Post AZjCuTCi5IkS0DBsFE by kfogel@kfogel.org
(DIR) More posts by kfogel@kfogel.org
(DIR) Post #AZSlo6vvrUBa1yMD1U by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-05T16:53:46.259175Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
Call for information: We’re looking for examples of delayed open source publication (DOSP).That’s when software is published under a proprietary license at first, then later open sourced. For example, at the time version N goes out, version N-1 might be released under an open source license. (But that’s just one way to do DOSP – there have been others.)We’d like to gather as many examples as we can, both historical and modern, for a whitepaper that will examine the effects of DOSP on open source projects and on open source as a whole. The paper will take no position in the paper on the desirability of DOSP; its purpose is to provide accurate historical description and objective analysis.If you know of examples of DOSP, please email us:dosp-research@opensource.orgYou can also file a ticket or a merge request directly, if you prefer (account creation is free).You can see our notes and our current examples list here.Thanks!Please feel free to rebroadcast/repost this wherever it’s appropriate.
(DIR) Post #AZjCl074sGSRAl2aTA by tomchadwin@en.osm.town
2023-09-11T16:14:10Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Is this how some of @northroadgeo's work is licensed? @nyalld?
(DIR) Post #AZjCl203rK291Zm0oK by nyalld@mastodon.social
2023-09-11T19:39:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@tomchadwin @kfogel @northroadgeo yep, that's correct!
(DIR) Post #AZjCl3ktKh5UT6gvRY by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:11:07.330280Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nyalld @tomchadwin @northroadgeo Thank you! Adding that to our list to look into.
(DIR) Post #AZjCm0TuzRZEbYChg8 by nthony@fosstodon.org
2023-09-11T14:37:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Seems to be the case for #cockroachdb, that moves from BSL to Apache 2.0 after 3 years for part of its features. See https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/licensing-faqs for more information.
(DIR) Post #AZjCm1Xr2IJHu33MS9 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:11:24.018311Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nthony An excellent example -- thank you very much.
(DIR) Post #AZjCuS5aEJSAXoqfUu by frank@social.wittemeier.de
2023-09-08T13:00:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel StarOffice from StarDivision in Hamburg / Germany was proprietary and then became OpenOffice which results in LibreOffice.
(DIR) Post #AZjCuTCi5IkS0DBsFE by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:12:49.671460Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@frank Thanks. I remember that, now that you mention it. But it wasn't planned in advance that way, right? It was more of an improvisatory move from StarOffice (or from its new owners, as I recall). We'll look into it!
(DIR) Post #AZjD4bsagTOZnxcBiC by ingo_wichmann@digitalcourage.social
2023-09-08T11:09:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel OPSI (a software to automatically install and manage Windows) used a co-financing model from time to time:https://www.opsi.org/de/dokumentation/opsi-lizenz-und-copyrighthttps://forum.opsi.org/viewtopic.php?t=1193
(DIR) Post #AZjD4cj3XPMYQgA5UO by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:14:43.877772Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ingo_wichmann Thank you! I hadn't heard of OPSI -- we will look into it further.
(DIR) Post #AZjDFi6XsbM6ITR2yu by geektoybox@3dp.chat
2023-09-06T23:22:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel MS-DOS was just open sourced! https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
(DIR) Post #AZjDFizqYzaj3zJDBA by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:16:40.548197Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@geektoybox Yes – and actually, I personally was kind of interested in this, because I still have to keep an old MS-DOS program running on life-support (been doing it with DOSEMU for years now, but the open-sourcing of MS-DOS was still of interest of course). I think that the open-sourcing was a one-time and unplanned decision, so that might put it outside the scope of this research, but we’ll still check it out. Thank you for the pointer!
(DIR) Post #AZjDOFY9PmlALHQ3xA by ikkeT@mementomori.social
2023-09-06T20:20:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel anything Red Hat has bought. It might have been closed source, but Red Hat convert it to open source. Stackrocks, 3scale...
(DIR) Post #AZjDOGX7l5X5ONwkzY by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:18:12.800361Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ikkeT Good point. Since those are generally one-time decisions due to a purchase of a company, they might not fit into the pattern we're looking at, but we should still at least look at them. We'll check out Red Hat's history of doing this. I'm sure Stackrocks and 3scale are just the beginning of a long list...
(DIR) Post #AZjDYZaPm4qbNdOuKu by jzb@mastodon.social
2023-09-06T20:08:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jwp @kfogel Yes, though I think that's not quite what they're looking for. I *believe* what this is looking for is when a business uses a license like the Business Source License (BuSL) where an eventual conversion to FOSS is planned but delayed. Not so much when a proprietary product is converted to FOSS but that wasn't in the original plan.
(DIR) Post #AZjDYaI19xj3YrnjIe by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:20:03.808330Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jzb @jwp Yes, we are looking more at the former case, as Joe said. But Red Hat's long list of things like Quay.io may still be of interest (@ikkeT@mementomori.social made a similar point). We will take a look. Thank you!
(DIR) Post #AZjEAjhId8Brk8ooYC by eliasp@mastodon.social
2023-09-06T04:42:39Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel #OTRS used to be fully #OpenSource, was then switched to "delayed OpenSource" and is fully closed since 2021.
(DIR) Post #AZjEAkZtM9rKTSMPdw by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:26:59.520714Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@eliasp Thanks for this example! It’s kind of going in the opposite direction from the one we’re looking at, but those are worth knowing about too. (And your reminder inspired me to improve OTRS’s Wikipedia page by changing “commercial” to the more accurate “proprietary”.)
(DIR) Post #AZjEDer95Oc5b5ojWi by trashrobot@kolektiva.social
2023-09-06T04:40:59Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Ghidra is an interesting case. If what I heard is true, it went from fully classified to open source after the Snowden leaks. Maybe that doesn't count since it was not published at all initially? https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/ It's the most radical change in license status of a piece of software I've ever heard of.
(DIR) Post #AZjEDfbaIjlBv7XouW by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:27:36.123909Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@trashrobot Ghidra is a great example, and an unusual one -- thank you!
(DIR) Post #AZjELib93cuDWGB10K by weddige@gruene.social
2023-09-05T23:57:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel one example would be the @pixelfed mobile apps, that are currently still closed source.
(DIR) Post #AZjELjURk18qHm3BCa by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:28:58.353970Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@weddige @pixelfed Thanks! If the @pixelfed mobile apps are still closed source, then they’re not part of the category we’re looking at… oh, wait: you mean they’re scheduled to go open source, but it’s just that none of them have done so yet? (I.e., the scheduled time has not yet arrived?)
(DIR) Post #AZjEOMXbWPWFylmVFo by tychotithonus@infosec.exchange
2023-09-05T22:06:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel I've sent a note about FreeBSD's netgraph facility, which was first implemented privately by Whistle, with a deliberate delay before merging back to public FreeBSD.
(DIR) Post #AZjEONQuCnkskHefS4 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:29:32.505086Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@tychotithonus Aha, netgraph in FreeBSD is a perfect example -- thank you.
(DIR) Post #AZjEZ1ld6AUcjgQXNw by AlexVoss@fosstodon.org
2023-09-05T21:26:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Are you looking to cover sponsorware models as well? e.g., https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/insiders/
(DIR) Post #AZjEZ2UeOmVOzJUUYi by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:31:23.298083Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@AlexVoss Sure -- funding model and conditions are not part of the filtering criteria here. The only thing that matters is the progression from proprietary license to FOSS license (though the conditions may then be something we want to analyze further, as I think will be the case with MkDocs). Thank you for this example.
(DIR) Post #AZjEantDfLvMH4p9UG by NOeVoting@hostux.social
2023-09-05T21:05:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel I have Ghostscript in mind, that both has a free and a commercial version.I think they put new feature in the commercial version. And they do that since a very long time.
(DIR) Post #AZjEaol6R11eyC2BTU by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:31:46.591729Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@NOeVoting Yes, Ghostscript is one of the oldest (maybe the oldest?) examples of this. Thank you!
(DIR) Post #AZjEf7nTaoZTAsCLk8 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:32:28.765623Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ed1conf Based on the history described there, I think Blender qualifies, yes. Thank you!
(DIR) Post #AZjEhMhb99SbytW7NY by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:32:56.769662Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@lucasgonze So far people have uncovered far more examples than I ever expected! It's really interesting. We've got some digging/analyzing to do.
(DIR) Post #AZjEk0l9BZkGnORGgC by rfc1149@masto.ai
2023-09-05T18:51:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel I've sent a mail about Akka which has switched to the BSL some time ago.
(DIR) Post #AZjEk1frmh7DdIyZ5U by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:33:26.377352Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rfc1149 Thank you -- I'm going through Fediverse replies first, but then the emails next, so I'll see it when I go there.
(DIR) Post #AZjEp5sTaFm87LI4Ku by teajaygrey@rap.social
2023-09-05T18:16:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Uhh, UNIX.e.g. https://code.google.com/archive/p/unix-jun72/ (pre-C UNIX source code that others and I helped restore).
(DIR) Post #AZjEp6egh0L8WrqZU0 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:34:20.270192Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@teajaygrey Hah! Good point -- I totally forgot that UNIX itself could be considered an example of this. Thank you.
(DIR) Post #AZjF2kVNqJZlt005R2 by thomas_sandmann@genomic.social
2023-09-05T17:52:57Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel kallisto might be an interesting example. Lior Pachter describes the decision making process on his blog: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/tag/licensing/
(DIR) Post #AZjF2lXXzktv601KRk by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:36:44.264476Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@thomas_sandmann Thank you. Now that I look at that blog post, I realize I read it when it came out (and I remembering admiring Lior Pachter for being so forthright in discussing why he changed his mind about kallisto licensing).
(DIR) Post #AZjF5wNm8j8dajxo48 by fuzzychef@m6n.io
2023-09-05T17:17:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel one difficult, but vital, thing to research is how DOSP vs. traditional OSS affects adoption. For that, you're not going to be able to trust what the project owner tells you.
(DIR) Post #AZjF5xXNqUPzApSzgG by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:37:23.993977Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fuzzychef Noted. I'm not sure how many firm conclusions we'll be able to come to about that -- there may be a lot of "we don't know" in this paper, we'll see :-/.
(DIR) Post #AZjF8pSEM43oyOQOMS by fuzzychef@m6n.io
2023-09-05T17:09:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Dropping you a note about MariaDB and the BUSL, more research will be needed.
(DIR) Post #AZjF8q9pjwwH9cpDKC by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:37:56.207523Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fuzzychef Thank you (re MariaDB and BUSL) -- I'm following up to Fediverse replies right now, and will turn to the emails next.
(DIR) Post #AZjFBqjk2kBDor3W7M by Hanuwu@uwu.social
2023-09-05T17:08:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Qt? Lots of projects open sourced from internal projects in various companies, don't know if this also count.
(DIR) Post #AZjFBrluCBVN1r4l84 by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-13T15:38:28.177626Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Hanuwu Yeah, I think all those Qt projects probably count -- we'll dig in more. If you think of some specific examples, please let us know.
(DIR) Post #AZtq1Wm2Gcd9FEueci by verzulli@fosstodon.org
2023-09-15T07:52:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel : just sent an e-mail with a `git format-patch` , including some details about Blender, LibreOffice and XCP-ng
(DIR) Post #AZtq1itDDlV8oyMYTY by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-18T18:18:09.578147Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@verzulli Thank you! I'm about to dive in to the emails now, so I'll see it there in a bit.
(DIR) Post #AZtqBQwumGA24mj0pE by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
2023-09-15T06:17:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel Omnivim 2 used to be licensed with a time-delay open-source license.They eventually switched back to MIT. The corresponding GitHub issue mentions lowering the barrier for contributions and easiness for packaging downstream (like the AUR) as motivation points.
(DIR) Post #AZtqBRzmt43LJz4owS by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-18T18:20:00.362533Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ghisvail "Onivim", right? I think I found the corresponding issue (https://github.com/onivim/oni2/issues/3771), unless you mean a different ticket.Thank you for the information!
(DIR) Post #AZtqOuVsAfGZX0VDk0 by fuzzychef@m6n.io
2023-09-13T18:14:30Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel An analysis of the Hashi relicense in 6 months would be very interesting. Anecdotal evidence is that it's making them revenue at the cost of trashing long-term adoption. But that's not data-based.
(DIR) Post #AZtqVc7ow3CsWsRt0S by pauldoo@mastodon.scot
2023-09-11T18:06:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel id Tech 3 - the game engine for Quake 3 - was open sourced in 2005.
(DIR) Post #AZtqVcrCDLVEnbg7jU by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-18T18:23:42.112141Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@pauldoo Thanks! That wasn't a planned thing, though -- they decided to do it long after the Quake 3 engine had been written, right?
(DIR) Post #AZxlXJcxR441n0bPJA by tfheen@snabelen.no
2023-09-20T05:57:24Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kfogel an old example (iirc) is the original Trolltech Qt license. You’re looking at mid-late 1990s. (I don’t know if you’re interested in history as well as current examples.)
(DIR) Post #AZxlXKVCBPRuVDyiqe by kfogel@kfogel.org
2023-09-20T15:46:46.331890Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@tfheen Definitely interested in history, so thank you! We'll check out more about Trolltech Qt.