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Why is it not enough to give you all of their code for free? Why do they also have obligations and expectations beyond that? The entitlement never ends! > At w

Why is it not enough to give you all of their code for free? Why do they also have obligations and expectations beyond that? The entitlement never ends! > At work the trend is only adopt open source on a paid plan, adopting or relying on open source otherwise is just waiting for the rug to be pulled. "Won't do free labour for our commercial enterprise to profit off of forever" is a rug pull now? It's incredible that you can type these words with a straight face.

president_zippy 2mo ago
You didn't deserve to be downvoted to hell and back. People deserve to be paid for their work, and without copyright law only mega-cap companies would ever be able to capture enough value from their work to survive. People act like you're saying Disney should be able to hold a copyright on Mickey Mouse for over 100 years. Calling it a "rug pull" when the creator of an open source project decides to stop giving away future work for free is a delusional level of self-entitlement. (1) The previous releases are still open source. If you don't like it, fork the last free release and maintain it yourself. (2) People deserve whatever the market is willing to pay for their work. See above. Frankly, if D. Richard Hipp decided to stop giving away future versions of SQLite for free, I would be the first person to congratulate him for finally having the courage to put his foot down and say "my fellow committers and I deserve at least a few million dollars for 20 years of work making something that billions of machines rely upon."
- mightyham 2mo ago
  Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy. In your eyes everyone "deserves" what the market is willing to pay, but open-source developers would rather donate their time and energy to create or contribute to something that is freely accessible to anyone and everyone. Also, believe it or not, but some people are not motivated by money, and actually derive value from the process of creating software. The issue with rug-pulls like this is that they are deceptively masquerading with this philosophy as a calculated business strategy to adopt users. Then in this case they start using deceptive tactics like removing build files so they can continue appearing to be fully open source, even though they are violating the spirit of that term. Finally, they drop the facade when it is deemed valuable enough. Even if you are a strict capitalist, there is nothing virtuous or meritocratic about these kinds of business strategies, they rely on tricky, concealed intentions, and rightfully deserve criticism. I'll also add that there is nothing "courageous" about deciding to extract more value from your labor at the expense of public accessibility. True courage is found in acts of selfless sacrifice.
  - bigstrat2003 2mo ago
    > Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy. No it isn't. Open source isn't inherently political in any way. Maybe that's what it's about to you, but I open source things because I want to give to others out of a general sense of wishing to build up the whole community. I don't have anything against capitalism.
    - mightyham 2mo ago
      First off, in some sense everything is political. Next, I am not claiming that you can't be supporter of open source while also holding a wide array of associated political views. My point is that the concept of open source fundamentally rejects the ideal capitalist conception of the world as a bunch of purely rational self-interested agents seeking to optimize wealth and economic output. Willingly performing labor for its own sake, for the benefit of others, with no expectation of return value, is obviously not capitalist behavior.
      - president_zippy 2mo ago
        "First off, in some sense everything is political." That's what every partisan hack says before they shove their culture war politics down your throat. Some people out in the real world get laid and just can't be bothered to hear your opinion about the race-swapped Snow White remake, regardless of whether you loved it or hated it.
        mightyham 2mo ago
        Politics is a lense of analysis that can be applied to almost anything related to the group behaviors of people. Refusing to engage with it because there are charlatans that apply these methods poorly just demonstrates an inability or lack of desire to understand. It's quite revealing btw that you decided to frame intellectual pursuits and sexual behavior as being in opposition and/or claim that the later is somehow more important.
- pstuart 2mo ago
  I effectively agree with you, but your last comment is interesting in the usage of the word "courage". My understanding of D. Richard Hipp's state of being is that he feels fairly financially compensated (via support contracts), and more so, emotionally compensated by knowing that his work adds value to other people's lives and having value in that. Money's a good thing to have, but having purpose in life is incredibly valuable too.
  - president_zippy 2mo ago
    Fair enough on use of the word "courage" in this case. I will gladly walk back on things I am wrong about when I realize it. If DRH prefers the business model of giving away something for free and selling consulting support for it, then bully for him. It might result in less income, but I'm sure being a consultant is lot less stressful than running a corporation based on SQLite with >200 employees would be. However, I will not devalue the work of software engineering by giving away solutions to difficult problems for free and fostering a culture of self-entitlement toward software engineers. Treating prosperous and purposeful existences as conflicting aspirations is an unusually pernicious self-deception. Go get yours, I want you to get paid for your work. You deserve to get paid for the value you create. Besides that, it's naive to think that if you give up the portion of value you can capture, that it will go back to the people you're really trying to help. In reality, when you publish really good open source work that mega-cap tech companies can use at scale, they are the ones who capture the lion's share of the value you created rather than the end users they are data mining. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." -Deuteronomy 25:4 If even Jews and Christians- for as much as the self-abasing communists on this site resent them- can concede that even a lowly beast of the field is entitled to a portion of the value it creates, then how much more deserving is dignified man of his recompense?
    - pstuart 2mo ago
      I'm not contesting the need to be compensated for work. My point is that there's stuff that I have worked on to scratch an itch and don't feel the need for monetary compensation. I believe there's an intrinsic need to be part of something bigger than ones self, and participating by volunteering time to have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped make something you care about better is not a bad thing, if on your own terms. The way DRH has talked about SQLite is that he is financially secure and by giving it away gets both the reward mentioned above as well as maintaining the value of the free software which he can still make money off of support contracts. He is choosing to do this because for him that effort is the most rewarding. FOSS has been a foundational facet of the work we get well-paid to participate in. This is a case in which we have the option to have our cake and share it too. None of this means you have to participate in this way, but I suggest that your viewpoint is yours and may not be shared by everybody else in the community.
- roryirvine 2mo ago
  An ironic choice of hypothetical given that SQLite's present ubiquity is a result of a very similar licensing rug-pull on the part of Berkeley DB, after Sleepycat's acquisition by Oracle. And, in turn, bdb gained prominence on the back of AT&T claiming copyright on ndbm during the Unix Wars. So there's a long history of this, and plenty of precedents which suggest that such a move would make very little money and would likely result in a better alternative quickly rising to take its place. I suspect that Hipp understands this, and is unlikely to do anything of the sort.
Brian_K_White 2mo ago
They do not give all of the code. If you have an object, and don't have everything needed to reproduce the object, then you have not been given the source to the object. And with BSD licenced code this is their right. And it's my and anyone else's right to observe all of this and criticize it.
- applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
  Likewise, it is my right to criticise you for exercising your right to criticise them. Nobody said you aren't allowed to, but just as anyone is allowed to whine about not being given enough free stuff, I'm allowed to call out that they're acting like an entitled child in public. Just because you can legally do something doesn't mean that it is socially acceptable to do so.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2mo ago
    They chose to base their enterprise on the work of others, only to pull the ladder up behind them. Fuck that noise. They are the ones breaking the social contract, not the folks criticizing them for it. Shameful of you.
    - tw04 2mo ago
      > They chose to base their enterprise on the work of others, only to pull the ladder up behind them. This is literally why BSD exists in the first place. To allow companies compete freedom with the code, including freedom to not release changes. I hate to break it to you: basically every commercial storage vendor on the planet bases their appliances on either BSD or Linux and not a single one is sharing their proprietary code with you. There’s nothing shameful about it, they built a company to make money.
      - bigstrat2003 2mo ago
        > This is literally why BSD exists in the first place. To allow companies compete freedom with the code, including freedom to not release changes. I would phrase it slightly differently. BSD licensing exists to allow everyone complete freedom with the code, not just businesses. It is a gift to the commons without restriction on who may use it or for what, which is why I love BSD (and other permissive licenses).
ssl-3 2mo ago
I'll bite. They're allowed to stop publishing new work whenever they want to. That's part of the free, open-source software game, wherein: We're all free to provide as much as we wish, and also free to consume as much as we want. Nobody necessarily owes anyone else anything and it's really very beautiful in these ways. This is enabled in large part due to the very low cost of distributing copies of intangible software (which can be very close to zero). But when money gets involved, then things become different. Contracts can be had. Support requirements can be determined. If a contract requires 5 years of support, then it can be reasonably expected for support to continue for at least 5 years. It's OK to want that, and to never use software that doesn't involve money. It's also OK for an author/company/org to not want that, and to never agree to those terms. These are different goals, but one party doing it one way doesn't detract from another party doing it some other way. It's all OK.
teruakohatu 2mo ago
> "Won't do free labour for our commercial enterprise to profit off of forever" is a rug pull now? It's incredible that you can type these words with a straight face. I explicitly stated in my comment that we pay for open source (via vendor support). That is not the issue. It is now a common business strategy to commercialise an open source project. FreeNAS was commercialised as TrueNAS, which is now having some of the source pulled. TrueNAS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s built on source projects.
- applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
  > I explicitly stated in my comment that we pay for open source (via vendor support). That is not the issue. Your statements clearly took issue with the fact that your company has to pay open-source devs whose work it uses for reliability. You presented the options as "pay them, or else get rugpulled", and then went on to say "how did we end up in this state of affairs [where we must pay to not get rugpulled]". There is no possible way to interpret your comment other than lamenting the "state of affairs". > TrueNAS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s built on source projects. As long as it isn't violating the license of those projects, they still don't owe anyone anything. If it is violating the license, complain about it on those terms. But your complaint was about open-source in general, not specifically only this project.

president_zippy 2mo ago

You didn't deserve to be downvoted to hell and back. People deserve to be paid for their work, and without copyright law only mega-cap companies would ever be able to capture enough value from their work to survive. People act like you're saying Disney should be able to hold a copyright on Mickey Mouse for over 100 years. Calling it a "rug pull" when the creator of an open source project decides to stop giving away future work for free is a delusional level of self-entitlement. (1) The previous releases are still open source. If you don't like it, fork the last free release and maintain it yourself. (2) People deserve whatever the market is willing to pay for their work. See above. Frankly, if D. Richard Hipp decided to stop giving away future versions of SQLite for free, I would be the first person to congratulate him for finally having the courage to put his foot down and say "my fellow committers and I deserve at least a few million dollars for 20 years of work making something that billions of machines rely upon."

mightyham 2mo ago
Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy. In your eyes everyone "deserves" what the market is willing to pay, but open-source developers would rather donate their time and energy to create or contribute to something that is freely accessible to anyone and everyone. Also, believe it or not, but some people are not motivated by money, and actually derive value from the process of creating software. The issue with rug-pulls like this is that they are deceptively masquerading with this philosophy as a calculated business strategy to adopt users. Then in this case they start using deceptive tactics like removing build files so they can continue appearing to be fully open source, even though they are violating the spirit of that term. Finally, they drop the facade when it is deemed valuable enough. Even if you are a strict capitalist, there is nothing virtuous or meritocratic about these kinds of business strategies, they rely on tricky, concealed intentions, and rightfully deserve criticism. I'll also add that there is nothing "courageous" about deciding to extract more value from your labor at the expense of public accessibility. True courage is found in acts of selfless sacrifice.
- bigstrat2003 2mo ago
  > Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy. No it isn't. Open source isn't inherently political in any way. Maybe that's what it's about to you, but I open source things because I want to give to others out of a general sense of wishing to build up the whole community. I don't have anything against capitalism.
  - mightyham 2mo ago
    First off, in some sense everything is political. Next, I am not claiming that you can't be supporter of open source while also holding a wide array of associated political views. My point is that the concept of open source fundamentally rejects the ideal capitalist conception of the world as a bunch of purely rational self-interested agents seeking to optimize wealth and economic output. Willingly performing labor for its own sake, for the benefit of others, with no expectation of return value, is obviously not capitalist behavior.
    - president_zippy 2mo ago
      "First off, in some sense everything is political." That's what every partisan hack says before they shove their culture war politics down your throat. Some people out in the real world get laid and just can't be bothered to hear your opinion about the race-swapped Snow White remake, regardless of whether you loved it or hated it.
      - mightyham 2mo ago
        Politics is a lense of analysis that can be applied to almost anything related to the group behaviors of people. Refusing to engage with it because there are charlatans that apply these methods poorly just demonstrates an inability or lack of desire to understand. It's quite revealing btw that you decided to frame intellectual pursuits and sexual behavior as being in opposition and/or claim that the later is somehow more important.
pstuart 2mo ago
I effectively agree with you, but your last comment is interesting in the usage of the word "courage". My understanding of D. Richard Hipp's state of being is that he feels fairly financially compensated (via support contracts), and more so, emotionally compensated by knowing that his work adds value to other people's lives and having value in that. Money's a good thing to have, but having purpose in life is incredibly valuable too.
- president_zippy 2mo ago
  Fair enough on use of the word "courage" in this case. I will gladly walk back on things I am wrong about when I realize it. If DRH prefers the business model of giving away something for free and selling consulting support for it, then bully for him. It might result in less income, but I'm sure being a consultant is lot less stressful than running a corporation based on SQLite with >200 employees would be. However, I will not devalue the work of software engineering by giving away solutions to difficult problems for free and fostering a culture of self-entitlement toward software engineers. Treating prosperous and purposeful existences as conflicting aspirations is an unusually pernicious self-deception. Go get yours, I want you to get paid for your work. You deserve to get paid for the value you create. Besides that, it's naive to think that if you give up the portion of value you can capture, that it will go back to the people you're really trying to help. In reality, when you publish really good open source work that mega-cap tech companies can use at scale, they are the ones who capture the lion's share of the value you created rather than the end users they are data mining. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." -Deuteronomy 25:4 If even Jews and Christians- for as much as the self-abasing communists on this site resent them- can concede that even a lowly beast of the field is entitled to a portion of the value it creates, then how much more deserving is dignified man of his recompense?
  - pstuart 2mo ago
    I'm not contesting the need to be compensated for work. My point is that there's stuff that I have worked on to scratch an itch and don't feel the need for monetary compensation. I believe there's an intrinsic need to be part of something bigger than ones self, and participating by volunteering time to have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped make something you care about better is not a bad thing, if on your own terms. The way DRH has talked about SQLite is that he is financially secure and by giving it away gets both the reward mentioned above as well as maintaining the value of the free software which he can still make money off of support contracts. He is choosing to do this because for him that effort is the most rewarding. FOSS has been a foundational facet of the work we get well-paid to participate in. This is a case in which we have the option to have our cake and share it too. None of this means you have to participate in this way, but I suggest that your viewpoint is yours and may not be shared by everybody else in the community.
roryirvine 2mo ago
An ironic choice of hypothetical given that SQLite's present ubiquity is a result of a very similar licensing rug-pull on the part of Berkeley DB, after Sleepycat's acquisition by Oracle. And, in turn, bdb gained prominence on the back of AT&T claiming copyright on ndbm during the Unix Wars. So there's a long history of this, and plenty of precedents which suggest that such a move would make very little money and would likely result in a better alternative quickly rising to take its place. I suspect that Hipp understands this, and is unlikely to do anything of the sort.

Brian_K_White 2mo ago

They do not give all of the code. If you have an object, and don't have everything needed to reproduce the object, then you have not been given the source to the object. And with BSD licenced code this is their right. And it's my and anyone else's right to observe all of this and criticize it.

applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
Likewise, it is my right to criticise you for exercising your right to criticise them. Nobody said you aren't allowed to, but just as anyone is allowed to whine about not being given enough free stuff, I'm allowed to call out that they're acting like an entitled child in public. Just because you can legally do something doesn't mean that it is socially acceptable to do so.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2mo ago
  They chose to base their enterprise on the work of others, only to pull the ladder up behind them. Fuck that noise. They are the ones breaking the social contract, not the folks criticizing them for it. Shameful of you.
  - tw04 2mo ago
    > They chose to base their enterprise on the work of others, only to pull the ladder up behind them. This is literally why BSD exists in the first place. To allow companies compete freedom with the code, including freedom to not release changes. I hate to break it to you: basically every commercial storage vendor on the planet bases their appliances on either BSD or Linux and not a single one is sharing their proprietary code with you. There’s nothing shameful about it, they built a company to make money.
    - bigstrat2003 2mo ago
      > This is literally why BSD exists in the first place. To allow companies compete freedom with the code, including freedom to not release changes. I would phrase it slightly differently. BSD licensing exists to allow everyone complete freedom with the code, not just businesses. It is a gift to the commons without restriction on who may use it or for what, which is why I love BSD (and other permissive licenses).

ssl-3 2mo ago

I'll bite. They're allowed to stop publishing new work whenever they want to. That's part of the free, open-source software game, wherein: We're all free to provide as much as we wish, and also free to consume as much as we want. Nobody necessarily owes anyone else anything and it's really very beautiful in these ways. This is enabled in large part due to the very low cost of distributing copies of intangible software (which can be very close to zero). But when money gets involved, then things become different. Contracts can be had. Support requirements can be determined. If a contract requires 5 years of support, then it can be reasonably expected for support to continue for at least 5 years. It's OK to want that, and to never use software that doesn't involve money. It's also OK for an author/company/org to not want that, and to never agree to those terms. These are different goals, but one party doing it one way doesn't detract from another party doing it some other way. It's all OK.

teruakohatu 2mo ago

> "Won't do free labour for our commercial enterprise to profit off of forever" is a rug pull now? It's incredible that you can type these words with a straight face. I explicitly stated in my comment that we pay for open source (via vendor support). That is not the issue. It is now a common business strategy to commercialise an open source project. FreeNAS was commercialised as TrueNAS, which is now having some of the source pulled. TrueNAS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s built on source projects.

applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
> I explicitly stated in my comment that we pay for open source (via vendor support). That is not the issue. Your statements clearly took issue with the fact that your company has to pay open-source devs whose work it uses for reliability. You presented the options as "pay them, or else get rugpulled", and then went on to say "how did we end up in this state of affairs [where we must pay to not get rugpulled]". There is no possible way to interpret your comment other than lamenting the "state of affairs". > TrueNAS doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s built on source projects. As long as it isn't violating the license of those projects, they still don't owe anyone anything. If it is violating the license, complain about it on those terms. But your complaint was about open-source in general, not specifically only this project.