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I care that software I depend upon survives long term. In consequence, I care to some extent that the principal company or organization building that software a

I care that software I depend upon survives long term. In consequence, I care to some extent that the principal company or organization building that software also survives... But that finite concern is balanced against the simultaneous concern that the software itself can survive the organization's potential dissolution. I don't want to have to make a sudden, stressful, expensive migration because corporate buy-outs, bankruptcies, or mergers result in rug-pulls for software I use. "Fair" source does absolutely nothing to allievate those concerns. The four software freedoms do. It is true that for a quarter century software developers have naively licensed their projects under MIT and BSD style permissive licenses, and have then felt robbed when big companies come in and eat their lunch. Except it was never their lunch because they didn't actually use licenses that would have asserted their rights to that lunch. Thankfully, that naivete is finally, slowly dying but, rather than use robust solutions that have been around for decades (e.g. GPL-or-AGPL/proprietary dual license), some developers have invented a new, largely untested concept and named it by dressing up their own sour grapes and spite as "fairness". "Fair" source software is a non-solution in search of a problem. Free software and strong copyleft licenses already exist. Dual-licensing already exists. Viable, profitable, healthy, ethical companies built on these strategies already exist. I used to think Stallman was a crank and a fundamentalist, and he absolutely is, and thank goodness for that. I now think "open-source" is exactly as diluted as free software advocates initially pointed out, and the emergence of "fair" source is part of the damage it has done.

j1elo 1y ago
Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users. So Fair fullfills an actual need or desire not covered elsewhere, thus is not a non-solution. It might be not the appropriate or the best solution to solve the exact concerns of people using it, that's debatable and a different topic, akin to using the wrong tool for the job. Strong copyleft is the wrong tool, too; obviously competitors can just deploy without modifications and offer it as a service.
- sfRattan 1y ago
  > Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users. This is a one-sided assertion of fairness, and therefore an abuse of the concept. Free software offers the same rights to both authors and users. That is fairness. If you want to reserve rights to yourself that are withheld from end-users, that's fine. Arguably even still within a broader conceptual realm of fairness. But naming your personally preferred arrangement of rights "fair" and in so doing implying most or all other arrangements are unfair is just plain arrogant. Strong copyleft cares equally about authors and end-users. It doesn't disregard authors. Some authors just want to co-opt the general notion of fairness to mean their own licensing preferences. Call it a non-compete license and be forthright.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- jtrn 1y ago
  Allow me to try a analogy. You and sfRattan rightfully pointing to a disease (large cloud providers using true free software to make money without contributing back). But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing), that has been available for decades. The rise of "fair source" is both as sign of "market panic" and just "marketing". It does not seem to be necessary or good evolution for software freedom. That was HIGHLY abstract... So much so that I am not sure it maps onto reality, but I at least think this is a valid concern.
  - morcus 1y ago
    > But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing) Can you explain this a bit more? I don't understand how this is true. AFAIK AGPL only prevents someone from modifying your AGPL codebase without sharing that in turn, but if they're content to offer exactly the service you're offering without modification it's not an issue. See for example Grafana, which is distributed under the AGPL but still has to handle competition from AWS and Azure that have managed Grafana offerings.
rixed 1y ago
> I care that software I depend upon survives long term. > "Fair" source does absolutely nothing to allievate those concerns. Of course it does ! Git clone, problem solved. I'm all in favor of free software, but it sounds a bit disingenuous to pretend that the GPL or even, to a lesser extent, the Affero variant, are providing a safe haven for sustainable software. The reality is, sadly, that free software depends on the good will of very few idealistic people who manage to somehow make a living while spending a lot of time on working for free ; and i must know since I've been lucky to be able to do this most of my life. This is no guaranteed survival or innovation. While I believe it's very useful to remind users of the freedom they should ask for, I don't think it's useful to oppose free software with fair source, exactly like in the past it was important to remind users of the differences between free software and open source, yet it was counter productive to oppose them.
- sfRattan 1y ago
  > Git clone, problem solved. What a myopic assumption. Availability of source code doesn't solve the legal problems that can arise in the wake corporate restructuring, as new owners work to impede forking and continuing a project outside their control. Continuing a project in the wake of total organizational failure or capture means setting up legal entities to replace the broken/subverted ones. That's a problem separate from "is the code out there on the Internet for me to download?" In comparison to the GPL and AGPL, "fair" source licenses are at best hastily drawn. They certainly do not have decades of accrued favorable legal precedent. They are often short and ambiguous because their authors have not imagined half the use cases they might potentially forbid in the name of "fairness". All these qualities are miasmal to long term project stability.
  - rixed 1y ago
    In practice, what matters is that indeed the code is available in a form that makes it modifiable and that machines are available to run it on. Oracle and its hordes of malignant lawyers tried, and almost succeeded, to make this illegal with Java but thanksfully failed. Why would I need to set up "legal entities" to enjoy my freedom as a user of open source software, unless I'm trying to start a competing business? It's unclear to me what you have in mind. Please explain like I'm a myopic person.
jtrn 1y ago
Are you me? That was so scarily close to how I think about this that I could have thought I wrote it myself. Except you know a more about licenses :P Well written. Thanks. Edit: I would also add that, based on the specific software/business, the problem with "rug-pulling," as described by another user here, is a real thing. I think that the reason Obsidian doesn't get hate, while being closed source, is that they are at least predictable and honest about their strategy. Their pricing is fair, and development and business plans are openly communicated. It's silly to be angry at a firm for wanting to be closed source, but if they start out pretending to be fully open source and community-motivated, while receiving lots of coding contributions, then suddenly do a rug-pull by removing features from the community edition and paywalling all important features, that is something a lot of us are going to be annoyed by.
- sfRattan 1y ago
  You're welcome! :) > It's silly to be angry at a firm for wanting to be closed source, but if they start out pretending to be fully open source and community-motivated, while receiving lots of coding contributions, then suddenly do a rug-pull by removing features from the community edition and paywalling all important features, that is something a lot of us are going to be annoyed by. Indeed, and that is why assessing the long term viability of an open-source or free software project means looking at multiple variables. This thread has mostly been about licenses, but there's also literal distribution of ownership... Both ownership of copyright and of corporation. Is the code's copyright owned by the company and does the company only accept contributions with a contributor license agreement that transfers copyright to itself? Potential red flag. They're keeping the door open for an attempt to rug-pull, but they also might just be trying to do business via dual licensing. Is the code's copyright owned by too many people to ever feasibly relicense? Green flag, as long as a healthy foundation exists to keep things on track (e.g. Blender Foundation or The Document Foundation). Is the company publicly traded or has it accepted large amounts of investment? Red flag. Those investors will demand a rug-pull the moment the lines on their sacred monthly and quarterly graphs stop going up. Is the company closely held by a few people? Potential green flag, depending on the people.

j1elo 1y ago

Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users. So Fair fullfills an actual need or desire not covered elsewhere, thus is not a non-solution. It might be not the appropriate or the best solution to solve the exact concerns of people using it, that's debatable and a different topic, akin to using the wrong tool for the job. Strong copyleft is the wrong tool, too; obviously competitors can just deploy without modifications and offer it as a service.

sfRattan 1y ago
> Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users. This is a one-sided assertion of fairness, and therefore an abuse of the concept. Free software offers the same rights to both authors and users. That is fairness. If you want to reserve rights to yourself that are withheld from end-users, that's fine. Arguably even still within a broader conceptual realm of fairness. But naming your personally preferred arrangement of rights "fair" and in so doing implying most or all other arrangements are unfair is just plain arrogant. Strong copyleft cares equally about authors and end-users. It doesn't disregard authors. Some authors just want to co-opt the general notion of fairness to mean their own licensing preferences. Call it a non-compete license and be forthright.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jtrn 1y ago
Allow me to try a analogy. You and sfRattan rightfully pointing to a disease (large cloud providers using true free software to make money without contributing back). But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing), that has been available for decades. The rise of "fair source" is both as sign of "market panic" and just "marketing". It does not seem to be necessary or good evolution for software freedom. That was HIGHLY abstract... So much so that I am not sure it maps onto reality, but I at least think this is a valid concern.
- morcus 1y ago
  > But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing) Can you explain this a bit more? I don't understand how this is true. AFAIK AGPL only prevents someone from modifying your AGPL codebase without sharing that in turn, but if they're content to offer exactly the service you're offering without modification it's not an issue. See for example Grafana, which is distributed under the AGPL but still has to handle competition from AWS and Azure that have managed Grafana offerings.

rixed 1y ago

> I care that software I depend upon survives long term. > "Fair" source does absolutely nothing to allievate those concerns. Of course it does ! Git clone, problem solved. I'm all in favor of free software, but it sounds a bit disingenuous to pretend that the GPL or even, to a lesser extent, the Affero variant, are providing a safe haven for sustainable software. The reality is, sadly, that free software depends on the good will of very few idealistic people who manage to somehow make a living while spending a lot of time on working for free ; and i must know since I've been lucky to be able to do this most of my life. This is no guaranteed survival or innovation. While I believe it's very useful to remind users of the freedom they should ask for, I don't think it's useful to oppose free software with fair source, exactly like in the past it was important to remind users of the differences between free software and open source, yet it was counter productive to oppose them.

sfRattan 1y ago
> Git clone, problem solved. What a myopic assumption. Availability of source code doesn't solve the legal problems that can arise in the wake corporate restructuring, as new owners work to impede forking and continuing a project outside their control. Continuing a project in the wake of total organizational failure or capture means setting up legal entities to replace the broken/subverted ones. That's a problem separate from "is the code out there on the Internet for me to download?" In comparison to the GPL and AGPL, "fair" source licenses are at best hastily drawn. They certainly do not have decades of accrued favorable legal precedent. They are often short and ambiguous because their authors have not imagined half the use cases they might potentially forbid in the name of "fairness". All these qualities are miasmal to long term project stability.
- rixed 1y ago
  In practice, what matters is that indeed the code is available in a form that makes it modifiable and that machines are available to run it on. Oracle and its hordes of malignant lawyers tried, and almost succeeded, to make this illegal with Java but thanksfully failed. Why would I need to set up "legal entities" to enjoy my freedom as a user of open source software, unless I'm trying to start a competing business? It's unclear to me what you have in mind. Please explain like I'm a myopic person.

jtrn 1y ago

Are you me? That was so scarily close to how I think about this that I could have thought I wrote it myself. Except you know a more about licenses :P Well written. Thanks. Edit: I would also add that, based on the specific software/business, the problem with "rug-pulling," as described by another user here, is a real thing. I think that the reason Obsidian doesn't get hate, while being closed source, is that they are at least predictable and honest about their strategy. Their pricing is fair, and development and business plans are openly communicated. It's silly to be angry at a firm for wanting to be closed source, but if they start out pretending to be fully open source and community-motivated, while receiving lots of coding contributions, then suddenly do a rug-pull by removing features from the community edition and paywalling all important features, that is something a lot of us are going to be annoyed by.

sfRattan 1y ago
You're welcome! :) > It's silly to be angry at a firm for wanting to be closed source, but if they start out pretending to be fully open source and community-motivated, while receiving lots of coding contributions, then suddenly do a rug-pull by removing features from the community edition and paywalling all important features, that is something a lot of us are going to be annoyed by. Indeed, and that is why assessing the long term viability of an open-source or free software project means looking at multiple variables. This thread has mostly been about licenses, but there's also literal distribution of ownership... Both ownership of copyright and of corporation. Is the code's copyright owned by the company and does the company only accept contributions with a contributor license agreement that transfers copyright to itself? Potential red flag. They're keeping the door open for an attempt to rug-pull, but they also might just be trying to do business via dual licensing. Is the code's copyright owned by too many people to ever feasibly relicense? Green flag, as long as a healthy foundation exists to keep things on track (e.g. Blender Foundation or The Document Foundation). Is the company publicly traded or has it accepted large amounts of investment? Red flag. Those investors will demand a rug-pull the moment the lines on their sacred monthly and quarterly graphs stop going up. Is the company closely held by a few people? Potential green flag, depending on the people.