[HN Gopher] Single vendor is the new proprietary
___________________________________________________________________
Single vendor is the new proprietary
Author : yarapavan
Score : 91 points
Date : 2024-04-19 17:45 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (opensource.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (opensource.net)
| Pannoniae wrote:
| The author completely neglects the "non-open-source/open
| collaboration" quadrant as if it didn't exist. Best examples are
| games with easily accessible modding communities. While
| development is centralised and you definitely don't have any kind
| of open source licence, collaboration is generally open in terms
| of releasing mods to the game.
|
| They also bash the Commons Clause purely using the definition
| (zero mention on why they think the restrictions are bad, it's
| just handled with "not OSI" and that's it)
|
| Of course this position can be understood better when you look at
| who are sponsoring this organisation. (in a short way,
| opensource.net is an OSI front, and OSI is lobbied heavily by the
| software industry)
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| OSI isn't the software industry. It's sponsored by Google,
| amazon then ms via github in order of sponsor donations. It's
| financed by the hyperscalars. https://opensource.org/sponsors
| Spivak wrote:
| This is such a crazy retelling of history that it's hard to
| take seriously. Open Source was not some brainchild of
| megacorps but very much so a mission of the wider software
| industry to band together to have an alternative to hugely
| expensive proprietary software vendors -- namely Microsoft
| and Oracle, and to prevent people from imposing their will on
| users via software in a manner that users had no possible
| redress from.
|
| OSI was founded by Perens and Raymond and very much
| represents the interests of the wider software industry.
| You're free to argue that at some point they have stopped in
| recent but Open Source has meant the same thing for going on
| 30 years.
| Retric wrote:
| OSI is from 1998 so it's much younger than the open source
| movement. BSD was approaching 20 and Linux was what 7 years
| old at that point?
| Spivak wrote:
| The free software movement is for sure older than that
| but I can't find any verifiable source of "open source"
| being used in its current form earlier than the 90's.
| Retric wrote:
| The term still predates OSI, but more importantly than
| the name than what was going on.
|
| The specific transition from sharing as public-domain
| software vs free, open, shared, and permissivly licenced
| software dates to ~1953 with A-2 being provided for free
| and requesting updates be sent back to UNIVAC.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System Others might
| point to IBM SHARE from 1955 as being closer:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)
|
| Followed by many similar arrangements before the term
| open source was coined with OSI only showing up much
| later.
| outop wrote:
| No, because it's a name that was made up then to try to
| rebrand something that had already existed for decades,
| but which has a name that those guys didn't like.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| My memory from the time was that the OSI was mostly about
| trying to characterise the various licenses that were
| floating around, and about legitimising the use of
| freeish software in industry.
|
| Today the majority of free software that I use seems to
| be Apache/BSD/MIT - and GPL for Linux - but back in the
| 90s everyone seemed to make up their own "free" license,
| and there was a lot of confusion around GPL. My
| recollection is that OSI was trying to create some
| clarity around which licenses really were "free", and
| which weren't.
|
| I was just a passive observer, I was not involved in any
| way, I wasn't a fan of some of the players, and I even
| thought calling it OSI was pretentious - but nevertheless
| they made a dent in the universe by popularising the term
| "open source". OSI was far more than a rebranding because
| it enabled us to speak about GPL - which imposes
| conditions on use - and free licenses like BSD in the
| same breath, while excluding what we now call "source
| available" licenses.
|
| So despite my misgivings, I think the OSI deserves
| credit. They stood up and did something meaningful, and
| helped move the entire software industry forward.
|
| Because of this, I think calling it a rebranding is
| totally unjustified and unfair.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Open Source was not some brainchild of megacorps but very
| much so a mission of the wider software industry to band
| together to have an alternative to hugely expensive
| proprietary software vendors
|
| No, you are thinking of Free Software and copyleft, which
| predates Open Source.
|
| Open Source was invented as an alternative to Free
| Software.
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| Please reread my post, I didn't mention anything
| historical. I never said who founded it nor who started it.
| Your arguing against a straw man argument you made up. I am
| saying today, OSI does not represent the software industry
| and that given sponsorship bias it's likely to represent
| the views of those companies that pay OSI.
| Macha wrote:
| Note that it's subscription/service games that often have the
| most contentious relation with their modding scenes, as they
| tend to see the mods more as competition. On the other hand,
| people are generally more willing to develop mods for software
| sold with perpetual licenses, as the chances of no longer
| having access to the thing you are supporting is much lower
| than with e.g. $XXXXX/month cloud services.
| Pannoniae wrote:
| Very good point, not only in live service games... I've seen
| a thing or two and it's usually obvious how developers treat
| the modding community. In some games they are viewed as an
| asset (people mod my game, they make it different, this
| attracts more people to buy my game) and in other games,
| modders are the scum who always want to cheat/commit "fraud"
| by not wanting to buy all the microtransaction slop/etc.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Even for perpetual license games, if the game has paid DLC
| the developers often see mods and cheatengine as a threat to
| their revenues. Capcom is on the record that this is part of
| why they put DRM and anticheat into their single-player games
| now, because otherwise you can get items and cosmetics with
| cheatengine instead of buying them off Steam/PSN/XBL
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Modding games seems like a legal grey area. Permission hasn't
| been granted, but also, game developers already have your money
| and they know a lot of players would be unhappy if they tried
| to stop the modding.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I wouldnt be surprised if most game studio didn't enjoy
| it/try to promote it in maybe indirect ways. Skyrim is an old
| game, great game, but an old game. However modding keeps it
| fresh and interesting and I would imagine it probably is a
| big reason why they still get sales on it. While it isn't a
| huge money maker any more, they are still selling copies just
| for people to play with the mods, extending the timeline of
| how much revenue the game will create over it's total
| lifetime.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| If it is, then Open Source has won, right? And we can disband the
| OSI, right?
|
| I suspect that's not the message they intended to send.
|
| (I read the article, btw.)
|
| As the author of source available software, this article merely
| seems to be screeching from big players that they can't exploit
| some software anymore.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm not following; how does an onslaught of fake FOSS mean FOSS
| has won? If anything it sounds like it needs more defending
| than ever.
| havilland wrote:
| How is fake FOSS different from FOSS ?
| dartos wrote:
| Is fake kindness different from real kindness?
| gavinhoward wrote:
| It means that the _expectation_ is that the source is open.
| The default used to be closed source, so in essence, Open
| Source has won.
|
| Personally, I don't see source available as a bad thing. [1]
|
| [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/12/is-source-available-
| really-t...
| vinceguidry wrote:
| Nobody is discussing FOSS here, only OSS. The only solution
| to capitalistic shenanigans is the software commune, OSS
| isn't a commune, FOSS is. OSS is, essentially, a software
| cartel disguised as a philanthropic enterprise.
|
| Advocates of OSS want to live in a world where bigcorps and
| little guys can coexist, this has always been a pipe dream,
| since day one. FOSS locks the bigcorps out of the discussion,
| or rather, forces them to compete on the same playing field
| as the little guy, which amounts to the same thing.
|
| So you see these articles come out every now and again
| bemoaning capitalistic greed. Communist utopia is _right
| there_ bro. Just open your eyes and stop letting bigcorps eat
| your lunch every couple of years or so.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I thought the article was arguing that say Redis was while
| "open" the codebase is owned by one company and hence that's no
| different to proprietary.
|
| To which I say, yeah we know.
|
| I mean I can fork Linux kernel tonight and announce my big new
| plans, and there will be zero installs. Big FOSS software is
| there because they built a reputation of constant quality over
| years (as successful proprietary companies should and sometimes
| do)
|
| That social capital is immensely hard to compete against (the
| Hashicorp forking might manage?)
|
| And that is what "the big players" are trying to exploit - that
| for a decade they have led / organised / helped / whatever the
| development of this software and now they want to monetise
|
| It's also why I think the "foundation" model works surprisingly
| well - we can trust that to keep software going so it's a
| better ask for cash (even if the support model is the "best"
| imo)
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| There are tons of forks of the Linux kernel. For example,
| Debian ships their own, and Ubuntu, which is based on Debian,
| ships a different one. These are kept mostly in sync with
| upstream but it's completely plausible that if upstream made
| a change they didn't like they'd just revert it.
|
| The actual problems are with things like systemd, which are
| enormous and lack standardization but get integrated into
| numerous parts of the system. Then you can't replace a piece
| of it or your piece has to integrate with all of the things
| the original did, but since none of the integrations follow
| any standards they can change at any time and people can add
| new ones that only work with the original and -- surprise --
| your replacement is suddenly broken.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I somehow still don't get what single vendor open source code is,
| even after reading the article.
|
| Is it code that is open source but the license says "no forking."
| And maybe the license says they are allowed to fork it and chance
| the license to proprietary?
|
| Or is it code that is open source, but nobody has ever bothered
| to fork it. With the potential spin that sometimes code is just
| so specific that nobody would bother forking it because it is
| super tied to some platform or hardware.
|
| The former, that just seems like looming proprietary code. The
| latter, I dunno, can't blame people for implementing niche
| projects I guess.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| I like to think of Open Governance vs Open Source on topics
| like, if someone adds SSO to the OSS repo, will the main vendor
| behind it reject the PR because it breaks their OSS core
| business model
| worldsoup wrote:
| I think they are basically saying an OS project with a single
| commercial entity as the maintainer.
| danenania wrote:
| If that's the case, it seems like a very bigcorp-centered
| perspective. Indie devs and people who aren't already well-
| connected don't have the ability or resources to get
| consortiums of companies behind their projects or create open
| source foundations.
|
| So I don't know--maybe it wasn't intended this way, but it
| comes across as very gatekeep-y to me. Like telling people
| that unless they are already established and famous enough to
| start a project that has tons of backing from the start, that
| they can't "really" be opensource (despite a very real
| opensource license), meaning you as the little guy should
| either build your project for free with no hope of ever
| making a living from it, or else be excluded from the broader
| opensource community.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Take Hashicorp's Terraform as an example. Until recently, the
| code was completely open source with a permissive license. You
| could do exactly as you like with it. The 'single vendor'
| decided that was no longer in their best interests.
|
| What's the problem? Now you have 1000's of companies that rely
| on this software, and if they want to continue to receive
| security updates, they need to comply with the new license. Of
| course, people are free to fork projects, and that has been
| done in the case with terraform, but it's something that a
| foundation-led project most likely wouldn't do (change the
| license).
|
| There's another flavor of single vendor open source IMO. I call
| it 'look but don't touch open source.' Modern software projects
| have become some complex, and the build and dependency systems
| so customized, you could have the source code available, and be
| free to modify it, but wholly unable to do so because of the
| build-time complexity. A foundation-led project would,
| ostensibly, ensure that the entire lifecycle of the software is
| approachable by end users (docs, tooling, etc).
| kivle wrote:
| And then you have the look and "you can touch if you give
| away all rights for what you contribute". Contributor License
| Agreements where basically you contribute to a "GPL" project,
| but you sign away the rights to your contribution to the
| company, so they can still close source it any time they
| please while including your code.
| daniel-s wrote:
| I read this article and feel no further informed on this topic.
| Avoid.
| worldsoup wrote:
| This article is dramatically simplifying the state of software
| markets.
|
| >Single vendor isn't a reasonable way to do Open Source and
| resist evil proprietary software. It's just another way to do
| proprietary software.
|
| >proprietary software is not evil. It's just inferior.
|
| Based on these statements the author would have you believe there
| is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we should just
| never develop it. All software should be open and collaborative.
| That is obviously silly. While open source software is great,
| many incredible software innovations and truly valuable software
| comes from proprietary companies. In fact, these companies are
| typically the ones that make the large open source ecosystem
| possible by making massive donations in developer hours as well
| as cash to orgs like linux foundation.
|
| The interesting discussion is in whether commercial software
| should be closed source or source available with restrictions.
| The days of building propriety, VC backed infrastructure software
| with a traditional permissible license are over and likely never
| coming back.
| coloneltcb wrote:
| yes it's puzzling how simplistic this framing is. I would
| expect more from the Vice-Chair of the OSI.
| simoncion wrote:
| >> proprietary software is not evil. It's just inferior.
|
| > Based on these statements the author would have you believe
| there is no value in commercial/proprietary software and we
| should just never develop it.
|
| Do you believe that there is no value in inferior products and
| that they should never be developed?
|
| I certainly don't, and it's clear to me that the Carrez does
| not, either.
|
| If I have the option, and can afford to do so, I will select
| the superior product. But if there is no option, or I cannot
| afford the superior product, I will accept the inferior one and
| be better off than if I had no product at all.
| sanderjd wrote:
| > _The interesting discussion is in whether commercial software
| should be closed source or source available with restrictions._
|
| Thank you!
|
| The author carefully uses the term "proprietary software",
| drawing no distinction between whether it is closed source or
| source available, as if that distinction is totally beside the
| point. But for me, as someone who makes software, there is a
| _huge_ distinction between those two things!
|
| I _really_ hate using tools that I can 't read the source of.
| Just recently I traced some documentation on how python garbage
| collection works into the implementation for that particular
| thing in the particular version of the language that I'm using.
| If python were a single-vendor source-available tool, that
| would be a bummer and I'd be less likely to use it, but it
| wouldn't actually affect my work much. But if it were _closed
| source_ , that would absolutely be a deal breaker for me. I
| need to be able to go look and see how my tools work, otherwise
| I'm blind.
|
| I do agree with the author that community-driven open source is
| _better_ , and I consider projects like the Linux Foundation,
| BSD, GNU, Apache, CNCF, etc. to be wonderful miraculous gifts.
| But I also worry that a distressing proportion of the most
| important software I use has been built on the backs of a
| series of absurdly under-compensated and eventually burnt-out
| passionate nerds, and I can't stand that. So I'm sympathetic to
| a model that has a more obvious (to me) path to creating
| software tooling that I can use without flying blind, while
| compensating people adequately for their work.
| rglover wrote:
| > You should be on board if you want Open Source to win against
| proprietary software. But those companies are still doing what
| is, essentially, proprietary software: like the proprietary
| software companies of the 80s, they very much consider the
| software being produced as their exclusive property. They still
| intend to capture all the value that derives from it. And thanks
| to copyright aggregation or permissive licensing, they still can
| change the license any time they want. So it's still proprietary:
| they just choose, for now, to release their software under an
| Open Source license.
|
| This brings to mind two questions: why does open source need to
| "win" (why can't there be multiple options) and re: things being
| produced as their exclusive property, what is the issue with
| this? They did the work to make the thing, therefore it's their
| property (unless they choose to release it otherwise).
|
| Sadly, a lot of the arguments I hear around OSS sound like the
| "you didn't build those roads" argument when they should be
| "thank you for making your work accessible to me." It's no
| surprise that most OSS work gets abandoned due to developer
| burnout when "open source" is often misinterpreted as "100% free
| for me to do literally anything I want, whenever I want, and
| you're evil if you disagree with my entitlement to your efforts."
|
| The ideology around OSS has serious NPD vibes. It's worth people
| revisiting Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You" [1].
|
| [1]
| https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95...
| paulgb wrote:
| The author is not so much against proprietary software, as
| bait-and-switch tactics that present software as open source.
|
| > Anyone who truly thinks that software developed by a diverse
| set of actors working in an open collaboration is not better
| should just adopt the proprietary model. But they should be
| honest about it.
| tensor wrote:
| I don't see how it's bait and switch. You can still used and
| develop against the last open version. In fact, we've seen
| recent examples of that in Terraform and Redis.
|
| Open source does not mean you are entitled to all future
| improvements unless the license says you are, like the AGPL.
|
| Personally, I'm grateful these project made their source open
| for so long. The alternative would not be AGPL terraform, it
| would be completely closed terraform.
| tyingq wrote:
| It probably feels like bait and switch for the folks that
| created or used lots of open source in the time period
| where there was less opportunity/temptation to move the
| license from GPL/BSD/MIT to something proprietary. In our
| minds, we attached some altruistic intent to those
| licenses. Things have changed now, of course.
| lolinder wrote:
| Why do the actions of HashiCorp and company have any
| bearing whatsoever on your decision to release and use
| unrelated open source software?
| dlisboa wrote:
| I'd also go as far as saying most of the value added to
| these open core projects is contributed by employees of the
| companies themselves. The fact that they do it out in the
| open with the possibility of someone else forking it is a
| plus, we shouldn't want this to be solely proprietary.
| Hashicorp paid for a lot Terraform's development for
| instance. Microsoft is paying top computer scientists to
| develop an editor
| growse wrote:
| The bait and switch is the community and social elements,
| not the code.
|
| Inviting the local community to come and improve your space
| that you opened up for everyone to exist in, and then
| suddenly locking the doors is both entirely legally
| justified and a crappy thing to do.
| lolinder wrote:
| This analogy falls flat because it makes it sound like
| the community is locked out of the improvements they made
| to your space. But there's no scarcity here: once
| HashiCorp locked the doors all of the improvements that
| the community made were still there, and the community
| could _and did_ organize a new space for continued
| improvements.
| skeledrew wrote:
| The term "bait and switch" infers intent as well though.
| The community was invited to come and improve the space,
| but then there's this group that unexpectedly starts to
| monopolize that space in a way that destroys its
| viability. So controls need to be put in place, or
| eventually the space has to be totally abandoned or shut
| down.
| linuxftw wrote:
| For me, neither side needs to 'win' but people should
| understand the facts on ground when they adopt a project for
| their needs. "Open Source" isn't the full story, you need to
| consider the motivations or potential motivations of a
| project's backers.
|
| I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that
| were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-
| paid volunteers, and then change licensing models. Maybe those
| people were ill-informed, and shouldn't have contributed in the
| first place, and this article is trying to publicize the
| ramifications of a projects stewardship.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that
| were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-
| paid volunteers, and then change licensing models.
|
| It's definitely possible to take advantage of volunteerism,
| but in this case I don't see the real issue. The project
| remains just as open as it ever was, even upon licence
| change. It can be forked, and the project might change name,
| but that's all. It's not the nicest outcome, but it's the
| same as if a sole owner just decides to stop working on a
| project. The only thing to do is fork and move on.
| rglover wrote:
| > I think there's a real grievance to be had by projects that
| were formerly open source, solicited contributions from non-
| paid volunteers, and then change licensing models.
|
| I think that's the crux of the frustration and fair. But at
| the same time, the previous version before the license change
| can still be forked/the contributions are intact so is there
| a tangible loss or just an emotional one?
| gmueckl wrote:
| This can be a very real loss. Third party contributions are
| driven by specific needs. When the license changes too
| much, those third parties can either pay for a fork (with
| money/time investment) and improve their own modifications
| or get the enhancements in the upstream product without any
| improvements of their own. There is a middle ground with
| paid source code access, but I don't see a lot of
| commercial offerings do that.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Wrt winning: Open is the least worst way of doing things.
|
| With the xz kerfuffle people say "aha! So much for your
| security now!" when the alternative is someone tampering with
| code on an unsecured ftp serve i.e. it's the devil you can see
| tcmart14 wrote:
| For sure, I think that last part is underestimated but
| powerful. When the SolarWinds or similar attacks occured, we
| had to rely on investigation reports put out via PR teams and
| such about how such an attack occured, what processes missed
| it, etc. With the xz attack, every step of the attack was out
| in the open for everyone to analyze. Or at least the vast
| majority, if there were private emails exchanged between "Jia
| Tan" and the original maintainer, those we can't recover. But
| we can see pretty much every other aspect of the attack.
| zem wrote:
| > re: things being produced as their exclusive property, what
| is the issue with this? They did the work to make the thing,
| therefore it's their property (unless they choose to release it
| otherwise).
|
| the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being
| ignored, so they claim to be less proprietary than they
| actually are while trying to build mindshare
| rglover wrote:
| > the issue is that they also want the benefit of not being
| ignored
|
| So in order to get any interest in your project, you have to
| be open source (and align with the ideology absolutely)?
| hnoyrnndd wrote:
| I don't think this was intended to be a normative
| statement. Just an observation that "open source as
| marketing" seems to work, so people use it despite it not
| actually being true of their project.
| Pannoniae wrote:
| not gonna lie this sounds like a borderline cultish view on
| things (only OSI-approved open source projects should get
| recognition, rest should be damned to obscurity and ridicule)
|
| having the source available is a _huge_ benefit compared to
| proprietary software as you can view, introspect and patch
| your tool - having a permissive licence is a "nice-to-have",
| not an entitlement.
| smarx007 wrote:
| > why does open source need to "win"
|
| Open source does not need to win.
|
| But your ability to be in control of your computer needs to be
| preserved (restored?). A proprietary fridge cannot control your
| diet, while a proprietary App Store can control what software
| you install on YOUR phone (unless you live in EU, hello DMA!).
| The tail wagging the dog, so to speak. Proprietary software has
| also been shown to break user workflows or remove functions in
| an update while leaving users with no choice whatsoever.
|
| One alternative to having open source win is to ensure software
| comes with a robust warranty and other assurances you expect
| from the things you _buy_ (like the ability to resell it etc.).
| EU 's CRA will make software vulnerabilities in WiFi routers
| covered by warranty, for example. But that's just a first step.
|
| You can also ensure robust and interoperable data storage
| options. For example, https://obsidian.md/ stores all notes in
| Markdown, not holding the data hostage in case users will not
| like how future versions will work. GDPR actually has a
| provision for data portability (Art. 20), but it does not seem
| to have a requisite effect on the industry yet.
|
| And until the above issues are solved, open source remains the
| best way to ensure that a software tail cannot be wagging your
| computer dog.
| lolinder wrote:
| From the OSI's old history page [0]:
|
| > The conferees decided it was time to dump the moralizing and
| confrontational attitude that had been associated with "free
| software" in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same
| pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape.
| They brainstormed about tactics and a new label. ... A month
| later ... the participants voted to promote the use of the term
| 'open source', and agreed to adopt with it the new rhetoric of
| pragmatism and market-friendliness that Raymond had been
| developing.
|
| The _entire point_ of Open Source as a concept was to be more
| flexible and business-friendly than Stallman 's Free Software
| movement. It's both hilarious and frustrating to see people
| today treat the OSI licenses as some sort of divinely appointed
| canon of morally good options when the entire concept exists to
| get away from moralizing.
|
| (I should clarify that I actually am more and more sympathetic
| to Stallman's vision, but I think that if we're going to
| moralize we should go all the way, not put a halo around the
| intensely and explicitly pragmatic open source principles.)
|
| [0]
| http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource...
| transpute wrote:
| FOSDEM 2024 talk by the author,
| https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2190-sing...
|
| _> explain the origin and value of the permissionless innovation
| that we currently all enjoy, and reassert the virtue of software
| developed in open collaboration, compared to single-vendor
| software_
| tedunangst wrote:
| I wonder how one would view late 90s gcc in this light? Single
| vendor compiler that made everybody so mad they finally forked it
| and basically restarted with a new team.
| jerrac wrote:
| The article itself is rather, hmm... Melodramatic? Not sure
| that's the right word, but it is close. That said, the overall
| idea that "open source" projects that are controlled by a single
| vendor have problems is true.
|
| I think that having a for-profit company controlling an open
| source project is a major conflict of interest. Open source does
| not always result in profit. Often the opposite. And I think
| we've seen the results of that with all the different open source
| projects that have re-licensed into pretend open source licenses.
|
| There are ways to run open source projects that support both the
| open source culture, and allow for for-profit companies to make a
| profit. But most of those ways mean allowing competition. Which
| is where the single vendor project conflict of interest becomes
| apparent. Yeah, big tech will leech off any successful project.
| Yes, that means less money for the "single vendor". Yes, that is
| not fair. But I'd say re-licensing is worse than leeching, so...
|
| The other side effect of "single vendor" I've run into a lot, is
| simply that their paid options are always priced for
| organizations with very deep pockets. So the smaller orgs (and
| individual developers) that jumped on the bandwagon early because
| the project was open source (and they actually could jump on the
| bandwagon), have no chance at supporting the project. And end up
| have to find something else because the project stops supporting
| open source.
| jshen wrote:
| I don't see how it's a conflict of interest. The primary
| benefit of open source is that you can run and modify it
| yourself if you need to. This benefit is still there if there
| is a single vendor behind the project.
|
| The risk of a single vendor project is that it's less likely to
| be supported in the long run. This isn't a conflict of interest
| though.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| _> On one axis, the license used is either Open Source (as
| defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which I would
| summarize as coming with all freedoms necessary to enable the
| permissionless innovation I mentioned earlier) or it's not. On
| the other axis is the development model: it's either developed as
| a commons, by a community working in open collaboration, or it's
| developed (and ultimately owned) by a single entity._
|
| Is SQLite "the new proprietary"? It seems to fit the description
| perfectly: very permissive license, very closed development
| process.
| ec109685 wrote:
| That's why the fork that is more open for contributions is
| gaining momentum: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql
| goodpoint wrote:
| And this is why we need copyleft.
| Centigonal wrote:
| Single-vendor is not proprietary because I can fork VSCode and I
| can't fork Microsoft Word.
|
| Single-vendor open source is the balance some companies have
| found between sharing their software with the community and
| capturing the value of their employees' labor. It's less free
| than openly developed FOSS and more free than proprietary
| software. It's unrealistic to expect all software to be openly
| developed FOSS with today's economics; the hundreds of thousands
| of contributors to single-vendor open source projects all need
| rent money, and you can't build a business on providing the open-
| source backend for AWS managed services.
|
| Companies will move up and down the freedom gradient depending on
| their needs at any given time. Sometimes they do it well, and
| sometimes they handle it in a kludgy and myopic way (I'm looking
| at you, HashiCorp). LinkedIn open-sourced Kafka, and Elastic
| restricted their license for ElasticSearch. Software doesn't
| always go from "more free" to "less free."
| devdao wrote:
| You can't forkvscode...
| SpecialistK wrote:
| https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/forks
|
| 27,000 people seem to have done so.
| dreadlordbone wrote:
| Cursor is an AI first fork of VS Code
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