6 ms·

The project is really great, however license is really bad. A modern framework, should be open source under liberal license. Licenses like this worked in 90s, b

The project is really great, however license is really bad. A modern framework, should be open source under liberal license. Licenses like this worked in 90s, but currently they don't work.

FraaJad 12y ago
How do you propose they make money to pay salaries?
- solomatov 12y ago
  Paid support, tools, there're plenty of companies which follow this business model. Extjs, Vaadin, Typesafe, etc. I understand that they want to make a money, however, using their license is unacceptable risk, especially taking into account there're comparable alternatives. I'd rather use GWT/TypeScript/Scala.js, than proprietary framework which I won't be able to work with if they changed license to something unacceptable (for example, charge per server or whatever).
  - _stephan 12y ago
    If you worry about such hypothetical licence or price changes, you could also contact the company and negotiate a custom licence/contract.
    - solomatov 12y ago
      Usually, such companies have quite high price for such contracts and I think it's not worth is. While technically it might be superior, it has small user base, smaller talent pool to hire from, less books/documentation. All this happens because people want to make money in an old fashioned way. The better option is to use, the most popular open source tool which in this area is GWT or TypeScript.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - tarmil 12y ago
    ExtJS is GPL with paid commercial license, so essentially the same model as WebSharper. They even explicitly forbid to start developing a prototype in the open and then buy a license for it, which WS doesn't.
RussianCow 12y ago
If you don't like the license, don't use the framework. It's that simple. Charging for commercial licenses for libraries is a perfectly valid business strategy, and I can see lots of F# developers paying for this.
- zerr 12y ago
  AFAIK, even for the open-source license - you only have to provide source code to your client - i.e. when distributing... If you're using this framework for your personal project - you're free to not to release source code - since you're not distributing the binaries of your project either.
  - solomatov 12y ago
    >If you're using this framework for your personal project - you're free to not to release source code - since you're not distributing the binaries of your project either. In this case you can't even publish the code, since compiled js is kind of binary.
    - zerr 12y ago
      Can't you treat the part you're "distributing" - i.e. the client side html/css/js - as a separate part and open source only this? But not sure if this kind of thing is really distribution. GPL* licenses were more oriented towards traditional compiled software and it is somewhat unclear with regard to nowadays prevalent web apps.
      - belorn 12y ago
        Many years ago, a Steves job asked Stallman this very question regarding a similar situation. Stallman initial thought it sounded legally sound, but since he is not a lawyer, he asked one. The laywer replied judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges", and ask whether it was "really" one program with different labeled parts. Stallman sent a reply back to jobs, based on that recommendation from the lawyer. Websites might feel very different from a technical point of view, but trying to do smart and tricky things with law always end up with the same question: How will a judge or jury view it. If I go to hackernews, do I get several "works" of JS, CSS, HTML, or is it a singular work with different labeled parts?
e12e 12y ago
At first I thought you meant this wasn't Free software, but then I had a look and realized it was AGPL[1] -- how's that not liberal enough? What am I missing? [1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LIC...
- solomatov 12y ago
  This license makes it impossible to create non open source software without paying the company, which makes it practically useless for commercial development. Liberal license are licenses like BSD, Apache, etc, which allows people to create commercial derivative works without disclosing source code.
  - e12e 12y ago
    How does it make it useless? Why wouldn't you pay a license fee for developing commercial (closed source) software? If you want to sell the code to the client, use the AGPL, if you want to sell the (closed) service, get a commercial license? The AGPL allows you to develop closed internal tools (no distribution to third party), optionally distribute without a cost under the AGPL -- and they also offer an option for commercial development. Asking for the code under a BSD license just sounds like you want to avoid paying for the cost of developing, supporting and maintaining a (presumably) quality product. It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically?
    - solomatov 12y ago
      >It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically? The problem isn't paying 400 USD/year. This is negligible cost compared to how much it costs to hire a developer. The problem is that software created in such a way wouldn't be widely used for reasons mentioned in one of my other comments.
      - e12e 12y ago

The project is really great, however license is really bad. A modern framework, should be open source under liberal license. Licenses like this worked in 90s, but currently they don't work.

FraaJad 12y ago

How do you propose they make money to pay salaries?

solomatov 12y ago
Paid support, tools, there're plenty of companies which follow this business model. Extjs, Vaadin, Typesafe, etc. I understand that they want to make a money, however, using their license is unacceptable risk, especially taking into account there're comparable alternatives. I'd rather use GWT/TypeScript/Scala.js, than proprietary framework which I won't be able to work with if they changed license to something unacceptable (for example, charge per server or whatever).
- _stephan 12y ago
  If you worry about such hypothetical licence or price changes, you could also contact the company and negotiate a custom licence/contract.
  - solomatov 12y ago
    Usually, such companies have quite high price for such contracts and I think it's not worth is. While technically it might be superior, it has small user base, smaller talent pool to hire from, less books/documentation. All this happens because people want to make money in an old fashioned way. The better option is to use, the most popular open source tool which in this area is GWT or TypeScript.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- tarmil 12y ago
  ExtJS is GPL with paid commercial license, so essentially the same model as WebSharper. They even explicitly forbid to start developing a prototype in the open and then buy a license for it, which WS doesn't.

RussianCow 12y ago

If you don't like the license, don't use the framework. It's that simple. Charging for commercial licenses for libraries is a perfectly valid business strategy, and I can see lots of F# developers paying for this.

zerr 12y ago
AFAIK, even for the open-source license - you only have to provide source code to your client - i.e. when distributing... If you're using this framework for your personal project - you're free to not to release source code - since you're not distributing the binaries of your project either.
- solomatov 12y ago
  >If you're using this framework for your personal project - you're free to not to release source code - since you're not distributing the binaries of your project either. In this case you can't even publish the code, since compiled js is kind of binary.
  - zerr 12y ago
    Can't you treat the part you're "distributing" - i.e. the client side html/css/js - as a separate part and open source only this? But not sure if this kind of thing is really distribution. GPL* licenses were more oriented towards traditional compiled software and it is somewhat unclear with regard to nowadays prevalent web apps.
    - belorn 12y ago
      Many years ago, a Steves job asked Stallman this very question regarding a similar situation. Stallman initial thought it sounded legally sound, but since he is not a lawyer, he asked one. The laywer replied judges would consider such schemes to be "subterfuges", and ask whether it was "really" one program with different labeled parts. Stallman sent a reply back to jobs, based on that recommendation from the lawyer. Websites might feel very different from a technical point of view, but trying to do smart and tricky things with law always end up with the same question: How will a judge or jury view it. If I go to hackernews, do I get several "works" of JS, CSS, HTML, or is it a singular work with different labeled parts?

e12e 12y ago

At first I thought you meant this wasn't Free software, but then I had a look and realized it was AGPL[1] -- how's that not liberal enough? What am I missing? [1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LIC...

solomatov 12y ago
This license makes it impossible to create non open source software without paying the company, which makes it practically useless for commercial development. Liberal license are licenses like BSD, Apache, etc, which allows people to create commercial derivative works without disclosing source code.
- e12e 12y ago
  How does it make it useless? Why wouldn't you pay a license fee for developing commercial (closed source) software? If you want to sell the code to the client, use the AGPL, if you want to sell the (closed) service, get a commercial license? The AGPL allows you to develop closed internal tools (no distribution to third party), optionally distribute without a cost under the AGPL -- and they also offer an option for commercial development. Asking for the code under a BSD license just sounds like you want to avoid paying for the cost of developing, supporting and maintaining a (presumably) quality product. It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically?
  - solomatov 12y ago
    >It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically? The problem isn't paying 400 USD/year. This is negligible cost compared to how much it costs to hire a developer. The problem is that software created in such a way wouldn't be widely used for reasons mentioned in one of my other comments.
    - e12e 12y ago