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Big tech companies (the money behind the Open Source Initiative) have done a few things. 1. They co-opted the free software movement and made it more business

Big tech companies (the money behind the Open Source Initiative) have done a few things. 1. They co-opted the free software movement and made it more business friendly. 2. They convinced people that Open Source is pure and software that isn’t Open Source is unclean. 3. They convinced a bunch of developers that their definition of Open Source that was specifically crafted to protect business interests is canon. 4. They convinced a well meaning subset of those developers to police the other devs and pressure them to release their software under big tech approved licenses.

thedevilslawyer 1y ago
Or you know, like, the 4 freedoms matter?
- sarchertech 1y ago
  This was the original 1986 definition of “free software”. ‘The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.’ Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then.
  - cube00 1y ago
    The conglomerates can also host it on their extensive cloud infra at a price small competitors will never be able to match because they own the cloud infrastructure too. Somehow the service+infra is the same cost or cheaper then buying the infra alone and trying to deploy the open source version to it.
  - jrochkind1 1y ago
    I don't know, they were focused on freedom for users not for vendors/programmers. I think it's very intentional that a restriction on what you can do with software -- including reselling it -- is a violation of the "four freedoms" -- freedoms for what someone can do with software, including redistribute it or use it for any purpose they want (including reselling it). These licenses meant to prohibit users from using the software in ways that harm the business interests of the programmers -- I am confident the original creators of free software four freedoms would agree they are not free software. It is very intentional that they were saying the freedom of users to do what they want with software should not be limited for the convenience of the business interests of those who wrote the software.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      The 4 freedoms came later. The above definition predates them. There’s nothing in that definition that makes me think anyone was thinking of anything beyond community created software, distributed by the community. This license isn’t about users. If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. This license in particular isn’t my favorite, but I’m totally fine in theory with licenses that attempt to patch loopholes exploited by bad actors.
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        > If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. In the Free Software community, this line was always blurry, almost non-existent even. Even if the receiver of the Free Software package is not a programmer by any definition, at worst case, they can ask for a friend to patch something up, and if another friend wanted his patched version, the modified source code has to move with the software package. Open Source software can block even this simple pathway by not giving back the modified source from friend to the user, creating a dependency. It'd be heartless to do this between two friends, but companies will happily do that. My most vivid example of this is SDKs for hardware. Half of the API is open, but the patched version of the (open source) libraries cost $2K+, several NDAs and allegiance to company for the rest of your life or you can be sent to a concentration camp operated by an alliance of companies doing the same thing. ...and this is just for a small biometric scanner you happen to find in a piece of 10 year old discarded tech.
      - ants_everywhere 1y ago
        > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
        1y ago
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    I try to remember this and remind to others while chatting: - Open Source software is about developer freedom. - Free Software is about user freedom. I'm for the latter, strongly.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - blibble 1y ago
    > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. this is absolutely right, and the OSI has been successfully captured by these companies would RedHat be able survive to IPO these days? I very much doubt it (see: Oracle Linux) a new term is needed, "Open Source" is no longer fit for purpose in a world where the hyperscalers exist "Fair Source"?
  - Qwuke 1y ago
    "First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you" I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. So, even under this definition it is not free or open source. The GNU Project and Richard Stallman, who made this statement, would agree that it's not free under even this earliest definition. They in-fact made it even clearer when they defined freedom of "use" as the distinct 0th freedom eventually to make it even clearer that being able to use the software freely is fundamental to their idea of freedom. Again, freedom isn't about price, it's about usage, availability, redistribution and lack of restrictions on this. I cannot freely redistribute FSL licensed code under the original definition of free software. "Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then." Yes, the GNU project were acutely aware of this and designed the GPL licenses around such scenarios - they just didn't design it for SaaS businesses, where if you redistribute the built program externally after modifying it but only distributed its responses over a network, you technically weren't obligated to open source that modification. AGPL resolved this issue, and has more case law behind it than this 2 year old license, and has certainly less daunting implications than a not legally well defined 'competing purpose'. Wrt to the legal concerns with AGPL, they're not actually that it wouldn't provide any protection, but rather that it might offer the originally distributing entity too much power: legal power to declare all software used in the stack to produce a network request MUST be made source available. I have not seen any lawyer concerned with whether or not Amazon would be able to bypass its protections, and the license was made by lawyers to clearly provide protection. Did you create this legal theory yourself? Because I've not seen any writing from a lawyer on the internet that suggests that Amazon could firewall themselves off in a friendly jurisdiction under any reading of the license, and I read a lot of AGPL lawyerblogging. Sentry, the company who created FSL, even states that this license restricts user freedom explicitly - for the sake of the business interests of the original developer. So summing up.. Richard Stallman, the FSF, the GNU Project, the OSI, the creators of the FSL, the company now currently using FSL, all agree that this source available license does not meet the definition of "free software". So, whose definition are we using out of thin air?
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      >I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. You’re free to distribute it to your neighbors for free for any purpose. You’re free to distribute it for a fee for almost any purpose save one. You just can’t commercialize it as a competing product. “Source available” again calling this source available is disingenuous. You’re deliberating using the least free term that is technically accurate. This isn’t my favorite license, but it provides a lot more freedoms than merely looking at the source code. With respect to AGPL providing “too much control”. That is a valid and likely reason for courts to find it unenforceable.
  - sneak 1y ago
    > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. That's not a bug, that's a feature. Freedom 0 applies to everyone. Giving a gift does not confer an obligation, and "contributing back" is meaningless in this context. Someone using a gift you gave them to run a business does not harm you in any way whatsoever.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      If it was merely about “giving a gift” with no obligations or restrictions there should be no open source licenses. Everything would just be released into the public domain. Free software has never been about giving gifts with no obligations.
      - sneak 1y ago
        Public domain is indeed an open source “license”. It’s what I release all of my code under (via the WTFPL).
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      This is implying that free software is a 'gift'. It's not, it is an exchange. You gain the ability to use the library or program in exchange for releasing your changes and modifications. Well, unless it's MIT licensed, in which case you're kind of a sucker and it all but _is_ a gift to Big Tech.
      - sneak 1y ago
        Copyleft is not congruent and coterminous with free software. There is plenty of FOSS that is not copyleft.
DetroitThrow 1y ago
So you have qualms about OSI co-opting free software movement Then defend a source available license designed by a company that describes the license as intended for prioritizing business needs over user freedom and used, and is often brought out when businesses decide to switch a more available license to one that restricts commercial activity, co-opting public contributions that would otherwise never happened INSTEAD of promoting copyleft licenses such as AGPL, seems a bit odd. We care about freedom, in every use case.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  I don’t think calling it “source available” is being honest. It looks like you’re free to modify and distribute it all you want so long as you aren’t pulling an Amazon. AGPL isn’t battle tested enough for me to be confident it will protect against big tech doing big tech things like spinning off a separate company in Ireland to firewall AGPL software.
  - hoistbypetard 1y ago
    > AGPL isn’t battle tested enough for me to be confident it will protect against big tech doing big tech things like spinning off a separate company in Ireland to firewall AGPL software. What does it matter if they do? The point of the AGPL is that if you make a version available to users over the network, either you release the source to your version or you can't use it. That subsidiary could still be made to release the source or stop using it. Wouldn't that be "mission accomplished?"
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      Not exactly. If you're not modifying your version you don't need to make the source available to server users. So if you contract out the modifications, and they only give the source to you, and you give the source to nobody... I don't know if that scheme would work but I think "not battle tested enough" is valid. Also there's some weirdness in how the availability requirement applies at the time of editing that gives me questions, but I'm far from an expert there.
jraph 1y ago
The open source initiative was initially about hiding the political and philosophical aspects behind the free software movement (that's the second part of your (1)). (hence the "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" essay [1]). With some benefit of the doubt, one could imagine that it was a well-meaning move to make companies do free software so we could all enjoy the freedom it gives, without them feeling they are doing dirty politics. This hasn't worked out: programs targeting end users are still proprietary for the most part. I'm not sure what's bad about 2. What's quite bad however IMHO is the push to use permissive licenses and the anti (A)GPL FUD that these big tech companies spread. Of course it is very convenient to them that every library under the sun is under MIT or BSD, so they can built proprietary software more efficiently. Note: the OSI recognizes the AGPL as an open source license so at least the set of "big tech approved licenses" is not the same set as the OSI approved licenses. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
- sarchertech 1y ago
  Many “big” companies would rather not bother with GPL, but the biggest tech companies don’t care when it comes to repackaging and reselling it as a service. AGPL hasn’t been thoroughly tested in the courts, so it’s unclear how much protection it offers. It’s not beyond someone like Amazon to setup a new company just firewall off AGPL software.
  - jraph 1y ago
    > but the biggest tech companies don’t care when it comes to repackaging and reselling it as a service. If I'm not mistaken, Apple would rather avoid touching anything GPLv3 with a ten foot pole. They are among the biggest tech companies in my mind. Anybody seems fine with GPLv2 though. But GPL is less convenient than permissive licenses. Of course, you can still indeed build services with GPL software without redistributing the modifications, which is the point of the AGPL. > It’s not beyond someone like Amazon to setup a new company just firewall off AGPL software. I suppose so. However, this would work as intended: the Amazon firewall company would need to redistribute the improvements. Also, do you have examples of this happening? (not arguing, actually genuinely curious)
gdwatson 1y ago
“They convinced a bunch of developers that their definition of Open Source that was specifically crafted to protect business interests is canon.” They adopted the existing Debian Free Software Guidelines as the Open Source Definition. The DFSG are good, actually, and represent an important community consensus outside the FSF.
- jraph 1y ago
  The DFSG and the OSD are the same text, but the OSI and the Debian project interpret it differently, and this difference is important. Debian (and most other distributions, btw), for the most part (or entirely, I suppose), agrees with the FSF / the GNU project when deciding which license is free or non free. The OSI has a more permissive interpretation. RMS speaks about that in a recent interview in French [1], English translation below: > La FSF a financé Debian à son commencement. Mais rapidement, le projet, qui comptait plus de contributeurs, a voulu formuler une définition de la liberté différente, avec l’intention d’être équivalente. > À l’époque, j’ai commis une erreur : j’aurais dû vérifier plus attentivement s’il pouvait y avoir des divergences d’interprétation entre le projet GNU et Debian. La définition me paraissait équivalente, même si elle était formulée autrement. J’ai dit : “C’est bon.” Mais en réalité, il y avait des problèmes potentiels. > Plus tard, quand l’open source a émergé, ils ont repris la définition de Debian, je ne sais plus s'il ont changé quelques mots mais ils ont surtout changé l’interprétation. Dès lors, elle n’était plus équivalente à celle du logiciel libre. Il existe aujourd’hui des programmes considérés comme “open source” mais pas comme logiciels libres, et inversement. > J’ai d’ailleurs expliqué ces différences dans mon essai Open Source Misses the Point. English translation (not a native English speaker, I hope the translation is ok, especially considering that RMS is close to his words and it's probably easy to misrepresent him without noticing): > The FSF funded Debian at its beginnings. But rapidly, the project, gaining more contributors, wanted a different phrasing for the definition of freedom, which the intent of being equivalent. > Back then, I made a mistake: I should have checked more carefully if there could be different ways to interpret it between the GNU and the Debian projects. The definition seemed equivalent to me, even if it was phrased differently. I said: "OK". But in reality, there were potential issues. > Later, when Open Source surfaced, they took Debian's definition, I don't know if they changed a few words but they above all changed the interpretation. Since then, it was not equivalent to the free software definition anymore. There exist open source software that's not free software, and conversely. > By the way, I explain all this in my Open Source Misses the Point essay. [1] https://linuxfr.org/news/40-ans-pour-l-informatique-libre-entretien-avec-richard-stallman https://linuxfr.org/news/40-ans-pour-l-informatique-libre-en...
matheusmoreira 1y ago
Truly one of the biggest wealth transfers in history. From well meaning developers straight into the pockets of corporations. https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.com/essays/why_i_gpl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co... > Why I (A/L)GPL > Open source to open source, corporation to corporation. > If you do open source, you’re my hero and I support you. > If you’re a corporation, let’s talk business. > I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made. > Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars. https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/ https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/ > To the Beggar Baron, open source's value is its free donation. > You would never stand on the street and offer to buy the wallets off people who are about to donate a few dollars to you. That'd be stupid. > They're giving you their money for free. Take it and run. Always slap AGPLv3 onto everything you make. Always choose the most copyleft license imaginable. Permissive licenses yield zero leverage. It's either AGPLv3 or all rights reserved. Nothing else makes sense.
- hylaride 1y ago
  If AGPLv3 was slapped onto everything back then, the likelihood of linux/open source being where it is today would be an order of magnitude less. A good chunk of the original windows TCP/IP stack was ripped from BSD licensed code. Had that not have been "easy" for Microsoft to take, the internet may not have developed the way it did and we'd all maybe be on proprietary networks like AOL/MSN/etc. The solution isn't always swinging super-far in the other direction. That being said, commercially supported OS software has essentially become shareware - just enough to get you hooked, and then the price jump is enormous.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    That sounds lovely, actually. Before Microsoft added TCP/IP to Windows, there were third party ports of the BSD TCP/IP stack to Windows. The winner ended up being Trumpet Winsock, until Microsoft wisely used the same winsock API for their own implementation and embraced and extinguished. Those ports would still have occurred even if the BSD TCP/IP stack was GPL'd.
ants_everywhere 1y ago
Liquibase is also not free software. Most of these non-open-source licenses aren't free software. I'm not aware of any exceptions, but I'd be happy to see some examples if there are any. The rest of your comment mainly seems to be a mixed bag of rhetoric. It obscures the reality that Liquibase is, to modify your words, "co-opting the" open source movement to make it "more business friendly."
- sarchertech 1y ago
  I don’t love their license. But I think that a license that says you aren’t free to redistribute this software or it’s derivatives for a fee (including by letting users use it over a network) if you’re a corporation making over $1 billion a year in revenue is perfectly compatible with the original intent of free software. The freedoms were about freedom for the user not a non user developer.
  - ants_everywhere 1y ago
    > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      Those comments came later. Also making copies and selling them along with the source code is much different than the SaaS model that RMS didn’t predict.
      - ants_everywhere 1y ago
        If you think that the explicit reminder that free software allows selling is inconsistent with the original definition, then I think the onus is on you to prove that inconsistency. So far I read your comments as giving a sort of argument from silence that commercial transactions weren't explicitly mentioned in the earliest versions together with a gut feeling that your view is the same as theirs. The original 1986 definition, which I see you referring to elsewhere, came from a news letter that's available here: https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt The news letter itself cost $1. And it also includes an order form charging $150 for Emacs ($443.40 in 2025 dollars). The tape and the manual come to $487.74 in 2025 dollars. The issue with SaaS is loss of the freedoms, not that vendors charge money. Free Software was never about forcing organizations to break even or operate at a loss. If you believe that's inherent to the original definition then I think you'd have to present a clearer argument for that position. Free Software Foundation Order Form February 6, 1986 All software and publications are distributed with a permission to copy and redistribute. Quantity Price Item ________ $150 GNU Emacs source code, on a 1600bpi industry standard mag tape in tar format. The tape also contains MIT Scheme (a dialect of Lisp), hack (a rogue-like game) and bison (a compatible replacement for yacc). ________ $15 GNU Emacs manual. This includes a reference card. Thus, a tape and one manual come to $165. ________ $60 Box of six GNU Emacs manuals, shipped book rate. ________ $1 GNU Emacs reference card. Or: ________ $6 One dozen GNU Emacs reference cards. Shipping outside North America is normally by surface mail. For air mail delivery, please add $15 per tape or manual, $1 for an individual reference card, or 50 cents per card in quantity twelve or more. Prices are subject to change without notice. Massachusetts residents please add 5% sales tax to all prices.
GuB-42 1y ago
You seem to imply it is a negative, I don't think it is. 1. They certainly came from the free software movement, but they don't call it "free software", they call it "open source". It is a detail but the name acknowledge the distinction, "open source" is a more practical term while "free software" is more idealistic. And I think it is a good thing we have both a business friendly OSI for getting stuff done and a more militant FSF to keep businesses in check. 2. I never needed this convincing so I may be biased, but open source is I believe superior to proprietary. Think of the source code as documentation, the best kind because it tells the truth. Think of the ability to change and rebuild the software as unlimited extra settings you get for free. 3. Their definition of open source is as much canon as the definition of free software by the FSF is canon. 4. Most developers aren't lawyers, we can't really trust them to pick licenses, or worse, write licences that will do what they think will do. So having an approved list of well tested license is a good thing. That big tech and big money is behind it is not a bad thing. Developers want to get paid after all. Big tech have the best lawyers too, so by picking a licence they acknowledge, you know what you are up to. And note that some of the OSI approved licenses, like AGPL are particularly hated by big tech.
- bruce511 1y ago
  I'm going to vote you up, because at least your points make sense. The key problem with your argument unfortunately is this part. >> they don't call it "free software", they call it "open source" The problem with this is that "Open Source" is already a phrase with meaning. Trying to co-opt that term for marketing reasons is disingenuous. I happen to think that a source-available license is better than a closed source license. I ship my own code that way. However what I create is not Open Source, and I don't market it as such. Liquibase is using a known term to market their product, when their license is not compatible with that term. Their license is absolutely fine. Trying to pass ot off as OSS is not.
redwood 1y ago
Spot on. Thank you for saying this. It boggles my mind with a bunch of former Red Hat types now work for companies like Microsoft and perpetuate a zealot mindset that might have made sense in the 90s but now it's completely divorced from what the next generation of software companies need. All you have to do is look at the name of the company on the building ...it still says Microsoft folks
- Zobat 1y ago
  You might not have noticed but Microsoft has moving heavily into the open source world. Mind you, they're still a for profit company and you and I might not like everything they do to make their profit but they're a long way away from hating on open source. "Since 2017, Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors in the world, measured by the number of employees actively contributing to open source projects on GitHub, the largest host of source code in the world." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source
  - rsrqa1 1y ago
    Microsoft has subverted projects like CPython by hiring mediocre core developers who have built out their power over the years. Microsoft has coerced other projects to move to GitHub so they could steal and launder the copyright in their LLMs. Multiple Microsoft GitHub CEOs have mocked open source and resistance to the code laundering. Microsoft "open" source projects like VSCode exist to lock in developers, surveil developers and steal their IP. Developers should become dependent on GitHub, Copilot and stolen code until the open source ecosystem can finally be destroyed. The entire thing is a big EEE that is beginning to pay off because of LLMs (we can still resist by moving off GitHub and rejecting LLM code theft).
oytis 1y ago
The original open source was a programmer to programmer relationship, not company to company. Open source as a business model was inveted later, and it turns out compatibility with original open source licenses only goes that far.
goodpoint 1y ago
5. They astroturfed permissive licenses
znpy 1y ago
You're 100% right. Side note: Stallman was right all along, before everybody else, in 1985.
lenerdenator 1y ago
I still remember everyone talking about how Android was so much better because it was "open source". And for a while, that was true. Now it's just a free gateway into having your freedom has a user taken from you, because no one ever bothered to make Android an actual FLOSS community like Linux and many programming languages are. You need to have an actual ethos behind these things. You need to have an actual foundation organization behind these things like the PSF, FSF, or Linux foundation that drives the development, not corporate overlords who have a profit motive. The people involved need to understand that they're not going to create untold amounts of value that can be measured monetarily. At best you might get hired as a fellow for a while and get to draw some money from donations. Linus only got rich because some very generous people offered him shares after they built a company on his project.
- preisschild 1y ago
  I think (free / libre) Android is still alive today (although it is endangered now with Google not yet having released Android 16 QPR1. I would still hope with enough contributors we could fork it). Forks like LineageOS/GrapheneOS exist, which further improve allow you to use Android completely without proprietary Google Spyware. There is also a quite big ecosystem of free open source apps (on FDroid and other repos)
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    The problem isn't that there's no free/libre Android, it's that it's not the core ethos. 15-20 years ago, someone at Google thought, "Jeeze, these little smartphones are great, but they could be better, and imagine all of the data we could get off of users if they did everything in their lives with one?", so they bought into Android, which was a completely independent startup until 2005. That is the platform's raison d'être. They wanted to compete with PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and later iPhoneOS, for the data that people were entering into smartphones, so they introduced a software product that was open source so that OEMs would buy in. And it worked. Android would not have had a use to Google as a GNU/Linux-style project where there is no gatekeeper. If I can easily tear out Google's proprietary software, and replace it with something else without losing access to things like the Play Store, then Google just lost out on the value proposition on their purchase of Android in 2005 when it came to my use of it. They did it to make money off of my use, not to graciously support a FLOSS project. And now we're seeing that playing out as all of the FLOSS projects you mention are under direct threat from Google's handling of the project.
bsnnkv 1y ago
"While corporations were once opposed to this model of software licensing, fearing the reduction of the Exchange-Value of their own products as a side effect of its widespread adoption, they ultimately realized that this software licensing model represented another socialized model of production which could be privately appropriated."
sneak 1y ago
This is an anti-free-software narrative that is not supported by available evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software Freedom 0 is important. It's not some big tech conspiracy.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  Freedom 0 was added after the definition I’m talking about. I think freedom for the end user to use the software for any purpose is much more in keeping with the original spirit.
brookst 1y ago
It’s kind of facile to imagine a conspiracy actively working to “convince” people to do the wrong thing. I’ve never seen any evidence of such a thing. In reality, I think it’s an emergent property of software development, where very few people can make a living using the platonic ideal of a free license. People start projects that are free, then see that they can’t pay the rent, while users (including companies) keep asking for more support and more feature work (for free, naturally). So the projects evolve, and get closer to business, both to attract contributions from developers who are paid (by big business) and to position project owners to actually make some money. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, or if we even need to make such a judgment, but I think the phenomenon is easily explained without resorting to some kind of shadow campaign on behalf of business.
- preisschild 1y ago
  > while users (including companies) keep asking for more support and more feature work (for free, naturally). Then don't actually do that or offer to implement/support them in exchange for money? There are always assholes (expecting free work), but you can just ignore them.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  There are 2 different "PR" campaigns that happened. The first is Open Source vs Free Software. There's nothing shadowy about it. It's right there in the open. You can see who finances OSI. You can read what have to say about making Open Source business friendly and branding a new term vs "Free Software". And you can see how shortly after they started promoting the term it took off in popularity. They didn't invent the term, but they definitely popularized it. The 2nd PR campaign is OSI convincing devs that only software that only software that uses an official blessed license is pure.
gadders 1y ago
Exactly right. These updated licenses are mostly to stop massively profitable hyperscalers using their work for free. For the average joe, or regular company it makes no difference.
- preisschild 1y ago
  There are actually open source copyleft licenses (such as GPL, AGPL) that force "massive profitable hyperscalers" to contribute their improvements back.
  - gadders 1y ago
    But not any money.
    - account42 1y ago
      Yes, trying to retain a monopoly over use of the software is inherently incompatible with the idea behind free software.
      - gadders 1y ago
        Amazon, Google, Microsoft must be grateful for all these developers defending them against massive companies like Liquibase.
preisschild 1y ago
This seems like a straw man argument "Everyone who disagrees with this is a large freeloading corporation"
mips_avatar 1y ago
Yeah but MIT is a million times better than elastic 2.0 or other trash commercial "source available" licenses, I wish everything was GPL and all photos were creative commons but they're not and I'm not going to begrudge any business releasing a tool under MIT.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  That's not my point. I mostly agree with that. But I'd go a step further and say in the real world Open Source software doesn't offer enough protections against big tech companies doing big tech company things with your software. The license here isn't an exemplar of what I'm interested in. But the discussions on this thread are. Anything that isn't OSI blessed is bullied. We are already OK with saying you can use this software however you want, but when you distribute it you have certain obligations/restrictions. I think it's fine to go a step further and say if you distribute this software and you make $1 billion a year in revenue, you can't charge for it. I think that's fine the same way I think it's fine to say a company has free speech despite not allowing people to threaten murder.
  - mips_avatar 1y ago
    I mean I wanted to release a project under a modified license like "if your corporation laid off engineers in 2022-2025 you may never use this project commercially" language, but I think MIT might still be best. Software is trickier than licenses for things like images where licenses like creative commons BY-SA are really good because it guarantees the photo stays in the public domain but you can also include the photo on your website (considered a collection and you can still retain rights to your blog post). The problem with software licenses is that software is so much more composable. Like sure you can host a restrictively licensed project and call into it from your company's commercial app, but if you want to modify a module into your app that's tricky legally. Maybe I'm missing something here but I think the real risk is fake open licenses like elastic v2 (some YC company launched with it today) rather than the push for licenses like MIT.
  - account42 1y ago
    Neither the free software definition nor the open source definition see someone else using your software as something that you need protection from. This kind of thinking is contrary to the entire idea of open culture. Someone using your software (for whatever purpose) does not negatively affect you unless you depend on holding a monopoly over some aspect of your software - in which case you have already decided that your priorities lie elsewhere than free software - e.g. you want to build a business.
pessimizer 1y ago
What is the point of this comment? Free Software is the best of course. Open Source can be relicensed into Free Software, or relicensed into anything, as long as you keep the attribution or whatever little consideration they ask. So although Open Source is a corporate tool, at least the current snapshot is still equal to the best. This is below Open Source. And it's claiming to be Open Source. You've made the case of why Open Source is a lowered standard, but you seem to be doing it to defend an even lower standard. This is like defending an Open Source product calling itself "Free Software." It doesn't make any sense. People can release under any license they want, they wrote the software. The problem is lying about it.

thedevilslawyer 1y ago

Or you know, like, the 4 freedoms matter?

sarchertech 1y ago
This was the original 1986 definition of “free software”. ‘The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.’ Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then.
- cube00 1y ago
  The conglomerates can also host it on their extensive cloud infra at a price small competitors will never be able to match because they own the cloud infrastructure too. Somehow the service+infra is the same cost or cheaper then buying the infra alone and trying to deploy the open source version to it.
- jrochkind1 1y ago
  I don't know, they were focused on freedom for users not for vendors/programmers. I think it's very intentional that a restriction on what you can do with software -- including reselling it -- is a violation of the "four freedoms" -- freedoms for what someone can do with software, including redistribute it or use it for any purpose they want (including reselling it). These licenses meant to prohibit users from using the software in ways that harm the business interests of the programmers -- I am confident the original creators of free software four freedoms would agree they are not free software. It is very intentional that they were saying the freedom of users to do what they want with software should not be limited for the convenience of the business interests of those who wrote the software.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    The 4 freedoms came later. The above definition predates them. There’s nothing in that definition that makes me think anyone was thinking of anything beyond community created software, distributed by the community. This license isn’t about users. If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. This license in particular isn’t my favorite, but I’m totally fine in theory with licenses that attempt to patch loopholes exploited by bad actors.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      > If you are repackaging and reselling software you are no longer the end user, you are a vendor. Your customers are the end user. In the Free Software community, this line was always blurry, almost non-existent even. Even if the receiver of the Free Software package is not a programmer by any definition, at worst case, they can ask for a friend to patch something up, and if another friend wanted his patched version, the modified source code has to move with the software package. Open Source software can block even this simple pathway by not giving back the modified source from friend to the user, creating a dependency. It'd be heartless to do this between two friends, but companies will happily do that. My most vivid example of this is SDKs for hardware. Half of the API is open, but the patched version of the (open source) libraries cost $2K+, several NDAs and allegiance to company for the rest of your life or you can be sent to a concentration camp operated by an alliance of companies doing the same thing. ...and this is just for a small biometric scanner you happen to find in a piece of 10 year old discarded tech.
    - ants_everywhere 1y ago
      > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
      - 1y ago
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I try to remember this and remind to others while chatting: - Open Source software is about developer freedom. - Free Software is about user freedom. I'm for the latter, strongly.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- blibble 1y ago
  > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. this is absolutely right, and the OSI has been successfully captured by these companies would RedHat be able survive to IPO these days? I very much doubt it (see: Oracle Linux) a new term is needed, "Open Source" is no longer fit for purpose in a world where the hyperscalers exist "Fair Source"?
- Qwuke 1y ago
  "First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you" I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. So, even under this definition it is not free or open source. The GNU Project and Richard Stallman, who made this statement, would agree that it's not free under even this earliest definition. They in-fact made it even clearer when they defined freedom of "use" as the distinct 0th freedom eventually to make it even clearer that being able to use the software freely is fundamental to their idea of freedom. Again, freedom isn't about price, it's about usage, availability, redistribution and lack of restrictions on this. I cannot freely redistribute FSL licensed code under the original definition of free software. "Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then." Yes, the GNU project were acutely aware of this and designed the GPL licenses around such scenarios - they just didn't design it for SaaS businesses, where if you redistribute the built program externally after modifying it but only distributed its responses over a network, you technically weren't obligated to open source that modification. AGPL resolved this issue, and has more case law behind it than this 2 year old license, and has certainly less daunting implications than a not legally well defined 'competing purpose'. Wrt to the legal concerns with AGPL, they're not actually that it wouldn't provide any protection, but rather that it might offer the originally distributing entity too much power: legal power to declare all software used in the stack to produce a network request MUST be made source available. I have not seen any lawyer concerned with whether or not Amazon would be able to bypass its protections, and the license was made by lawyers to clearly provide protection. Did you create this legal theory yourself? Because I've not seen any writing from a lawyer on the internet that suggests that Amazon could firewall themselves off in a friendly jurisdiction under any reading of the license, and I read a lot of AGPL lawyerblogging. Sentry, the company who created FSL, even states that this license restricts user freedom explicitly - for the sake of the business interests of the original developer. So summing up.. Richard Stallman, the FSF, the GNU Project, the OSI, the creators of the FSL, the company now currently using FSL, all agree that this source available license does not meet the definition of "free software". So, whose definition are we using out of thin air?
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    >I can't do this with FSL unless it's a permitted purpose. You’re free to distribute it to your neighbors for free for any purpose. You’re free to distribute it for a fee for almost any purpose save one. You just can’t commercialize it as a competing product. “Source available” again calling this source available is disingenuous. You’re deliberating using the least free term that is technically accurate. This isn’t my favorite license, but it provides a lot more freedoms than merely looking at the source code. With respect to AGPL providing “too much control”. That is a valid and likely reason for courts to find it unenforceable.
- sneak 1y ago
  > Giant trillion dollar conglomerates repackaging and selling a product backed by free labor without contributing back wasn’t something they were contemplating back then. That's not a bug, that's a feature. Freedom 0 applies to everyone. Giving a gift does not confer an obligation, and "contributing back" is meaningless in this context. Someone using a gift you gave them to run a business does not harm you in any way whatsoever.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    If it was merely about “giving a gift” with no obligations or restrictions there should be no open source licenses. Everything would just be released into the public domain. Free software has never been about giving gifts with no obligations.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Public domain is indeed an open source “license”. It’s what I release all of my code under (via the WTFPL).
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    This is implying that free software is a 'gift'. It's not, it is an exchange. You gain the ability to use the library or program in exchange for releasing your changes and modifications. Well, unless it's MIT licensed, in which case you're kind of a sucker and it all but _is_ a gift to Big Tech.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Copyleft is not congruent and coterminous with free software. There is plenty of FOSS that is not copyleft.

DetroitThrow 1y ago

So you have qualms about OSI co-opting free software movement Then defend a source available license designed by a company that describes the license as intended for prioritizing business needs over user freedom and used, and is often brought out when businesses decide to switch a more available license to one that restricts commercial activity, co-opting public contributions that would otherwise never happened INSTEAD of promoting copyleft licenses such as AGPL, seems a bit odd. We care about freedom, in every use case.

sarchertech 1y ago
I don’t think calling it “source available” is being honest. It looks like you’re free to modify and distribute it all you want so long as you aren’t pulling an Amazon. AGPL isn’t battle tested enough for me to be confident it will protect against big tech doing big tech things like spinning off a separate company in Ireland to firewall AGPL software.
- hoistbypetard 1y ago
  > AGPL isn’t battle tested enough for me to be confident it will protect against big tech doing big tech things like spinning off a separate company in Ireland to firewall AGPL software. What does it matter if they do? The point of the AGPL is that if you make a version available to users over the network, either you release the source to your version or you can't use it. That subsidiary could still be made to release the source or stop using it. Wouldn't that be "mission accomplished?"
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    Not exactly. If you're not modifying your version you don't need to make the source available to server users. So if you contract out the modifications, and they only give the source to you, and you give the source to nobody... I don't know if that scheme would work but I think "not battle tested enough" is valid. Also there's some weirdness in how the availability requirement applies at the time of editing that gives me questions, but I'm far from an expert there.

jraph 1y ago

The open source initiative was initially about hiding the political and philosophical aspects behind the free software movement (that's the second part of your (1)). (hence the "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" essay [1]). With some benefit of the doubt, one could imagine that it was a well-meaning move to make companies do free software so we could all enjoy the freedom it gives, without them feeling they are doing dirty politics. This hasn't worked out: programs targeting end users are still proprietary for the most part. I'm not sure what's bad about 2. What's quite bad however IMHO is the push to use permissive licenses and the anti (A)GPL FUD that these big tech companies spread. Of course it is very convenient to them that every library under the sun is under MIT or BSD, so they can built proprietary software more efficiently. Note: the OSI recognizes the AGPL as an open source license so at least the set of "big tech approved licenses" is not the same set as the OSI approved licenses. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

sarchertech 1y ago
Many “big” companies would rather not bother with GPL, but the biggest tech companies don’t care when it comes to repackaging and reselling it as a service. AGPL hasn’t been thoroughly tested in the courts, so it’s unclear how much protection it offers. It’s not beyond someone like Amazon to setup a new company just firewall off AGPL software.
- jraph 1y ago
  > but the biggest tech companies don’t care when it comes to repackaging and reselling it as a service. If I'm not mistaken, Apple would rather avoid touching anything GPLv3 with a ten foot pole. They are among the biggest tech companies in my mind. Anybody seems fine with GPLv2 though. But GPL is less convenient than permissive licenses. Of course, you can still indeed build services with GPL software without redistributing the modifications, which is the point of the AGPL. > It’s not beyond someone like Amazon to setup a new company just firewall off AGPL software. I suppose so. However, this would work as intended: the Amazon firewall company would need to redistribute the improvements. Also, do you have examples of this happening? (not arguing, actually genuinely curious)

gdwatson 1y ago

“They convinced a bunch of developers that their definition of Open Source that was specifically crafted to protect business interests is canon.” They adopted the existing Debian Free Software Guidelines as the Open Source Definition. The DFSG are good, actually, and represent an important community consensus outside the FSF.

jraph 1y ago
The DFSG and the OSD are the same text, but the OSI and the Debian project interpret it differently, and this difference is important. Debian (and most other distributions, btw), for the most part (or entirely, I suppose), agrees with the FSF / the GNU project when deciding which license is free or non free. The OSI has a more permissive interpretation. RMS speaks about that in a recent interview in French [1], English translation below: > La FSF a financé Debian à son commencement. Mais rapidement, le projet, qui comptait plus de contributeurs, a voulu formuler une définition de la liberté différente, avec l’intention d’être équivalente. > À l’époque, j’ai commis une erreur : j’aurais dû vérifier plus attentivement s’il pouvait y avoir des divergences d’interprétation entre le projet GNU et Debian. La définition me paraissait équivalente, même si elle était formulée autrement. J’ai dit : “C’est bon.” Mais en réalité, il y avait des problèmes potentiels. > Plus tard, quand l’open source a émergé, ils ont repris la définition de Debian, je ne sais plus s'il ont changé quelques mots mais ils ont surtout changé l’interprétation. Dès lors, elle n’était plus équivalente à celle du logiciel libre. Il existe aujourd’hui des programmes considérés comme “open source” mais pas comme logiciels libres, et inversement. > J’ai d’ailleurs expliqué ces différences dans mon essai Open Source Misses the Point. English translation (not a native English speaker, I hope the translation is ok, especially considering that RMS is close to his words and it's probably easy to misrepresent him without noticing): > The FSF funded Debian at its beginnings. But rapidly, the project, gaining more contributors, wanted a different phrasing for the definition of freedom, which the intent of being equivalent. > Back then, I made a mistake: I should have checked more carefully if there could be different ways to interpret it between the GNU and the Debian projects. The definition seemed equivalent to me, even if it was phrased differently. I said: "OK". But in reality, there were potential issues. > Later, when Open Source surfaced, they took Debian's definition, I don't know if they changed a few words but they above all changed the interpretation. Since then, it was not equivalent to the free software definition anymore. There exist open source software that's not free software, and conversely. > By the way, I explain all this in my Open Source Misses the Point essay. [1] https://linuxfr.org/news/40-ans-pour-l-informatique-libre-entretien-avec-richard-stallman https://linuxfr.org/news/40-ans-pour-l-informatique-libre-en...

matheusmoreira 1y ago

Truly one of the biggest wealth transfers in history. From well meaning developers straight into the pockets of corporations. https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.com/essays/why_i_gpl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620103603/http://zedshaw.co... > Why I (A/L)GPL > Open source to open source, corporation to corporation. > If you do open source, you’re my hero and I support you. > If you’re a corporation, let’s talk business. > I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made. > Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars. https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/ https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/ > To the Beggar Baron, open source's value is its free donation. > You would never stand on the street and offer to buy the wallets off people who are about to donate a few dollars to you. That'd be stupid. > They're giving you their money for free. Take it and run. Always slap AGPLv3 onto everything you make. Always choose the most copyleft license imaginable. Permissive licenses yield zero leverage. It's either AGPLv3 or all rights reserved. Nothing else makes sense.

hylaride 1y ago
If AGPLv3 was slapped onto everything back then, the likelihood of linux/open source being where it is today would be an order of magnitude less. A good chunk of the original windows TCP/IP stack was ripped from BSD licensed code. Had that not have been "easy" for Microsoft to take, the internet may not have developed the way it did and we'd all maybe be on proprietary networks like AOL/MSN/etc. The solution isn't always swinging super-far in the other direction. That being said, commercially supported OS software has essentially become shareware - just enough to get you hooked, and then the price jump is enormous.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  That sounds lovely, actually. Before Microsoft added TCP/IP to Windows, there were third party ports of the BSD TCP/IP stack to Windows. The winner ended up being Trumpet Winsock, until Microsoft wisely used the same winsock API for their own implementation and embraced and extinguished. Those ports would still have occurred even if the BSD TCP/IP stack was GPL'd.

ants_everywhere 1y ago

Liquibase is also not free software. Most of these non-open-source licenses aren't free software. I'm not aware of any exceptions, but I'd be happy to see some examples if there are any. The rest of your comment mainly seems to be a mixed bag of rhetoric. It obscures the reality that Liquibase is, to modify your words, "co-opting the" open source movement to make it "more business friendly."

sarchertech 1y ago
I don’t love their license. But I think that a license that says you aren’t free to redistribute this software or it’s derivatives for a fee (including by letting users use it over a network) if you’re a corporation making over $1 billion a year in revenue is perfectly compatible with the original intent of free software. The freedoms were about freedom for the user not a non user developer.
- ants_everywhere 1y ago
  > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    Those comments came later. Also making copies and selling them along with the source code is much different than the SaaS model that RMS didn’t predict.
    - ants_everywhere 1y ago
      If you think that the explicit reminder that free software allows selling is inconsistent with the original definition, then I think the onus is on you to prove that inconsistency. So far I read your comments as giving a sort of argument from silence that commercial transactions weren't explicitly mentioned in the earliest versions together with a gut feeling that your view is the same as theirs. The original 1986 definition, which I see you referring to elsewhere, came from a news letter that's available here: https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt The news letter itself cost $1. And it also includes an order form charging $150 for Emacs ($443.40 in 2025 dollars). The tape and the manual come to $487.74 in 2025 dollars. The issue with SaaS is loss of the freedoms, not that vendors charge money. Free Software was never about forcing organizations to break even or operate at a loss. If you believe that's inherent to the original definition then I think you'd have to present a clearer argument for that position. Free Software Foundation Order Form February 6, 1986 All software and publications are distributed with a permission to copy and redistribute. Quantity Price Item ________ $150 GNU Emacs source code, on a 1600bpi industry standard mag tape in tar format. The tape also contains MIT Scheme (a dialect of Lisp), hack (a rogue-like game) and bison (a compatible replacement for yacc). ________ $15 GNU Emacs manual. This includes a reference card. Thus, a tape and one manual come to $165. ________ $60 Box of six GNU Emacs manuals, shipped book rate. ________ $1 GNU Emacs reference card. Or: ________ $6 One dozen GNU Emacs reference cards. Shipping outside North America is normally by surface mail. For air mail delivery, please add $15 per tape or manual, $1 for an individual reference card, or 50 cents per card in quantity twelve or more. Prices are subject to change without notice. Massachusetts residents please add 5% sales tax to all prices.

GuB-42 1y ago

You seem to imply it is a negative, I don't think it is. 1. They certainly came from the free software movement, but they don't call it "free software", they call it "open source". It is a detail but the name acknowledge the distinction, "open source" is a more practical term while "free software" is more idealistic. And I think it is a good thing we have both a business friendly OSI for getting stuff done and a more militant FSF to keep businesses in check. 2. I never needed this convincing so I may be biased, but open source is I believe superior to proprietary. Think of the source code as documentation, the best kind because it tells the truth. Think of the ability to change and rebuild the software as unlimited extra settings you get for free. 3. Their definition of open source is as much canon as the definition of free software by the FSF is canon. 4. Most developers aren't lawyers, we can't really trust them to pick licenses, or worse, write licences that will do what they think will do. So having an approved list of well tested license is a good thing. That big tech and big money is behind it is not a bad thing. Developers want to get paid after all. Big tech have the best lawyers too, so by picking a licence they acknowledge, you know what you are up to. And note that some of the OSI approved licenses, like AGPL are particularly hated by big tech.

bruce511 1y ago
I'm going to vote you up, because at least your points make sense. The key problem with your argument unfortunately is this part. >> they don't call it "free software", they call it "open source" The problem with this is that "Open Source" is already a phrase with meaning. Trying to co-opt that term for marketing reasons is disingenuous. I happen to think that a source-available license is better than a closed source license. I ship my own code that way. However what I create is not Open Source, and I don't market it as such. Liquibase is using a known term to market their product, when their license is not compatible with that term. Their license is absolutely fine. Trying to pass ot off as OSS is not.

redwood 1y ago

Spot on. Thank you for saying this. It boggles my mind with a bunch of former Red Hat types now work for companies like Microsoft and perpetuate a zealot mindset that might have made sense in the 90s but now it's completely divorced from what the next generation of software companies need. All you have to do is look at the name of the company on the building ...it still says Microsoft folks

Zobat 1y ago
You might not have noticed but Microsoft has moving heavily into the open source world. Mind you, they're still a for profit company and you and I might not like everything they do to make their profit but they're a long way away from hating on open source. "Since 2017, Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors in the world, measured by the number of employees actively contributing to open source projects on GitHub, the largest host of source code in the world." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source
- rsrqa1 1y ago
  Microsoft has subverted projects like CPython by hiring mediocre core developers who have built out their power over the years. Microsoft has coerced other projects to move to GitHub so they could steal and launder the copyright in their LLMs. Multiple Microsoft GitHub CEOs have mocked open source and resistance to the code laundering. Microsoft "open" source projects like VSCode exist to lock in developers, surveil developers and steal their IP. Developers should become dependent on GitHub, Copilot and stolen code until the open source ecosystem can finally be destroyed. The entire thing is a big EEE that is beginning to pay off because of LLMs (we can still resist by moving off GitHub and rejecting LLM code theft).

oytis 1y ago

The original open source was a programmer to programmer relationship, not company to company. Open source as a business model was inveted later, and it turns out compatibility with original open source licenses only goes that far.

goodpoint 1y ago

5. They astroturfed permissive licenses

znpy 1y ago

You're 100% right. Side note: Stallman was right all along, before everybody else, in 1985.

lenerdenator 1y ago

I still remember everyone talking about how Android was so much better because it was "open source". And for a while, that was true. Now it's just a free gateway into having your freedom has a user taken from you, because no one ever bothered to make Android an actual FLOSS community like Linux and many programming languages are. You need to have an actual ethos behind these things. You need to have an actual foundation organization behind these things like the PSF, FSF, or Linux foundation that drives the development, not corporate overlords who have a profit motive. The people involved need to understand that they're not going to create untold amounts of value that can be measured monetarily. At best you might get hired as a fellow for a while and get to draw some money from donations. Linus only got rich because some very generous people offered him shares after they built a company on his project.

preisschild 1y ago
I think (free / libre) Android is still alive today (although it is endangered now with Google not yet having released Android 16 QPR1. I would still hope with enough contributors we could fork it). Forks like LineageOS/GrapheneOS exist, which further improve allow you to use Android completely without proprietary Google Spyware. There is also a quite big ecosystem of free open source apps (on FDroid and other repos)
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  The problem isn't that there's no free/libre Android, it's that it's not the core ethos. 15-20 years ago, someone at Google thought, "Jeeze, these little smartphones are great, but they could be better, and imagine all of the data we could get off of users if they did everything in their lives with one?", so they bought into Android, which was a completely independent startup until 2005. That is the platform's raison d'être. They wanted to compete with PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and later iPhoneOS, for the data that people were entering into smartphones, so they introduced a software product that was open source so that OEMs would buy in. And it worked. Android would not have had a use to Google as a GNU/Linux-style project where there is no gatekeeper. If I can easily tear out Google's proprietary software, and replace it with something else without losing access to things like the Play Store, then Google just lost out on the value proposition on their purchase of Android in 2005 when it came to my use of it. They did it to make money off of my use, not to graciously support a FLOSS project. And now we're seeing that playing out as all of the FLOSS projects you mention are under direct threat from Google's handling of the project.

bsnnkv 1y ago

"While corporations were once opposed to this model of software licensing, fearing the reduction of the Exchange-Value of their own products as a side effect of its widespread adoption, they ultimately realized that this software licensing model represented another socialized model of production which could be privately appropriated."

sneak 1y ago

This is an anti-free-software narrative that is not supported by available evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software Freedom 0 is important. It's not some big tech conspiracy.

sarchertech 1y ago
Freedom 0 was added after the definition I’m talking about. I think freedom for the end user to use the software for any purpose is much more in keeping with the original spirit.

brookst 1y ago

It’s kind of facile to imagine a conspiracy actively working to “convince” people to do the wrong thing. I’ve never seen any evidence of such a thing. In reality, I think it’s an emergent property of software development, where very few people can make a living using the platonic ideal of a free license. People start projects that are free, then see that they can’t pay the rent, while users (including companies) keep asking for more support and more feature work (for free, naturally). So the projects evolve, and get closer to business, both to attract contributions from developers who are paid (by big business) and to position project owners to actually make some money. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, or if we even need to make such a judgment, but I think the phenomenon is easily explained without resorting to some kind of shadow campaign on behalf of business.

preisschild 1y ago
> while users (including companies) keep asking for more support and more feature work (for free, naturally). Then don't actually do that or offer to implement/support them in exchange for money? There are always assholes (expecting free work), but you can just ignore them.
sarchertech 1y ago
There are 2 different "PR" campaigns that happened. The first is Open Source vs Free Software. There's nothing shadowy about it. It's right there in the open. You can see who finances OSI. You can read what have to say about making Open Source business friendly and branding a new term vs "Free Software". And you can see how shortly after they started promoting the term it took off in popularity. They didn't invent the term, but they definitely popularized it. The 2nd PR campaign is OSI convincing devs that only software that only software that uses an official blessed license is pure.

gadders 1y ago

Exactly right. These updated licenses are mostly to stop massively profitable hyperscalers using their work for free. For the average joe, or regular company it makes no difference.

preisschild 1y ago
There are actually open source copyleft licenses (such as GPL, AGPL) that force "massive profitable hyperscalers" to contribute their improvements back.
- gadders 1y ago
  But not any money.
  - account42 1y ago
    Yes, trying to retain a monopoly over use of the software is inherently incompatible with the idea behind free software.
    - gadders 1y ago
      Amazon, Google, Microsoft must be grateful for all these developers defending them against massive companies like Liquibase.

preisschild 1y ago

This seems like a straw man argument "Everyone who disagrees with this is a large freeloading corporation"

mips_avatar 1y ago

Yeah but MIT is a million times better than elastic 2.0 or other trash commercial "source available" licenses, I wish everything was GPL and all photos were creative commons but they're not and I'm not going to begrudge any business releasing a tool under MIT.

sarchertech 1y ago
That's not my point. I mostly agree with that. But I'd go a step further and say in the real world Open Source software doesn't offer enough protections against big tech companies doing big tech company things with your software. The license here isn't an exemplar of what I'm interested in. But the discussions on this thread are. Anything that isn't OSI blessed is bullied. We are already OK with saying you can use this software however you want, but when you distribute it you have certain obligations/restrictions. I think it's fine to go a step further and say if you distribute this software and you make $1 billion a year in revenue, you can't charge for it. I think that's fine the same way I think it's fine to say a company has free speech despite not allowing people to threaten murder.
- mips_avatar 1y ago
  I mean I wanted to release a project under a modified license like "if your corporation laid off engineers in 2022-2025 you may never use this project commercially" language, but I think MIT might still be best. Software is trickier than licenses for things like images where licenses like creative commons BY-SA are really good because it guarantees the photo stays in the public domain but you can also include the photo on your website (considered a collection and you can still retain rights to your blog post). The problem with software licenses is that software is so much more composable. Like sure you can host a restrictively licensed project and call into it from your company's commercial app, but if you want to modify a module into your app that's tricky legally. Maybe I'm missing something here but I think the real risk is fake open licenses like elastic v2 (some YC company launched with it today) rather than the push for licenses like MIT.
- account42 1y ago
  Neither the free software definition nor the open source definition see someone else using your software as something that you need protection from. This kind of thinking is contrary to the entire idea of open culture. Someone using your software (for whatever purpose) does not negatively affect you unless you depend on holding a monopoly over some aspect of your software - in which case you have already decided that your priorities lie elsewhere than free software - e.g. you want to build a business.

pessimizer 1y ago

What is the point of this comment? Free Software is the best of course. Open Source can be relicensed into Free Software, or relicensed into anything, as long as you keep the attribution or whatever little consideration they ask. So although Open Source is a corporate tool, at least the current snapshot is still equal to the best. This is below Open Source. And it's claiming to be Open Source. You've made the case of why Open Source is a lowered standard, but you seem to be doing it to defend an even lower standard. This is like defending an Open Source product calling itself "Free Software." It doesn't make any sense. People can release under any license they want, they wrote the software. The problem is lying about it.