[HN Gopher] No one cares about open-source, until
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No one cares about open-source, until
Author : mikro2nd
Score : 147 points
Date : 2024-02-16 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.cryptpad.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.cryptpad.org)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder if there should be some systematic punishment
| for acquisitions. I can only imagine when company X gets bought
| by Google, Competitor Y ought to have a big meeting with all its
| salespeople the next morning on the theme that that they are all
| going to get rich on commissions.
|
| In general there should be a broad movement that operates on
| several fronts that sends the message that you can buy the
| employees, you can buy the code, but you can't buy the customers,
| at least not yet.
| coldblues wrote:
| The Skiff sell really annoyed me. I am at very least glad that
| they gave their users 6 months to switch instead of a few weeks.
| pierat wrote:
| FLOSS wasnt just about "free shit" in the form of programs. It
| was all about user ownership of their data and how they wish to
| do things.
|
| These days, closed source is also closed formats. And with
| cloudshit tie-ins, sometimes even means you never even see your
| data. It's just <hands waving> in the cloud.
|
| For example, the sooner you migrated from Eagle after the
| Autodesk acquisition to KiCAD, the better. Sure, KiCAD was less
| polished, but your data and way you work was completely open. If
| you stayed with Eagle, well, you bent over and took it.
| criddell wrote:
| Did Eagle get worse after Autodesk bought it?
| mysterydip wrote:
| In January 2020, EAGLE 9.5.2 was discontinued as a standalone
| product and is only licensed to users as a bundled component
| with an Autodesk Fusion 360 subscription.
|
| In 2023, Autodesk announced that they will no longer sell nor
| support EAGLE after 7 June 2026.
|
| from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EAGLE_(program)
| Liftyee wrote:
| Autodesk is phasing it out and merging it into their Fusion
| 360 subscription.
| mjevans wrote:
| There is no cloud. Just someone else's computer.
| landingunless wrote:
| For most venture-backed open source projects, "open source" is
| and will always be a marketing tactic. It's a way to appeal to
| developers and beat out close-source competitors in procurement.
|
| Users of these projects should expect something like the Skiff
| sell to happen -- especially if the project is open core or does
| not use a truly permissive license.
| imiric wrote:
| I think it's possible to run a VC funded company that builds
| open source products using the open core model in ways that
| respect user freedoms, is successful for investors, and is not
| a fly-by-night venture.
|
| The execution needs to be carefully balanced on all fronts,
| which many companies don't do correctly giving this business
| model a bad reputation, but I wouldn't refer to it as "always a
| marketing tactic", or as something inherently wrong with the
| open core model.
|
| I'd go as far as to say that open core is possibly the best way
| to monetize open source projects.
| jraph wrote:
| How does the part outside the (open) core respect user
| freedom?
|
| For me, user freedom is guaranteed by free software licenses.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Having something you can sell profitably makes it more
| likely that the open source part will stay open.
| jraph wrote:
| I agree but that's beside the concern I'm raising. How do
| you ensure freedom on the non-free part? The answer is in
| the question, I'm afraid.
|
| The thing you sell also don't need to be proprietary. I
| work for an open source company that sells free software
| [1], support, hosting and consultancy. It specifically
| rejects doing open core in our business decisions. I'm
| glad it has worked so far (and has been for 20 years this
| year).
|
| (coincidentally, CryptPad is one thing the company makes
| :-))
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39403811
| teddyh wrote:
| Obligatory xkcd: <https://xkcd.com/743/>
| SushiHippie wrote:
| > The heartfelt tune it plays is CC licensed, and you can get
| it from my seed on JoinDiaspora.net whenever that project gets
| going.
|
| The tune is even CC licensed!
| dan15 wrote:
| I'm still wondering why Diaspora didn't take off but Mastodon
| did...
| guizzy wrote:
| When it started, Mastodon had an existing userbase to
| communicate with on OStatus, in the existing GNU Social
| communities, so it could skip the "Who wants to talk to a
| ghost town?" era of a social media's growth.
|
| Though this prompts us to wonder why GNU Social took off
| (modestly) but Diaspora didn't.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| > Skiff was presented as open-source, the back-end never was so
| it was not possible to self-host it. In addition, the type of
| license used (CC-BY-NC-SA) is meant for artworks and more geared
| towards showing the code than making the service operable by
| others.
|
| That's not open-source, it's open core. Calling it open-source is
| a straight-up lie. True open-source is useful even if a company
| gets acquired or changes their business model, because 1) the old
| version stays open-source so you never lose access, and 2) it can
| be forked and remain updated to compete with the now-proprietary
| version. Like when Terraform got forked into OpenTofu.
|
| 1) should be enough on its own to make nobody care if the company
| changes the license, but we live in a world where people expect
| all types of software to have continuous improvements. Still, 2)
| means there's a group can ensure the open fork has everything the
| closed original does, by putting in as much effort as the
| company. In practice the forks often fall behind and sometimes
| they die, but it's for the same reason the companies move away
| from open-source: it's harder to make progress without funding,
| and it's harder to get funding with open-source.
|
| EDIT: I also get that the term "open-source" is diluted. But my
| understanding is that it means _all of the source (i.e. code) is
| open (i.e. public)_. Otherwise, why even call it open-source in
| the first place? Non-code data like assets, training data, and
| keys can be private (provided the key isn't encrypting any code),
| which lets people sell open-source products; a server can use a
| key to ensure that clients purchased the product (and a checksum
| to establish that the client's source hasn't been modified), but
| the server's code should be open-source (so people can run
| modified versions locally but must buy the official game to play
| on the official servers).
|
| I suppose there's some loophole a group can use to create
| something under this definition of "open-source" and revoke
| access to prior versions later (at a minimum they can exclude you
| from the official servers). But at least I don't know any
| occurrence of this ever happening, and it's certainly a lot
| harder and less likely than revoking access to "open core" (which
| is just, not publicizing the majority of your code, so that even
| calling it "open" is debatable).
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I'm not sure it could even be called open core, that usually
| implies at least something is open source, but CC-NC violates
| the open source definition.
|
| (Also technically no CC licence is an open source licence,
| since they don't require works to release the source code,
| because they aren't intended for source code)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Also technically no CC licence is an open source licence,
| since they don't require works to release the source code,
| because they aren't intended for source code
|
| I think you're confusing open source with copyleft; ex. BSD
| style licenses are open source while still allowing
| proprietary derivatives.
| matrss wrote:
| > (Also technically no CC licence is an open source licence,
| since they don't require works to release the source code,
| because they aren't intended for source code)
|
| The MIT and BSD licenses also do not necessarily require the
| release of source code. It is just that if you license code
| under those terms and pass it to someone else, then they
| receive the rights to do a lot of things with the code,
| including releasing it. I don't think that is much different
| with the CC licenses (the non-commercial variant is
| definitely not open source though).
| RobotToaster wrote:
| My point is CC licenses don't even require the _original_
| author to release the source code, you can technically
| release software using that license as binaries. So as a
| license it can be used for both open and closed source
| software.
|
| It would be rather pointless, other than giving people the
| right to binary patch and redistribute the file. I'm mostly
| just splitting hairs because seeing CC licenses used for
| code annoys me.
| wrs wrote:
| The MIT license doesn't mention source code, just
| "Software". I don't see any reason you couldn't release a
| binary under MIT and not release the source code. It
| seems basically equivalent to CC-BY.
| matrss wrote:
| > My point is CC licenses don't even require the original
| author to release the source code, you can technically
| release software using that license as binaries.
|
| The same applies to MIT and BSD licenses. That was my
| point.
|
| > It would be rather pointless
|
| Agreed, but nothing in the license text prohibits it in
| any way. Even if it did, as the sole author of some code
| you are not bound by whatever license you pick, even if
| it was a copyleft license that would require other people
| to share their modifications.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| > That's not open-source, it's open core.
|
| I'd argue its not even open core. Normally open core means a
| useful product that you can run/host end to end in an open
| manner, but where some features (normally enterprise features)
| are closed-source.
|
| Not being able to run the back end at all?! I don't even know
| what I'd call that...
| mortallywounded wrote:
| Open client?
|
| It does have a place. For example, a password manager browser
| extension should be open source regardless if the
| server/platform is. It's nice to be able to audit something
| that is running on every website you ever visit.
| plagiarist wrote:
| The NC license is not open source in the way people mean open
| source. None of it was open source.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Not being able to run the back end at all?! I don't even
| know what I'd call that...
|
| I'd call it proprietary software.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| The general public doesn't care about "open source" so marketing
| a product as "open source" is pointless unless you're marketing
| it to a purely technical audience. The ability to modify the
| source code of Linux or to run your own Mastodon server isn't
| appealing to most people. Most people don't even care that iOS
| has an App Store monopoly where Apple decides what apps they can
| and can't put on their iPhone and iPad, at least until Apple bans
| an app they want.
|
| With venture backed startups, the goal is to sell the company
| either to a large incumbent or to the public stock market. An IPO
| is a de-facto sale to large pension funds like Vanguard and
| Blackrock. Ultimately, their long term goal is going to be
| maximizing shareholder value not some kind of open source
| idealism.
|
| In fact, open source often stands in the way of profit so market
| processes will encourage companies owned by the stock market to
| go with closed source whenever possible. The most reliable way to
| keep software open source in the long term is to license it under
| AGPL or GPL and accept contributions from as many contributors as
| possible under as many different copyrights as possible.
| Permissive licenses like MIT and BSD allow companies to use open
| source for proprietary software without sharing their changes.
| Even GPL licenses, if the copyrights are all assigned to a single
| entity, permit that entity to re-license it as proprietary. The
| more copyright holders, the harder it is to get the necessary
| permissions or replacement code to re-license.
| duped wrote:
| I'd liken it to car repair. I don't work on my car or fabricate
| replacement parts, but I can take it to any repair shop I want
| and the manufacturer can't stop me. And if my car was designed
| in such a way that I had to take it to the dealer for routine
| service and repairs, I wouldn't have bought it. None of that is
| because me, the consumer, knows the ins and outs of car part
| supply, regulations, or car maintenance. I just take it for
| granted that I can buy something and expect it to work for
| awhile and get it fixed when it breaks.
|
| The analog for that in software is open source. The public
| doesn't need to care. If it's open, anyone can go fix it when
| the developer stops. Those people aren't average consumers,
| they're the 3rd party car mechanics.
| godelski wrote:
| This is a very similar analogy I use for boomers and it
| sticks. They are often complaining about how no one fixes
| things anymore and so when you relate the abstracted software
| to hardware they actually understand. When they get it, they
| care too.
| nox101 wrote:
| But it also fits the op's pov that most people don't care.
| Most people don't care that you have to take Apple device to
| an Apple authorized service center. We had to get governments
| to pass laws to deal with that. I suspect we'll have to do it
| with lots more things as it gets easier and easier to
| cryptographically lock them down.
|
| As an example, I recently bought some smart light bulbs. They
| were "Matter compatible" so I thought they'd just work. Turns
| out, AFAICT, the manufacture ships them in a barely working
| state, this is so they can force you to download their app,
| register, and then they'll update something in the bulb that
| makes it work at full brightness.
| ta1243 wrote:
| I've had an iphone for nearly 15 years, I've never had to
| take it to a service centre. Local shops are dotted around
| towns that would replace screens if I broke one, which I
| guess is the most common problem.
|
| I daresay that's the norm. People don't care that they
| would theoretically have to take their phone to the apple
| store because they don't have to.
|
| A car however does need servicing and generally fixing --
| you can get a puncture 5 miles after leaving the lot if
| nothing else, so people are more aware.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Plus, society takes all kinds. If everyone is required to
| have the expertise of a software developer in order to enjoy
| the "right" not to be screwed over by closed-source software,
| other areas will suffer lack of personnel. Healthcare
| definitely comes to mind.
| neom wrote:
| I'll always take a moment like this to point once again to Nadia
| Eghbal's fantastic report, it might be from 2016, but it's a good
| read.
|
| Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital
| Infrastructure
|
| https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report...
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Computers without escape hatches seem destined to become infernal
| machines. Someday you'll find yourself misaligned with what's
| happening and you'll be very sad.
|
| This is the same thread we see with iot. It's either a system in
| your power, that you can work with, or it's a huge risk.
|
| Example article: _Home Assistant: Three years later_ 273 points,
| 3 days ago, 190 comments. https://eamonnsullivan.co.uk/posts-
| output/home-automation-th...
| Aachen wrote:
| I've rediscovered cryptpad last year. I thought it was (and was
| looking for) a client-side encrypted etherpad, but was surprised
| to see they had added spreadsheets, folders, forms, and
| everything. It's working towards a full office suite
|
| I wouldn't say it's quite there yet, my mom probably should wait
| a little to try it out, but if you're a bit geeky and looking for
| open source, live multiplayer spreadsheets or documents to use
| with other tech-savvy people, this would be the first thing to
| check out. With Nextcloud or LibreOffice cloud or whatnot, the
| server can always access your things. That's almost always fine,
| but if this exists, why not the privacy by default? I love the
| idea
| jszymborski wrote:
| > I wouldn't say it's quite there yet, my mom probably should
| wait a little to try it out
|
| Curious about what features you feel non-technical users might
| be missing. I've been most successful getting casual, non-
| technical users to adopt Cryptpad.
|
| It's the power users that use add-ons or need more than what
| WordPad might offer that begin to grumble in my experience.
| jraph wrote:
| > need more than what WordPad might offer
|
| To be noted CryptPad comes with its own fork of OnlyOffice, a
| complete Office suite. Maybe not as complete as MS Office or
| LibreOffice though. It's not only simple pads (anymore?).
| jszymborski wrote:
| Cryptpad is fantastic and totally replaces Google Docs for me
| when it comes to collaboration.
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