3 ms·

I've read this sentiment often on this forum, and I suppose it shouldn't surprise me given that most people here share the entrepreneurial mindset. But it still

by imiric 11mo ago

I've read this sentiment often on this forum, and I suppose it shouldn't surprise me given that most people here share the entrepreneurial mindset. But it still rubs me the wrong way, and I'll write about it again. What I don't like about this idea that the role of open source authors ends with throwing some code over the fence, relinquishing any responsibility for it beyond what their chosen license dictates, is that it completely ignores the community aspect that forms around software, and in large part, contributes to the success of OSS. Software is written for people. Open source software explicitly invites collaboration, and sharing of knowledge. When someone sees people asking for help, and making feature and improvement suggestions, as "demands" from "entitled" users, they're completely missing this point of community. When they additionally require or suggest that no work will be done unless these entitled users pay up, it's no different from source available, proprietary or commercial software at that point. Of course your work should be compensated, and you shouldn't be expected to work for free. You are free to choose any number of viable business models to ensure that happens. But demanding this from your users is essentially putting the software behind a paywall. It also signals to users that the direction of the project is dictated not by a community of passionate users, but by whoever pays the most, which is a twisted incentive for any software. My point is: there is more to OSS than the code and the license. Despite what some may claim, there is an unwritten social contract which is created when software is published in the open, whether the author decides to ignore this or not. Some authors do acknowledge this explicitly[1], which is a large factor in making their projects more successful than those from authors who decide to alienate their user base. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1997/msg00017.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1997/msg00017.html

evanelias 11mo ago
> Open source software explicitly invites collaboration, and sharing of knowledge. The licenses permit that, but they explicitly do not "invite" it; they are totally neutral on that point. Upstream FOSS authors can reject all third-party contributions, and their software is still unarguably FOSS. > When someone sees people asking for help, and making feature and improvement suggestions, as "demands" from "entitled" users You're mischaracterizing the situation. It's usually about a specific small vocal subset of users, who are literally demanding things in a rude and arrogant manner. > Despite what some may claim, there is an unwritten social contract which is created when software is published in the open, whether the author decides to ignore this or not. "Unwritten social contracts" effectively only exist in cases where an overwhelming majority of people believe in the same set of social norms. That absolutely is not the case in the software industry. There's no broad agreement about what that social contract entails, or if it even exists, and therefore it de facto does not exist for the industry as a whole. Individual projects can choose their own social norms, but that doesn't inherently extend those norms to the entire industry.
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  > The licenses permit that, but they explicitly do not "invite" it; The whole motivation to write such "permitting" licenses is to invite that.
  - purple_turtle 11mo ago
    Are you sure? For all of them?
    - 1718627440 11mo ago
      > For all of them? Of course not. Inviting is also not binary.
  - evanelias 11mo ago
    The purpose of any software license is to permit you to do things that, in the absence of a license, would otherwise violate the authors' copyright. This is unrelated to whether or not the author chooses to accept contributions. No FOSS license requires the copyright holder to accept third-party contributions upstream, nor do they directly discuss this topic at all. Licenses are not invitations to collaborate. That simply isn't their purpose. This is why CONTRIBUTING.md is a completely separate document. Most of the popular "OSI-approved" licenses predate the OSI's existence, so there's no plausible argument that adopters of these licenses are opting-in to a collaborative social movement with an "unwritten social contract" en masse. For example, the original motivation for the MIT license was simply avoiding legal overhead for software that wasn't expected to have much financial value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History
    - imiric 11mo ago
      It's remarkable to me that in both of your comments you emphasize the role of the license, when my point was precisely that software, and particularly open source software, is much more than its code and license. You may disagree with this, but it's clear that software that solves a problem well, while also being enjoyable to use, is open to contributions and feedback, and fosters a friendly community around it, is more "successful" by any conceivable metric than software that isn't. However you define this, you won't find it in the license or the code, but it's real, and it's one of the wonderful things about open source. Being able to use the software gratis, and even having the freedoms to modify and share it, pales in comparison. Hell, there is even proprietary software that has these qualities, which makes it infinitely better than software that is only technically open source.

by imiric 11mo ago

evanelias 11mo ago

> Open source software explicitly invites collaboration, and sharing of knowledge. The licenses permit that, but they explicitly do not "invite" it; they are totally neutral on that point. Upstream FOSS authors can reject all third-party contributions, and their software is still unarguably FOSS. > When someone sees people asking for help, and making feature and improvement suggestions, as "demands" from "entitled" users You're mischaracterizing the situation. It's usually about a specific small vocal subset of users, who are literally demanding things in a rude and arrogant manner. > Despite what some may claim, there is an unwritten social contract which is created when software is published in the open, whether the author decides to ignore this or not. "Unwritten social contracts" effectively only exist in cases where an overwhelming majority of people believe in the same set of social norms. That absolutely is not the case in the software industry. There's no broad agreement about what that social contract entails, or if it even exists, and therefore it de facto does not exist for the industry as a whole. Individual projects can choose their own social norms, but that doesn't inherently extend those norms to the entire industry.

1718627440 11mo ago
> The licenses permit that, but they explicitly do not "invite" it; The whole motivation to write such "permitting" licenses is to invite that.
- purple_turtle 11mo ago
  Are you sure? For all of them?
  - 1718627440 11mo ago
    > For all of them? Of course not. Inviting is also not binary.
- evanelias 11mo ago
  The purpose of any software license is to permit you to do things that, in the absence of a license, would otherwise violate the authors' copyright. This is unrelated to whether or not the author chooses to accept contributions. No FOSS license requires the copyright holder to accept third-party contributions upstream, nor do they directly discuss this topic at all. Licenses are not invitations to collaborate. That simply isn't their purpose. This is why CONTRIBUTING.md is a completely separate document. Most of the popular "OSI-approved" licenses predate the OSI's existence, so there's no plausible argument that adopters of these licenses are opting-in to a collaborative social movement with an "unwritten social contract" en masse. For example, the original motivation for the MIT license was simply avoiding legal overhead for software that wasn't expected to have much financial value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History
  - imiric 11mo ago
    It's remarkable to me that in both of your comments you emphasize the role of the license, when my point was precisely that software, and particularly open source software, is much more than its code and license. You may disagree with this, but it's clear that software that solves a problem well, while also being enjoyable to use, is open to contributions and feedback, and fosters a friendly community around it, is more "successful" by any conceivable metric than software that isn't. However you define this, you won't find it in the license or the code, but it's real, and it's one of the wonderful things about open source. Being able to use the software gratis, and even having the freedoms to modify and share it, pales in comparison. Hell, there is even proprietary software that has these qualities, which makes it infinitely better than software that is only technically open source.