretty common strain of open-source headache, _especially_ as AI-generated code/reports/etc. are on the rise.
- majkinetor 1y ago
  Anybody should be able pay up for the feature/support and it should be closed source until some threshold. That could take years or months depending on the interest/income. Eventually it will become open source. Otherwise, everybody will wait for someone to pay for the thing they want. Obviously this needs to be worked up a bit so not to maintain N forks but it can work.
  - samrus 1y ago
    I think thays fine. Thats within the spirit of FOSS. The issue has always been companies demanding fixes because it affects their users, and those companies cant afford to wait. So now they can pay to have the devs spend a bit more time to get their fix out. This works
  - robmensching 1y ago
    There are models out there like this. Look around the term "Fair Source" and I think you'll find them.
- msgodel 1y ago
Arch-TK 1y ago
It seems like it would be much less complicated to write this/enforce this if they just made you pay a subscription fee for access binaries and the issue tracker. Instead, they've generated an enforcement nightmare by solely relying on an EULA.
- coldpie 1y ago
  Yeah, though it's tricky because they want to retain free access & support for users who use the project but do not generate revenue.
- jerleth 1y ago
  The worst part for me is: > Q: How long do I have to pay the fee? > You pay the Maintenance Fee as long as you use the project. What does that even mean? I built one-off apps for small businesses that I never touch again or maybe every 5 years. Okay, at least paying perpetually for something I don't use anymore is out of question but if I open a solution for a fix I have to check all 80 packages what their current license is and pay them for the month? No thank you, I'll rather pay for a commercial solution or use something free with a sane license. With a commercial offering at least it's opt-in when I download a new version. For me that's basically a subscription fee for one-time download.
  - chrisandchris 1y ago
    > For me that's basically a subscription fee for one-time download. Not a WiX user, but that's my issue with it too. E.g., AutoMapper, a popular mapping library for .Net recently changed their license from Free to a Subscription. We use it heavily, and may be willing to pay - however: we are still using the same version as of 2 years ago, because there are no new features we care about and there's no need to put in multiple days of work to upgrade "just because". I miss the one-time-payment option for such things.
    - 20k 1y ago
      The problem is, if its one time payment, companies will just leech off of it indefinitely. It'd be great if companies were contributing, but its gotten to the point where you have to assume heavy bad faith from everyone involved
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Can we adjust the title to say Wix Toolset or remove that part altogether?
calibas 1y ago
I thought the license was still owned by Microsoft? https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix?tab=License-1-ov-file#readme https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix?tab=License-1-ov-file#read... Also, the exact wording is: "a EULA on binary releases (including those published to GitHub and NuGet.org) requires payment of the Maintenance Fee" I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that mean that I can compile the code myself to circumvent the Maintenance Fee, and give the binaries away for free?
- jsmith99 1y ago
  Yes, the repo readme says the code is open source but the fee is required for using the repo's issues and releases features.
  - ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
    I'd be surprised if the github EULA allows you to just attach rules to who can click the releases button. For issues and discussion, sure that's essentially moderation. But surely you can't make a EULA that says you can't click on a github provided feature unless you agree to some arbitrary third party's rules.
- robmensching 1y ago
  The code is owned by the .NET Foundation (long story) not Microsoft. > but doesn't that mean that I can compile the code myself to circumvent the Maintenance Fee, and give the binaries away for free? Yep. Now you are responsible for the ~500K lines of code. Totally allowed by the license. Enjoy your fork! :)
mellosouls 1y ago
Here's the consumers FAQ of the underlying initiative (the Open Source Maintenance fee): https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/consumers/faq/ https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/consumers/faq/
- shthed 1y ago
  Do any other projects use this too? Is this just Wix Toolkit?
  - robmensching 1y ago
    I have seen some other projects show interest and a few have adopted it. I've not checked in with any of them. The Open Source Maintenance Fee is pretty new, and I've not been promoting it for use by other Open Source projects (yet) because I want to resolve any "OSMF bugs" using my project (WiX Toolset). After the bugs are worked out, then I'll recommend it more widely and we'll see if it catches on then. I've had a number of maintainers express interest and inquire about how it is going.
    - ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
      Some licenses might allow you to distribute binaries with extra restrictions, but the one you chose almost certainly doesn't. >For any file you distribute that contains code from the software (in source code or binary format), you must provide recipients the source code to that file along with a copy of this license, which license will govern that file. So your nuget package and github release would be a binary distribution, what license applies? It's the reciprocal license, not your attempt to attach a maintenance fee for clicking download license. And this clause doubles down >If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license. Your license essentially explicitly disallows you from doing what your trying to do. Will anyone test you for $10/m or just using a competitor? Maybe not. This also goes horribly against the spirit of open source software, if every small package on a Linux distro did this it'd cost tens of thousands at least to even launch the OS. But the attempt to backdoor downloads from a package repository is what I find most heinous here.
guluarte 1y ago
I haven't fully read it yet, but it would be great if GitHub had "bounties" where users could submit an issue/request with a bounty attached.
- WorldMaker 1y ago
  I think the issue with bounties is that to do a proper bounty program you want a third-party escrow agent that can decide when the issue/request has been addressed sufficiently to warrant paying the bounty. I don't think GitHub wants to be directly in that business as a third-party escrow agent hiring people to review issues/requests versus changelogs, but they probably could find ways to help people find such third-parties in the Sponsors flows.
  - stereolambda 1y ago
    Moreso: what if someone fulfils it in a fork.
  - Towaway69 1y ago
    What GitHub could enforce is that someone creating an issue is a sponsor. This would then be a checkbox in the settings of the repo “only sponsors can create issues? Yes/no” As I understand it, this is something that the OSMF enforces - not sponsor, no issue creation.
pino82 1y ago
For me, Wix was never truly an OSS project (sure, technically/formally, it is). It's for me just an MS developer workplace in disguise. As MS, it looks nicer and you don't have to support so much. I was wrong and Rob was indeed not an MS employee??
- contextfree 1y ago
  He started the project while he was still at Microsoft, but since left and continues to work on it independently.
kissgyorgy 1y ago
This sucks out the joy of Open Source development, which is freedom to do anything, change anything and not responsible for anyone else. At the point you require payments, users can have expectations and requests, which turns your project into a job.
- wmf 1y ago
  In this case the joy was already sucked out a while ago by entitled users.
  - robmensching 1y ago
    It sounds like you maintain a successful Open Source project. :)
freeopinion 1y ago
I guess I'm not smart enough to understand [edit: the hype around] this. The license agreement doesn't change? But you don't get support unless you pay the maintenance fee? So if a user reports an exploit, Wix won't fix it unless the reporter pays the maintenance fee first? Or if some corporate user has a great idea for a new feature, Wix will ignore it until a paying user requests it? It seems obvious that this is nonsensical. OSS authors have always been able to pick and choose what PRs they accept or what issues get their attention. They have always been able to charge for support. How is this maintenance fee any kind of innovation? I don't mean this as a criticism of Wix. I think it is awesome that they develop tools with open source licenses. And I think it is perfectly fine for them to charge support fees. Just like it always has been for all open source projects. If a would-be contributor feels locked out, they can fork. This is not a new idea. Obviously, forking is a pretty big commitment that will require financial backing. So any rational party considering forking should also consider paying the author for their attention. Even if you have the pockets of an Amazon, it would probably be better all around to fund the original author than to set up a competing fork. Of course there will be the occasional LibreOffice, io.js, OpenTofu, neovim. If you can actually pull off a split like LibreCAD, more power to you. io.js made its point and made nodejs healthier. This has always been a huge advantage to open source software. You can benefit from the community. You can contribute to the community (code, art, docs, money, ideas, whatever). Kudos to Wix for participating. Best wishes for their future.
- CodesInChaos 1y ago
  The license of the source code doesn't change. The license of the official binaries (which the official nuget packages contain) did change.
mopsi 1y ago
As harsh as it may sound, the Wix Toolset is such a steaming pile of garbage and waste of everyone's time who have had the misfortune to work with it that their best monetization strategy would be to charge for proper documentation and working examples, instead of playing games like "you can't view issues without paying us". Easily on of the worst pieces of software I've come across. Alternative: https://github.com/oleg-shilo/wixsharp/ https://github.com/oleg-shilo/wixsharp/
thedonkeycometh 1y ago
Open source shouldn't have fees, it's one step away from a subscription
ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
>While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee. Surprised downloading releases is in there, I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure this goes against it's own license on the source code, specifically: >each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create. At the very least it's confusing, and if anything, comically easy to bypass and literally forces someone to automate a github mirror that builds new releases. Your essentially enforcing the existence of a fork. They even provide the github actions necessary to do so in their repo already...
- robmensching 1y ago
  Absolutely true, but that isn't what happened (at least, not yet). Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.
  - ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
    >Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it. You must have incredibly good analytics to know exactly what companies are using your nuget package. Did you embed a phone home?
    - notpushkin 1y ago
      If this is about WiX, I think it’s easy to just spot their installers in the wild.
    - robmensching 1y ago
      I was specifically talking about the companies paying the Fee and the feedback I got from others who don't use the WiX Toolset but understand Open Source and the problems facing maintainers. But it is easy to tell when an installation package is built by the WiX Toolset (or any other tool) when you know where to look.
GnarfGnarf 1y ago
The WiX installer is a byzantine incomprehensible mess. Its only appeal was that it was free. If I have to pay, I'd rather have a commercial product that is supported and easier to use. Rob Mensching was supposed to monetize WiX by offering $5,000/yr enterprise consulting & support services. I guess that's not enough.
- Slartie 1y ago
  WiX basically lets you directly write the internal data structures used by Windows Installer to run the MSIs. Just in XML instead of some ancient binary database that is used in the MSI files to store things. So the actual "byzantine incomprehensible mess" (which is indeed the correct description) is the MSI format and Windows Installer, not WiX.
  - robmensching 1y ago
    I mentioned this in another response: > Our primary goal with the WiX Toolset was to provide access to the full power of the Windows Installer. Given the adoption by extremely large software projects, I think we've done pretty well toward that goal. We're slowly turning our attention to simplifying the toolset to make it easier to use for simpler projects. But that's only been a focus for the last couple of years, so not a lot has come about, yet. But the Files element is a huge upgrade. There is definitely more we can do to make simpler things simpler. :)
- robmensching 1y ago
  > Its only appeal was that it was free. That was definitely its appeal to people who didn't want to pay anything for setup installation tools. But that definitely wasn't our only appeal or even our primary appeal. The WiX Toolset unlocked access to the Windows Installer in ways no other installation build tool does. If you didn't need that power then there were absolutely a lot of sharp edges and "missing features" to make your life easier. But if you had hard installation problems, those sharp edges were sometimes the weapons you needed to solve the problem. > Rob Mensching was supposed to monetize WiX by offering $5,000/yr enterprise consulting & support services. I don't monetize WiX for $5,000/yr. I monetize my team and my decades of experience building software installation packages of all shapes and sizes. With this "WiX Developer Direct" program from FireGiant (my company), you get monthly office hours directly with me to discuss whatever you want, you get SLAs for answers to tickets and guaranteed bug fixes so that your development team is never blocked. You also get an annual code review of your code by us and access to some high-end tools we develop. It is a high-touch offering and my customers dig it. > I guess that's not enough. That's not the case at all. The XZ Utils incident showed that Open Source sustainability is a huge problem and I was compelled to try to do something to address it. I don't think the Open Source Maintenance Fee is the only solution for sustainability, but I think it's a pretty good one for projects like mine. The WiX Toolset is the first project to adopt it because I need a real project to help work out all of kinks in the OSMF concept. Everything is working very, very well.
constantcrying 1y ago
This is absurd. Seriously, read the EULA: https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix/blob/main/OSMFEULA.txt https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix/blob/main/OSMFEULA.txt This fee only governs the binaries compiled directly by the company. You can "circumvent" this license by building the software yourself, or having someone else build the software. Right now I can click the download button on their github build, what then? They do not even link to to the EULA there, yet the EULA stipulates that this exchange requires me to pay money to them. The github statement stipulates that paying money requires me to first pay the maintenance fee, which is not part of the EULA, why? What is the point. Here is a tip: If you want to make money, make it easy to give you money. Right now any legitimate company has to fear walking into legal troubles with this. Can you imagine how the discussion with accounting is going to go?
- robmensching 1y ago
  So far the only hard conversations with accounting are how to pay by invoice (since GitHub Sponsors invoice handling is a bit wonky). Those that pay by credit card have pretty universally been, "Oh, this is easy. Done." > You can "circumvent" this license by building the software yourself, or having someone else build the software. Correct. By design. The software is Open Source. That's the whole point.
Splizard 1y ago
If only this was voluntary and automated by an Open Source service provider, so that I only have to pay one monthly fee and all the FOSS that is detected to be in-use on my machine is funded.
- robmensching 1y ago
  If the OSMF takes off, I could definitely see something like this taking off.
stevage 1y ago
I 100% support this. I wish more open source maintainers would take steps like this sooner rather than feeling stressed and undervalued and burning out. It seems very cheap for what it is.
- robmensching 1y ago
  Yes! Exactly. You're not alone with this sentiment. :)
kindkang2024 1y ago
Open-source projects often function like a system of charity and honor. The honor goes to the contributors, while the charitable benefits flow to those who can use it to generate revenue. This model works well for both parties and indirectly benefits humanity. However, I personally believe—perhaps naively—that the charity could be directed toward all humans in a more direct and obvious way. For example, when a project is released under a license, businesses that use it to make money would donate a small percentage of their profits—say, 1%—to a global fund: the "Decentralized Universal Kindness Income" (DUKI /dju:ki/). The business behind the main contributors would be exempt from this donation, or could choose a reduced percentage. This gives them an advantage when big companies use their project to compete against them (the reason why Redis changed its license). The benefits are clear. Contributors would receive greater global recognition for their efforts—especially from those outside the tech industry—while businesses that donate would gain access to a wealth of open-source resources (if enough high-quality DUKI-licensed projects exist), also earning respect as a marketing strategy. They would likely gain a competitive advantage compared to those who do not. I've called this concept the “DUKI License.” At its heart, it’s the MIT License with one simple addition: a profit-sharing requirement. Unfortunately, I don’t have the power to market it, and still unsure how it would be received by the very people who steer the open-source world—the project founders and core maintainers
- jononor 1y ago
  I like the idea. But it is missing something to actually get money out of companies, I think? Because even when there are people in a company that are nominally willing to pay, there is usually so much friction/hassle to actually get money out of a company - that it most often ends up not happening for open source. Unless there is something that "forces" them.
  - kindkang2024 1y ago
    [dead]
  - robmensching 1y ago
    Yeah. My experiences with the OSMF is that companies won't pay for charity, but they will comply with licenses.
codedokode 1y ago
Open source software used to be an implementation of the principles of communism - everyone contributes whatever they can and uses whatever they need, and money is not necessary anymore. It seems that now people are starting to turn to a capitalism?
- robmensching 1y ago
  > everyone contributes whatever they can and uses whatever they need Yeah, Open Source projects don't work like that in reality. It's far more consumers take what they want and demand what is missing.
foxglacier 1y ago
I've always treated WiX as one of those "finished" projects that never needs updating. I'm still using some old version from 10-20 years ago. What could they possibly be still changing? Didn't it just work already?
- robmensching 1y ago
  Well, we've had a few CVEs to work around Windows vulnerabilities, and one of our own making. :( We've also improved the integration with modern Windows build systems. Now adding some features to the language to make it easier to use for simpler installation packages (still more work to do). In this day and age, it's very hard for software to sit idle.
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    Thanks. Perhaps I'd better finally update :)
ojeFyHSWPs 1y ago
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.
ojeFyHSWPs 1y ago
what stops another party to start a wixtoolset-binary project and just distribute the compiled versions?
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Brilliant idea. Source code is frozen in time. Especially as the software world moves faster, software depreciates in value / rots over time. Separately and equally importantly, depending on the use, the same source code can be a fun hobby or be the centerpiece of a giant business. This model lets open source flourish while reflecting those realities. From what I see, a business has the option of using the software without paying - they of course wouldn’t get maintenance. They could keep people on staff supporting it or just get support this way - and this way is far cheaper. Let’s see how it plays out! Could become industry standard.
auggierose 1y ago
So how does this play out for large companies? Let's say Alphabet, they pay $60 once per month, no many how many of their developers use the product? Probably large companies should introduce some sort of registry to keep track of this.
- robmensching 1y ago
  This is something companies track. Honestly, tracking payments is one of the most important tasks for the procurement teams in a company. They have tools and if the OSMF becomes common, it'll be standard practices for them too.
wosined 1y ago
So what guarantees I get as a consumer of this product? Since I'm paying for it, then all the consumer protection laws should apply and in case of a faulty product I can sue. Is that not the case?
agent327 1y ago
I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using. So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay, if there are multiple maintainers? etc. So far I've come up with "goodwill" and "responsible citizenship" (i.e. maintain the ecosystem that sustains you), and I'm drawing a blank on that last question...
- speerer 1y ago
  For me the most compelling argument here is that you are paying to continue to rely on the stated assumption. It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.
- vehemenz 1y ago
  Some open source projects have paid benefits for donors, like a private chat and/or issue tracker. Combine that with a very basic EULA/SLA, and it becomes nore easily justifiable as a business expense.
- huem0n 1y ago
  I think this could help lead to the corporate change you're hoping for.
- robmensching 1y ago
  I 100% agree with you, and I applaud your efforts. However, my experience is that procurement teams will not pay unless they are required to. Once they are required to, that's what they do. Charity, good will, and responsible citizenship are not arguments to move a procurement team. But legal... the legal team is very effective at moving the procurement team.
aetherspawn 1y ago
I’m sorry but I can’t help to hate it. It feels like the start of a kind of capitalist cancer, eating its way through the ecosystem, taking away the freedom of maintainers and turning them into slaves for maintenance fee-payers, and eventually goodware into crapware. How can one simultaneously be paid for maintenance and also be free of liability? And should someone forking an open source project now be treated as a criminal for interrupting someone’s livelihood? Finally, it feels that paying a recurring subscription is against the ethos of the “open source forefathers” so to speak. Open source software originated from a world where we paid once for software, like DVDs, not like Netflix. And I would have hoped the world has realised this was a bad idea and is trying to circle back, not undo the path backwards.
threemux 1y ago
Hah - Legal at my company wouldn't respond to this by forcing us to pay. They'd take one look at that bizarre EULA and tell us to stop using the product entirely. I suspect this is what will happen in most cases. Perhaps that's fine in the eyes of the maintainers! But I say this every time someone says they want to restrict commercial use while still being Open Source: just slap AGPL on it. It's radioactive to enterprises; I've never worked anywhere that allowed us to use AGPL code in commercial products. Then, charge for a commercial license.
- robmensching 1y ago
  This hasn't been the case as of yet. We've had many large companies just pay the sponsorship. Honestly, the problem is not the EULA, it's the need for more flexibility in invoicing than GitHub Sponsors provides today. To say it another way, legal is cool with it, the challenge now is making it easy for procurement.
  - threemux 1y ago
    Honest question: how would you know if companies stopped using the product as a result of this change? Presumably the only ones you'd hear from are ones that managed to get through the process far enough to complain about procurement (which is definitely another issue, pretty sure GitHub Sponsors doesn't do net 60...)
    - AndyNemmity 1y ago
      right, we wouldn't mention it at all. no way legal would approve it, so we'd just move to something else.
      - robmensching 1y ago
        Legal in many companies of different sizes, from Microsoft to tiny ones, have all evaluated and approved of the OSMF EULA. Now, it's fine if someone says I don't want to deal with the EULA. But, in that case, my project didn't mean that much to them in the first place. I'm listening to concerns and adapting. As noted above, so far, it's gone very well.

356 points by AndrewDucker 1y ago

This has nothing to do with Wix, the platform for building websites. It's about "WiX Toolset" - https://wixtoolset.org/ https://wixtoolset.org/

thinkmassive 1y ago
> The most powerful set of tools available to create your Windows installation experience. Open Source since 2004!
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  Funny enough, I came across WiX the other day when I was looking into windows installers like msix, nsis, etc. Eventually settled on self-contained exe (and it's only 1.4 mb, woo!) but seeing the name wix took me back, I vaguely remembered it from around 2005 or so when I was first trying to make "real" windows programs (as opposed to visual basic ones). Took 20 years, but I finally did it, and written entirely in C, too! Anyway yeah, different wix than the popular one. Tom, you may want to rename this post.
- digianarchist 1y ago
  It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows. I've had the displeasure of using Wix and it's an incredibly complicated and poorly documented platform that had us reaching for paid competitors in order to get our installer shipped. I realized shortly after that it's not really Wix's fault. Windows is squarely to blame for the mess that is writing a workable Windows installer. The paid competitors had a lot of the same issues as the open source frameworks.
  - tempodox 1y ago
    > Microsoft aren't heavily involved Be glad of that. Anything where Microsoft aren't involved is a plus. Microsoft is one of those things you don't want to depend on.
  - jhot 1y ago
    I've been out of the windows world for about 10 years or so, but before that I was the one tasked at my company with streamlining our installers from a CI/CD perspective. I do agree that WiX is complicated and you really have to dig through the docs and do a lot of trial and error, but at the time I couldn't find any alternatives that allowed for the automation that I could achieve with WiX. That said it was still somewhat ugly: msbuild the application, potentially copy in some dll's that weren't included in the output, use WiX's "heat" tool to generate installer files from the build output, use a xslt to transform that output to match how we installed shared libraries and such, build the installer with generated files, run automated ui tests and filesystem validations. At the time installshield, advanced installer, and a few other tools I tried did not have the same flexibility to generate installers and automatically pick up file changes like WiX (without opening up a UI). I'm so glad I haven't had to think about the nightmare that is MSI in over a decade.
    - robmensching 1y ago
      Yeah, the build system integration was always one of the core benefits provided by the WiX Toolset. I know you're not working with MSI any longer, but in recent versions of WiX Toolset we _finally_ nailed down how to include files in the .wxs file using the new `Files` element in a way that wouldn't break other MSI features (like patching).
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    > It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows. The history of WiX is that it started internally at Microsoft. IIRC it was a project under the Office organization originally. It's generally considered the first big open source success of Microsoft in spinning a project out to open source community ownership and paved the way for almost every later open source project at Microsoft. I've got a feeling Microsoft doesn't want to support it anymore because they see it as completely legacy today. WiX is one of the better/cheaper/harder ways to build an old school MSI file. MSI installers are an ancient archive format (the old CAB format) wrapping an ancient and dying DB format (the old JET database engine) and a lot of the complexity of the WiX toolkit is just a reflection of the complex legacy of the old terrible MSI output format. Today Microsoft suggests using MSIX which looks a lot more directly like the better/simpler input to a (well crafted greenfield) WiX project, it's a plain ZIP file with XML metadata.
- msgodel 1y ago
  Oh I remember these guys! One of my first internship projects was modifying a wix installer for some internal corporate software.
joshgachnang 1y ago
Ahh, thank you! I assumed it was Wix. They produce a ton of really high quality React Native libraries.
- amelius 1y ago
  Huh, they were talking about https://www.wix.com/ https://www.wix.com/
  - arthens 1y ago
    That's probably what they meant, wix.com does have a bunch of react native libraries on github: https://github.com/orgs/wix/repositories https://github.com/orgs/wix/repositories

lars_francke 1y ago

Not commenting on the substance but on the https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/ https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/ homepage itself. It only works in dark mode and is unreadable in light mode. The repo doesn't allow opening issues. Maybe the author reads here... (long shot)

bstsb 1y ago
you have to pay the fee to submit issues, obviously ;)
- robmensching 1y ago
  Heh, funny. My goal was to funnel questions and comments into a single location: the Discussion forum.
robmensching 1y ago
Oh, snap! That's bad. It's fixed (thanks to a random contributor :)
- lars_francke 1y ago
  Thank you!
deleted 1y ago
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mytailorisrich 1y ago

Not a lawyer so confused about how requiring a fee to get the binary is in practice compatible with open source licenses, which grant the right to redistribute said binary. I.e. even if the project itself does not want to give me a copy of the binary, anyone who has obtained that binary can lawfully gice it to me. Basically, my understanding is that as long as the software is released under an open source license it is not possible to require a payment for its use or to limit distribution. If you wish to do that you need to relicence.

Spivak 1y ago
You can sell open source software and you can charge for binaries and add additional terms on the binaries that restrict distribution. This is how RHEL works. But what you can't do is prevent someone who acquired the source from distributing the source and their own binaries. Which is how Rocky Linux works.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  Thanks, I think this is my answer re. binaries. I suppose it also depends on the original license (I think something like the 3-clause BSD license does not allow restricting binaries, for instance).
woodruffw 1y ago
I think the distinction being made here is between the source code (which is remaining open source) and the binary (which is effectively becoming proprietary). Users would no longer have a right to redistribute the binary, since it would no longer be open source. (To my understanding, this is similar to Microsoft’s “trick” for discouraging VS Code forks: VS Code and many of its core extensions are open source, but their builds are not.)
Cheer2171 1y ago
> license it is not possible to require a payment for its use or to limit distribution Those two are not the same, see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html You can also try to charge $10000 for a gold plated CD copy of the Linux kernel without having committed a line yourself.

scottydelta 1y ago

Looking at the comments, seems it might be a headache to manage this at open source level. The enforcement itself seems to be tough to manage.

robmensching 1y ago
Honestly, thus far it's been a relative breeze. I expected the need to work out "bugs" as the idea is new. My hope is that after we address the bulk of the issues that actual consumers have raised about the OSMF, it'll be relatively trivial for other projects to pick up in the future. Note: A few Open Source projects have already added the OSMF. I've not yet followed up to see how it is going for them.

cyberes 1y ago

I understand why they do this. It's sometimes hard to find motivation for a project when there is no revenue, regardless of amount.

nikanj 1y ago

That ticket was opened in March 2025 with enforcement starting in April 2025. Pretty short notice.

nicman23 1y ago
you could stay in the last version from what i can tell
robmensching 1y ago
The window was definitely smaller than I would consider ideal. But the OSMF only applied to WiX v6 (released in April) and later. So, all the older versions would not be impacted. Also, the timing was never raised as an issue by anyone in the community. If there had been significant pushback, I would have definitely re-evaluated the timing. The launch went really well though.

optymizer 1y ago

Honestly, open source software should come with a price. I think the "starving artist" approach is detrimental long-term. Sure, there is great value in having a free (in both senses) operating system, but at the same time the year of Linux desktop is a running joke. To be blunt, money motivates people to do the work they otherwise would not do. It's soul crushing to run the 400th manual test. It's not sexy to work on a lot of the bugs that affect real users, so, when there's no money in it, the work tends to focus in areas of passion and feature development. Maybe if we all sent $1 to open source projects we use, there'd be enough funding to hire QA people and engineers to fix things like Ubuntu's suspend/resume on my Lenovo laptop, you know?

pixxel 1y ago
[dead]
qwery 1y ago
While I love the idea of a better deal for free and open source software developers, I don't think a sales/transactional model will actually solve the problem at scale. For one thing, it will eat away at the reasons you like open solutions in the first place. If it became normal/expected to pay for open source software, businesses would control a lot more open source software. > when there's no money in it, the work tends to focus in areas of passion and feature development. But when there is money in it, the work tends to focus on quarterly revenue. > funding to hire QA people and engineers to fix things like Ubuntu's suspend/resume on my Lenovo laptop, you know? Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that? Like there must be $1 in each laptop they sell that could have gone towards even documenting the hardware so some nice developer can implement a working driver/whatever. Really, it's not the Ubuntu or Linux people that need to be paid to solve that problem, Lenovo is free to submit a patch whenever the hell they want to, they just don't want to.
- optymizer 1y ago
  > businesses would control a lot more open source software Only because individuals would presumably open LLCs > But when there is money in it, the work tends to focus on quarterly revenue. I don't think the choice is between "John works on this project 11pm - 1am on the days he feels like it" and "John wants to IPO his company". I'm advocating for "John works on this project 3 days of the week because people pay him a small fee for using his project". > Surely the money you gave to Lenovo would cover that? The money I gave to Lenovo went to Microsoft for an OEM license to the pre-installed Windows OS. When I download Ubuntu and install that on my laptop, Lenovo couldn't be bothered to see if closing the lid suspends the laptop or not. Should Lenovo write drivers for my custom kernel as well? As a business, why should Lenovo bother to implement resume capabilities for an OS that is a rounding error for their consumer line of laptops?

deleted 1y ago

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rock_artist 1y ago

I've used WiX for a specific project in my work when I've needed MSI. TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. There are other open-source libraries that has dual-license with some kind of GPL variant and a commercial license. but there's at least some threshold. Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... I'm all in sponsoring open-source and investing in software but part of being sustainable is making it accessible. so maybe that indie developer who used WiX for their indie project ended up going to 100k/year and now can contribute. But if originally it was capped, they might choose other solution that fits the "indie" tight budget better.

coldpie 1y ago
> Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... You can always download the source and build the software yourself, or acquire the binary from another person willing/able to build it. The fee only applies to binary distribution from the project itself, and support from the project.
nathas 1y ago
> Small organization (< 20 people): $10/mo If you went to 100k/year and still a solo dev, that's just 0.12% of your ARR. The percentages here are meaningless; $10/month should be doable for anyone that wants to run a business, even someone solo.
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
>TBH, enforcing maintenance fee for anyone who makes revenue feels unfair. I have terrific news! You can start your own open source project that people use to make money and don't contribute back to. >Imagine indie developer or someone who wants to try and create something but without much revenue (eg 1k / year). so 10% of your revenue goes to the installer of your product... I have terrific news! That indie developer can create their own installer or start their own open source project that others can make money off of and not contribute back to. >I'm all in sponsoring open-source and investing in software but part of being sustainable is making it accessible. I have some bad news here. 99% of people aren't all in on this. We see time and time again that even mission critical open source projects struggle to get people to fund it. The projects that do tend to survive are the ones that build businesses around the project. It's very rare to have an open source project be well funded solely for existing with no business around it. Of course there are exceptions, but that model has failed near completely. That's the reality.

opticfluorine 1y ago

I came across this a few months ago when I was evaluating open source installer options for my own open source project. I have no issue with charging for binaries while the source is available under an OSI license, but this from the README rubbed me the wrong way: "To ensure the long-term sustainability of this project, use of the WiX Toolset requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee. While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee. In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Open Source Maintenance Fee is required." I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just a difficult concept to succinctly explain in a short paragraph. But that summary - that revenue-generating use requires payment - feels misleading to me. Under their license, nothing stops me from creating my own build from source and using it per the terms of the MS-RL license, including for commercial purposes. So to me it feels like a scare tactic to coerce commercial users into becoming sponsors for the project. I certainly understand the challenges faced by open source maintainers today, but the specific approach taken here just doesn't feel ethical to me. I ended up passing on WiX for that reason even though I'm not a commercial user.

maxerickson 1y ago
Isn't it just a clear statement that they aren't going to give commercial users support for free? I know you are saying it isn't clear, but your quote literally includes the statement "While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE".
- opticfluorine 1y ago
  I personally think this last sentence from my quote makes it unclear: "In short, if you use this project to generate revenue, the Open Source Maintenance Fee is required." Perhaps I'm being too semantic, but I don't feel that is an accurate representation of the license terms involved here.
  - Applejinx 1y ago

trjordan 1y ago

I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be: - Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all. - The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue. So even if this doesn't get perfectly enforced (and it won't), that's fine! The maintainers are now free to respond to complaints with "you need to pay us for us to care." Companies that pay get some level of support; hobbyists get the same experience. Only the companies that ignore this warning will see the consequences, and it's particularly effective for reports where the author leans on "but there are a huge number of important users [to me] that are affected." Pay up if it matters! It strikes me as a pretty clean solution to a pretty common strain of open-source headache, _especially_ as AI-generated code/reports/etc. are on the rise.

majkinetor 1y ago
Anybody should be able pay up for the feature/support and it should be closed source until some threshold. That could take years or months depending on the interest/income. Eventually it will become open source. Otherwise, everybody will wait for someone to pay for the thing they want. Obviously this needs to be worked up a bit so not to maintain N forks but it can work.
- samrus 1y ago
  I think thays fine. Thats within the spirit of FOSS. The issue has always been companies demanding fixes because it affects their users, and those companies cant afford to wait. So now they can pay to have the devs spend a bit more time to get their fix out. This works
- robmensching 1y ago
  There are models out there like this. Look around the term "Fair Source" and I think you'll find them.
msgodel 1y ago

Arch-TK 1y ago

It seems like it would be much less complicated to write this/enforce this if they just made you pay a subscription fee for access binaries and the issue tracker. Instead, they've generated an enforcement nightmare by solely relying on an EULA.

coldpie 1y ago
Yeah, though it's tricky because they want to retain free access & support for users who use the project but do not generate revenue.
jerleth 1y ago
The worst part for me is: > Q: How long do I have to pay the fee? > You pay the Maintenance Fee as long as you use the project. What does that even mean? I built one-off apps for small businesses that I never touch again or maybe every 5 years. Okay, at least paying perpetually for something I don't use anymore is out of question but if I open a solution for a fix I have to check all 80 packages what their current license is and pay them for the month? No thank you, I'll rather pay for a commercial solution or use something free with a sane license. With a commercial offering at least it's opt-in when I download a new version. For me that's basically a subscription fee for one-time download.
- chrisandchris 1y ago
  > For me that's basically a subscription fee for one-time download. Not a WiX user, but that's my issue with it too. E.g., AutoMapper, a popular mapping library for .Net recently changed their license from Free to a Subscription. We use it heavily, and may be willing to pay - however: we are still using the same version as of 2 years ago, because there are no new features we care about and there's no need to put in multiple days of work to upgrade "just because". I miss the one-time-payment option for such things.
  - 20k 1y ago
    The problem is, if its one time payment, companies will just leech off of it indefinitely. It'd be great if companies were contributing, but its gotten to the point where you have to assume heavy bad faith from everyone involved

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Can we adjust the title to say Wix Toolset or remove that part altogether?

calibas 1y ago

I thought the license was still owned by Microsoft? https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix?tab=License-1-ov-file#readme https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix?tab=License-1-ov-file#read... Also, the exact wording is: "a EULA on binary releases (including those published to GitHub and NuGet.org) requires payment of the Maintenance Fee" I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that mean that I can compile the code myself to circumvent the Maintenance Fee, and give the binaries away for free?

jsmith99 1y ago
Yes, the repo readme says the code is open source but the fee is required for using the repo's issues and releases features.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
  I'd be surprised if the github EULA allows you to just attach rules to who can click the releases button. For issues and discussion, sure that's essentially moderation. But surely you can't make a EULA that says you can't click on a github provided feature unless you agree to some arbitrary third party's rules.
robmensching 1y ago
The code is owned by the .NET Foundation (long story) not Microsoft. > but doesn't that mean that I can compile the code myself to circumvent the Maintenance Fee, and give the binaries away for free? Yep. Now you are responsible for the ~500K lines of code. Totally allowed by the license. Enjoy your fork! :)

mellosouls 1y ago

Here's the consumers FAQ of the underlying initiative (the Open Source Maintenance fee): https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/consumers/faq/ https://opensourcemaintenancefee.org/consumers/faq/

shthed 1y ago
Do any other projects use this too? Is this just Wix Toolkit?
- robmensching 1y ago
  I have seen some other projects show interest and a few have adopted it. I've not checked in with any of them. The Open Source Maintenance Fee is pretty new, and I've not been promoting it for use by other Open Source projects (yet) because I want to resolve any "OSMF bugs" using my project (WiX Toolset). After the bugs are worked out, then I'll recommend it more widely and we'll see if it catches on then. I've had a number of maintainers express interest and inquire about how it is going.
  - ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
    Some licenses might allow you to distribute binaries with extra restrictions, but the one you chose almost certainly doesn't. >For any file you distribute that contains code from the software (in source code or binary format), you must provide recipients the source code to that file along with a copy of this license, which license will govern that file. So your nuget package and github release would be a binary distribution, what license applies? It's the reciprocal license, not your attempt to attach a maintenance fee for clicking download license. And this clause doubles down >If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license. Your license essentially explicitly disallows you from doing what your trying to do. Will anyone test you for $10/m or just using a competitor? Maybe not. This also goes horribly against the spirit of open source software, if every small package on a Linux distro did this it'd cost tens of thousands at least to even launch the OS. But the attempt to backdoor downloads from a package repository is what I find most heinous here.

guluarte 1y ago

I haven't fully read it yet, but it would be great if GitHub had "bounties" where users could submit an issue/request with a bounty attached.

WorldMaker 1y ago
I think the issue with bounties is that to do a proper bounty program you want a third-party escrow agent that can decide when the issue/request has been addressed sufficiently to warrant paying the bounty. I don't think GitHub wants to be directly in that business as a third-party escrow agent hiring people to review issues/requests versus changelogs, but they probably could find ways to help people find such third-parties in the Sponsors flows.
- stereolambda 1y ago
  Moreso: what if someone fulfils it in a fork.
- Towaway69 1y ago
  What GitHub could enforce is that someone creating an issue is a sponsor. This would then be a checkbox in the settings of the repo “only sponsors can create issues? Yes/no” As I understand it, this is something that the OSMF enforces - not sponsor, no issue creation.

pino82 1y ago

For me, Wix was never truly an OSS project (sure, technically/formally, it is). It's for me just an MS developer workplace in disguise. As MS, it looks nicer and you don't have to support so much. I was wrong and Rob was indeed not an MS employee??

contextfree 1y ago
He started the project while he was still at Microsoft, but since left and continues to work on it independently.

kissgyorgy 1y ago

This sucks out the joy of Open Source development, which is freedom to do anything, change anything and not responsible for anyone else. At the point you require payments, users can have expectations and requests, which turns your project into a job.

wmf 1y ago
In this case the joy was already sucked out a while ago by entitled users.
- robmensching 1y ago
  It sounds like you maintain a successful Open Source project. :)

freeopinion 1y ago

I guess I'm not smart enough to understand [edit: the hype around] this. The license agreement doesn't change? But you don't get support unless you pay the maintenance fee? So if a user reports an exploit, Wix won't fix it unless the reporter pays the maintenance fee first? Or if some corporate user has a great idea for a new feature, Wix will ignore it until a paying user requests it? It seems obvious that this is nonsensical. OSS authors have always been able to pick and choose what PRs they accept or what issues get their attention. They have always been able to charge for support. How is this maintenance fee any kind of innovation? I don't mean this as a criticism of Wix. I think it is awesome that they develop tools with open source licenses. And I think it is perfectly fine for them to charge support fees. Just like it always has been for all open source projects. If a would-be contributor feels locked out, they can fork. This is not a new idea. Obviously, forking is a pretty big commitment that will require financial backing. So any rational party considering forking should also consider paying the author for their attention. Even if you have the pockets of an Amazon, it would probably be better all around to fund the original author than to set up a competing fork. Of course there will be the occasional LibreOffice, io.js, OpenTofu, neovim. If you can actually pull off a split like LibreCAD, more power to you. io.js made its point and made nodejs healthier. This has always been a huge advantage to open source software. You can benefit from the community. You can contribute to the community (code, art, docs, money, ideas, whatever). Kudos to Wix for participating. Best wishes for their future.

CodesInChaos 1y ago
The license of the source code doesn't change. The license of the official binaries (which the official nuget packages contain) did change.

mopsi 1y ago

As harsh as it may sound, the Wix Toolset is such a steaming pile of garbage and waste of everyone's time who have had the misfortune to work with it that their best monetization strategy would be to charge for proper documentation and working examples, instead of playing games like "you can't view issues without paying us". Easily on of the worst pieces of software I've come across. Alternative: https://github.com/oleg-shilo/wixsharp/ https://github.com/oleg-shilo/wixsharp/

thedonkeycometh 1y ago

Open source shouldn't have fees, it's one step away from a subscription

ApolloFortyNine 1y ago

>While the source code is freely available under the terms of the LICENSE, all other aspects of the project--including opening or commenting on issues, participating in discussions and downloading releases--require adherence to the Maintenance Fee. Surprised downloading releases is in there, I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure this goes against it's own license on the source code, specifically: >each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create. At the very least it's confusing, and if anything, comically easy to bypass and literally forces someone to automate a github mirror that builds new releases. Your essentially enforcing the existence of a fork. They even provide the github actions necessary to do so in their repo already...

robmensching 1y ago
Absolutely true, but that isn't what happened (at least, not yet). Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y ago
  >Most companies found the fee reasonable and worth it to have us maintain the project and not have to fork it. You must have incredibly good analytics to know exactly what companies are using your nuget package. Did you embed a phone home?
  - notpushkin 1y ago
    If this is about WiX, I think it’s easy to just spot their installers in the wild.
  - robmensching 1y ago
    I was specifically talking about the companies paying the Fee and the feedback I got from others who don't use the WiX Toolset but understand Open Source and the problems facing maintainers. But it is easy to tell when an installation package is built by the WiX Toolset (or any other tool) when you know where to look.

GnarfGnarf 1y ago

The WiX installer is a byzantine incomprehensible mess. Its only appeal was that it was free. If I have to pay, I'd rather have a commercial product that is supported and easier to use. Rob Mensching was supposed to monetize WiX by offering $5,000/yr enterprise consulting & support services. I guess that's not enough.

Slartie 1y ago
WiX basically lets you directly write the internal data structures used by Windows Installer to run the MSIs. Just in XML instead of some ancient binary database that is used in the MSI files to store things. So the actual "byzantine incomprehensible mess" (which is indeed the correct description) is the MSI format and Windows Installer, not WiX.
- robmensching 1y ago
  I mentioned this in another response: > Our primary goal with the WiX Toolset was to provide access to the full power of the Windows Installer. Given the adoption by extremely large software projects, I think we've done pretty well toward that goal. We're slowly turning our attention to simplifying the toolset to make it easier to use for simpler projects. But that's only been a focus for the last couple of years, so not a lot has come about, yet. But the Files element is a huge upgrade. There is definitely more we can do to make simpler things simpler. :)
robmensching 1y ago
> Its only appeal was that it was free. That was definitely its appeal to people who didn't want to pay anything for setup installation tools. But that definitely wasn't our only appeal or even our primary appeal. The WiX Toolset unlocked access to the Windows Installer in ways no other installation build tool does. If you didn't need that power then there were absolutely a lot of sharp edges and "missing features" to make your life easier. But if you had hard installation problems, those sharp edges were sometimes the weapons you needed to solve the problem. > Rob Mensching was supposed to monetize WiX by offering $5,000/yr enterprise consulting & support services. I don't monetize WiX for $5,000/yr. I monetize my team and my decades of experience building software installation packages of all shapes and sizes. With this "WiX Developer Direct" program from FireGiant (my company), you get monthly office hours directly with me to discuss whatever you want, you get SLAs for answers to tickets and guaranteed bug fixes so that your development team is never blocked. You also get an annual code review of your code by us and access to some high-end tools we develop. It is a high-touch offering and my customers dig it. > I guess that's not enough. That's not the case at all. The XZ Utils incident showed that Open Source sustainability is a huge problem and I was compelled to try to do something to address it. I don't think the Open Source Maintenance Fee is the only solution for sustainability, but I think it's a pretty good one for projects like mine. The WiX Toolset is the first project to adopt it because I need a real project to help work out all of kinks in the OSMF concept. Everything is working very, very well.

constantcrying 1y ago

This is absurd. Seriously, read the EULA: https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix/blob/main/OSMFEULA.txt https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix/blob/main/OSMFEULA.txt This fee only governs the binaries compiled directly by the company. You can "circumvent" this license by building the software yourself, or having someone else build the software. Right now I can click the download button on their github build, what then? They do not even link to to the EULA there, yet the EULA stipulates that this exchange requires me to pay money to them. The github statement stipulates that paying money requires me to first pay the maintenance fee, which is not part of the EULA, why? What is the point. Here is a tip: If you want to make money, make it easy to give you money. Right now any legitimate company has to fear walking into legal troubles with this. Can you imagine how the discussion with accounting is going to go?

robmensching 1y ago
So far the only hard conversations with accounting are how to pay by invoice (since GitHub Sponsors invoice handling is a bit wonky). Those that pay by credit card have pretty universally been, "Oh, this is easy. Done." > You can "circumvent" this license by building the software yourself, or having someone else build the software. Correct. By design. The software is Open Source. That's the whole point.

Splizard 1y ago

If only this was voluntary and automated by an Open Source service provider, so that I only have to pay one monthly fee and all the FOSS that is detected to be in-use on my machine is funded.

robmensching 1y ago
If the OSMF takes off, I could definitely see something like this taking off.

stevage 1y ago

I 100% support this. I wish more open source maintainers would take steps like this sooner rather than feeling stressed and undervalued and burning out. It seems very cheap for what it is.

robmensching 1y ago
Yes! Exactly. You're not alone with this sentiment. :)

kindkang2024 1y ago

Open-source projects often function like a system of charity and honor. The honor goes to the contributors, while the charitable benefits flow to those who can use it to generate revenue. This model works well for both parties and indirectly benefits humanity. However, I personally believe—perhaps naively—that the charity could be directed toward all humans in a more direct and obvious way. For example, when a project is released under a license, businesses that use it to make money would donate a small percentage of their profits—say, 1%—to a global fund: the "Decentralized Universal Kindness Income" (DUKI /dju:ki/). The business behind the main contributors would be exempt from this donation, or could choose a reduced percentage. This gives them an advantage when big companies use their project to compete against them (the reason why Redis changed its license). The benefits are clear. Contributors would receive greater global recognition for their efforts—especially from those outside the tech industry—while businesses that donate would gain access to a wealth of open-source resources (if enough high-quality DUKI-licensed projects exist), also earning respect as a marketing strategy. They would likely gain a competitive advantage compared to those who do not. I've called this concept the “DUKI License.” At its heart, it’s the MIT License with one simple addition: a profit-sharing requirement. Unfortunately, I don’t have the power to market it, and still unsure how it would be received by the very people who steer the open-source world—the project founders and core maintainers

jononor 1y ago
I like the idea. But it is missing something to actually get money out of companies, I think? Because even when there are people in a company that are nominally willing to pay, there is usually so much friction/hassle to actually get money out of a company - that it most often ends up not happening for open source. Unless there is something that "forces" them.
- kindkang2024 1y ago
  [dead]
- robmensching 1y ago
  Yeah. My experiences with the OSMF is that companies won't pay for charity, but they will comply with licenses.

codedokode 1y ago

Open source software used to be an implementation of the principles of communism - everyone contributes whatever they can and uses whatever they need, and money is not necessary anymore. It seems that now people are starting to turn to a capitalism?

robmensching 1y ago
> everyone contributes whatever they can and uses whatever they need Yeah, Open Source projects don't work like that in reality. It's far more consumers take what they want and demand what is missing.

foxglacier 1y ago

I've always treated WiX as one of those "finished" projects that never needs updating. I'm still using some old version from 10-20 years ago. What could they possibly be still changing? Didn't it just work already?

robmensching 1y ago
Well, we've had a few CVEs to work around Windows vulnerabilities, and one of our own making. :( We've also improved the integration with modern Windows build systems. Now adding some features to the language to make it easier to use for simpler installation packages (still more work to do). In this day and age, it's very hard for software to sit idle.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  Thanks. Perhaps I'd better finally update :)

ojeFyHSWPs 1y ago

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

ojeFyHSWPs 1y ago

what stops another party to start a wixtoolset-binary project and just distribute the compiled versions?

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Brilliant idea. Source code is frozen in time. Especially as the software world moves faster, software depreciates in value / rots over time. Separately and equally importantly, depending on the use, the same source code can be a fun hobby or be the centerpiece of a giant business. This model lets open source flourish while reflecting those realities. From what I see, a business has the option of using the software without paying - they of course wouldn’t get maintenance. They could keep people on staff supporting it or just get support this way - and this way is far cheaper. Let’s see how it plays out! Could become industry standard.

auggierose 1y ago

So how does this play out for large companies? Let's say Alphabet, they pay $60 once per month, no many how many of their developers use the product? Probably large companies should introduce some sort of registry to keep track of this.

robmensching 1y ago
This is something companies track. Honestly, tracking payments is one of the most important tasks for the procurement teams in a company. They have tools and if the OSMF becomes common, it'll be standard practices for them too.

wosined 1y ago

So what guarantees I get as a consumer of this product? Since I'm paying for it, then all the consumer protection laws should apply and in case of a faulty product I can sue. Is that not the case?

agent327 1y ago

I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using. So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay, if there are multiple maintainers? etc. So far I've come up with "goodwill" and "responsible citizenship" (i.e. maintain the ecosystem that sustains you), and I'm drawing a blank on that last question...

speerer 1y ago
For me the most compelling argument here is that you are paying to continue to rely on the stated assumption. It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.
vehemenz 1y ago
Some open source projects have paid benefits for donors, like a private chat and/or issue tracker. Combine that with a very basic EULA/SLA, and it becomes nore easily justifiable as a business expense.
huem0n 1y ago
I think this could help lead to the corporate change you're hoping for.
robmensching 1y ago
I 100% agree with you, and I applaud your efforts. However, my experience is that procurement teams will not pay unless they are required to. Once they are required to, that's what they do. Charity, good will, and responsible citizenship are not arguments to move a procurement team. But legal... the legal team is very effective at moving the procurement team.

aetherspawn 1y ago

I’m sorry but I can’t help to hate it. It feels like the start of a kind of capitalist cancer, eating its way through the ecosystem, taking away the freedom of maintainers and turning them into slaves for maintenance fee-payers, and eventually goodware into crapware. How can one simultaneously be paid for maintenance and also be free of liability? And should someone forking an open source project now be treated as a criminal for interrupting someone’s livelihood? Finally, it feels that paying a recurring subscription is against the ethos of the “open source forefathers” so to speak. Open source software originated from a world where we paid once for software, like DVDs, not like Netflix. And I would have hoped the world has realised this was a bad idea and is trying to circle back, not undo the path backwards.

threemux 1y ago

Hah - Legal at my company wouldn't respond to this by forcing us to pay. They'd take one look at that bizarre EULA and tell us to stop using the product entirely. I suspect this is what will happen in most cases. Perhaps that's fine in the eyes of the maintainers! But I say this every time someone says they want to restrict commercial use while still being Open Source: just slap AGPL on it. It's radioactive to enterprises; I've never worked anywhere that allowed us to use AGPL code in commercial products. Then, charge for a commercial license.

robmensching 1y ago
This hasn't been the case as of yet. We've had many large companies just pay the sponsorship. Honestly, the problem is not the EULA, it's the need for more flexibility in invoicing than GitHub Sponsors provides today. To say it another way, legal is cool with it, the challenge now is making it easy for procurement.
- threemux 1y ago
  Honest question: how would you know if companies stopped using the product as a result of this change? Presumably the only ones you'd hear from are ones that managed to get through the process far enough to complain about procurement (which is definitely another issue, pretty sure GitHub Sponsors doesn't do net 60...)
  - AndyNemmity 1y ago
    right, we wouldn't mention it at all. no way legal would approve it, so we'd just move to something else.
    - robmensching 1y ago
      Legal in many companies of different sizes, from Microsoft to tiny ones, have all evaluated and approved of the OSMF EULA. Now, it's fine if someone says I don't want to deal with the EULA. But, in that case, my project didn't mean that much to them in the first place. I'm listening to concerns and adapting. As noted above, so far, it's gone very well.