Post AbZdHyRkyFcT02xYSe by debacle@framapiaf.org
(DIR) More posts by debacle@framapiaf.org
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7ZAC7WZabdVMQ4 by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:45:15Z
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🧵 The #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource status of #Matrix, #Element and other related projects is in serious trouble. The main company running the ecosystem, @element, will fork the main projects from their previous steward, the @matrix Foundation, make AGPL-3.0 the new default license, and put a #CLA in front of it.This is a common scheme called Rights-Ratched-Model as coined by @webmink. I see a number of upcoming changes that are bad for user freedom, interoperability and communities:[🧵 1/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7bFaMS4d4w2h6G by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:46:05Z
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Let's have a look at #Element first. This company is by far the largest contributor to the #Matrix ecosystem. As a company, their purpose is to make money, and they seem to be struggling with that. They mention proprietary competitors that seem to be innovating and adapting faster than Element can with its - up until now - quite open development model.[🧵 2/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7d8DMpMkuebptA by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:47:22Z
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So #Element decided to:1. fork the server-side projects #Synapse, #Dendrite and closely related projects from the @matrix Foundation.2. use AGPL-3.0 as the default license for ongoing development3. implement a #CLA (Contributor License Agreement) in order to "own all copyright" (simplified) from future contributorshttps://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/The blog post specifically mentions proprietary forks they may create. What does this mean?[🧵 3/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7fBpiLRtISJko4 by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:47:53Z
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All of these changes point to a number of possible next steps that I see as turning away from the principle of #OpenSource/#FreeSoftware:1. They will adopt an open core product strategy. They will create proprietary modules, that are initially rather cosmetic or only relevant to enterprise users. However, it's very likely that in the long run this will also affect essential modules as we see with other open core projects such as #GitLab.[🧵 4/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7hA8NdHJPlXQR6 by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:48:36Z
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2. Thanks to the #CLA, relicensing parts of the source code to source-available licenses such as BUSL becomes much more likely, as we've seen with #Hashicorp and products like #Terraform. It's clear to all that this would not be #FOSS anymore, and sunset clauses are a bad joke.3. This combination would allow to make life much harder for larger instances or #Matrix server hosting providers, as they could be seen as competing, depending on the product portfolio #Element is aiming for. [🧵 5/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7jO26vaIJS3YNU by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:49:04Z
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Of course, @element claims in their blog post that the combination of AGPL-3.0 license and #CLA is only meant to pave the way for proprietary forks (aka open core product strategy) and not for relicensing to proprietary licenses. But we know from similar cases that once the option for relicensing is available, it's often taken.So while this sounds unfair to a (previously) cool company like #Element, we have to expect the worst.[🧵 6/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZJ7lEBGWtM1TSiIa by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T10:49:31Z
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Again, none of this is new, we've seen this before with companies that started as #OpenSource and struggled with their chosen business model and/or the pressure from investors.@webmink has explained this much better than I ever could in his article on "The Rights-Ratched-Model": https://meshedinsights.com/2021/02/02/rights-ratchet/For full reference, here's the announcement from the @matrix Foundation: https://matrix.org/blog/2023/11/06/future-of-synapse-dendrite/[🧵 7/7]
(DIR) Post #AbZT4a2RPTp3zb5pxY by element@mastodon.matrix.org
2023-11-07T18:11:03Z
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@mxmehl we’re looking at putting a clause in the CLA that guarantees the source will remain published under a OSI license. the need to dual license is to sell AGPL alternatives to third party commercial forks. we are not trying to pull a hashicorp.
(DIR) Post #AbZVIVx9az2fHiON28 by amszmidt@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T18:35:57Z
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@element @mxmehl Have you talked to the @fsf about what the best course would be for you?
(DIR) Post #AbZXVfNk3BdyCVEAUK by doctormo@floss.social
2023-11-07T19:00:44Z
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@element @mxmehl Please consider profit sharing. You know who the people are who are contributing from outside, you can invite people into a profit sharing imitative based on a fair reading of their impact in the code over time.You need to commercialise. OK. But that commercialisation can and ort to be shared. Especially if you consider the community a weird multi tentical supplier who you'd rather keep on existing.
(DIR) Post #AbZdHyRkyFcT02xYSe by debacle@framapiaf.org
2023-11-07T19:59:31Z
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@mxmehl @element @webmink @matrix Since some years, there is talk about bringing the Matrix #protocol to the #IETF for #standardization. I assume, that has been done since long, but I missed the news?Thanks for the link to #RightsRatchetModel https://meshedinsights.com/2021/02/02/rights-ratchet/ — it's a good read!(Btw. #AGPL is fine for me, but I would strongly object to a #CLA in favour of a business I'm not involved in.)
(DIR) Post #AbZdHzUz3jnMGLTe88 by element@mastodon.matrix.org
2023-11-07T20:05:31Z
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@debacle @mxmehl @webmink @matrix yes; the work has been going on in the MIMI WG (e.g. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ralston-mimi-protocol-01) which has ended up becoming a hybrid of Matrix and MLS-derived work.
(DIR) Post #AbZdO55tAYK3LydwUi by element@mastodon.matrix.org
2023-11-07T20:06:38Z
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@doctormo @mxmehl the reason that we are making this licensing change is because we are not profitable, and need to try to get to break even. a profit-sharing scheme when you have significantly negative profits sounds unlikely to succeed.
(DIR) Post #AbZeg2SzmBAUN6ZtDM by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-07T20:21:00Z
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@element So basically a CLA such as Neo4j's? And will the business model only contain selling AGPL exceptions of otherwise fully open source code, or will you also develop completely proprietary code?
(DIR) Post #AbZfsSbiVlhcsI90OO by doctormo@floss.social
2023-11-07T20:34:29Z
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@element @mxmehl Obviously sharing less than nothing isn't useful.But your goal is to not have less than nothing.
(DIR) Post #AbaJJVeNCcjeLKH9Ps by ZiggyTheHamster@ruby.social
2023-11-08T03:56:21Z
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@element @mxmehl so like “I’m a corp and want to run this but the AGPL is banned by the lawyers”?
(DIR) Post #AbadEKhKUg7O0hT2Zs by mxmehl@mastodon.social
2023-11-08T06:09:08Z
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@ZiggyTheHamster @element "Selling exceptions means that the copyright holder of the code releases it to the public under a free software license, then lets customers pay for permission to use the same code under different terms, for instance allowing its inclusion in proprietary applications."A quite popular article by RMS, biased of course, but introduces to the concept.https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions
(DIR) Post #AbadELfEtw2Z0VUsxU by ZiggyTheHamster@ruby.social
2023-11-08T06:50:29Z
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@mxmehl @element I’m aware of the RMS article, I was more wanting to know the particular flavor of relicensing. I’m more sympathetic toward “our customers want to run this onsite but need a less copyleft license and we’re not willing to make it MIT broadly” than I am “we want to make a SaaS platform and potentially neglect the unpaid version”
(DIR) Post #AbadEMeZDv644iBrY8 by element@mastodon.matrix.org
2023-11-08T07:39:34Z
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@ZiggyTheHamster @mxmehl it’s targeting both “i’m a corp who’s allergic to AGPL” and “i’m a corp who is selling a proprietary fork of the Apache licensed code but doesn’t contribute to the underlying project in any way”.
(DIR) Post #AbbQLmhbfSgue5mPWC by djsumdog@djsumdog.com
2023-11-08T16:49:57.074487Z
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Was there a CLA on the existing code? They can't proprietary license all the existing code, without first replacing every single contribution, right?
(DIR) Post #AbcdwcIinOiHfAzdtw by tyil@fedi.tyil.nl
2023-11-09T06:57:03.916Z
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@djsumdog@djsumdog.com This would be true if it wasn't licensed under the very permissive Apache 2.0 license beforehand. With permissive licenses like these, you can pretty much do whatever you so desire, including making a fork and going to a more strict license such as a GPL variant.Never use a permissive license if you care about freedom.
(DIR) Post #AbdLbuyuXjBLV9fRMO by kkarhan@mstdn.social
2023-11-09T15:06:11Z
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@element @ZiggyTheHamster @mxmehl well, if some corp is that paranoid and illiterate, then don't deal with them in the first place!After all, even #SSPL as an antisocial fork of #AGPLv3 only impacts #SaaS and #ManagedHosting providers and not #inhouse deployments even when done as a #ManagedService on customers' premises...
(DIR) Post #AbdLpve2sBptc5aXz6 by kkarhan@mstdn.social
2023-11-09T15:08:24Z
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@element @debacle @mxmehl @webmink @matrix it still rubs me on all the wrong ends...https://mstdn.social/@kkarhan/111381135668147730
(DIR) Post #AbdLq4ejN0jRYoyino by kkarhan@mstdn.social
2023-11-09T15:08:39Z
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@element @debacle @mxmehl @webmink @matrix ...since even before...https://social.anoxinon.de/@jabberati/111369913541457230
(DIR) Post #AbgbIQj8z8NYuMtxcu by Blort@social.tchncs.de
2023-11-11T04:46:10Z
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@elementSeems like this would mitigate not all fears, but the biggest and most common one people have. đź‘Ť@mxmehl