You're right. There's no reason at all why the concept empowering open source and the free exchange of code can't apply to licenses. After all, software is shared freely by people with the skills to handle it, why can't we do the same with licenses?
Of course, this does kind of require that the people working with license experimentation know enough about law to provably know what they're doing. So perhaps the community might not be as large as might be hoped, as there are limits to what a self-taught not-lawyer can do when it comes to having legal standing.
Yeah sorry reading my post just now I should've edited it, or not submitted in the first place. What I meant is that F/OSS has kindof created a situation where no commercial software development by ISVs is sustainable, and now F/OSS itself looses one of the last remaing avenues for monetarization eg. feedback into development and innovation.
Likely a move since the purchase of mLab to eliminate competition in the services space. Seems a lot like the recent changes with the direction of Redis.
Hopefully this spurs some movement in supporting open database communities better. PostgreSQL and RethinkDB being two that come to the front of my mind.
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(That includes not using uppercase for emphasis. That's basically online yelling.)
The whole point of open source is that OSS code can be used (and modified) for whatever use anyone wants. Copy-left compels you to share your modifications, but does not limit you from using the software however you please.
Why would we want to force a company like Mango to go proprietary? There is a virtuous cycle at work when companies build business models that enable them to stick around and continue to make significant community contributions as Mango has done. The cloud has enabled bad actors to cut off the air supply of contributors. If you care about open source, you should care about the ability for companies to build business models around it that are benevolent to individual users, but don't let parasites suck the life blood out of contributing organizations.
In my experience its the opposite. Companies form around the business plan of exploiting FOSS by hosting, solicit buckets of VC money, and give nothing back. It's completely unsustainable.
It's totally rational to create a license model that prevents hosting to third parties, but still allows end users to adopt the technology without paying. As has been pointed out elsewhere, that may not be right for all OS projects, but it should be an option.
I think you're overestimating outside contributions to these types of projects. In my experience, they are typically minuscule, and mutually beneficial relationships when they do occur.
Err?
They are certainly not useful counterexamples. That is open source software Google made itself.
The original complaint was about taking other people's open source (mongodb) without contributing back.
Not "failing to release stuff it made itself". That's a completely different thing.
Even there, what i said is still true:
Google has released every meaningful patch to the open source software it used in making Chrome/Android.
For production server kernel:
The only kernel patches these days i'm aware of that aren't upstream are hardware drivers for very custom hardware, or ones we released but upstream didn't want and we still maintain.
Like any sane kernel team, google tries to minimize it's difference with upstream since it has huge maintenance cost.
First, Your assertion is basically not that compliance with AGPL is not hard, it's that "you could just do more than the license requires".
That is always true, even for non-open source licenses.
You could take MIT code and comply not just by publishing a notice but by publishing all of it.
I don't think that is a meaningful argument against the annoyance of having to collate and publish notices.
Imagine if you have a commercial license that requires you be able to allow them to look through your books to verify software licensing, that often has high cost.
Your suggestion is basically "why not just make your books public" (IE more than the contract requires).
I don't think that's a meaningful argument against the cost of compliance, because that's not about compliance with this license, but instead one that requires more.
The whole point of contracts/licenses is that they are a deal. What you are suggesting is a very different deal, and we'd deal with it a very different way.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadOf course, this does kind of require that the people working with license experimentation know enough about law to provably know what they're doing. So perhaps the community might not be as large as might be hoped, as there are limits to what a self-taught not-lawyer can do when it comes to having legal standing.
Hopefully this spurs some movement in supporting open database communities better. PostgreSQL and RethinkDB being two that come to the front of my mind.
The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.
(That includes not using uppercase for emphasis. That's basically online yelling.)
The AGPL is just generally a ridiculously badly written license.
It's totally rational to create a license model that prevents hosting to third parties, but still allows end users to adopt the technology without paying. As has been pointed out elsewhere, that may not be right for all OS projects, but it should be an option.
_minified_ shell scripts
The original complaint was about taking other people's open source (mongodb) without contributing back. Not "failing to release stuff it made itself". That's a completely different thing.
Even there, what i said is still true: Google has released every meaningful patch to the open source software it used in making Chrome/Android.
Like any sane kernel team, google tries to minimize it's difference with upstream since it has huge maintenance cost.
This is false. Seriously - i'm not sure why people on HN like to offer things as facts that they simply aren't ever going to know about.
Google in fact does pay companies that developed open source software that Google relies upon.
There have in fact been developers sued (and they lost!) over this very issue in analogous situations, so i'm not sure why you say this.
"my readme just says "WTFPL, no warranty". The vague rights grant isn't something I've seen as an issue in analogous situations in case law."
I'm not sure where you looked. Judges have varied wildly in what they have done in analogous situations.
We are nothing if not data driven. If we didn't have very good data that suggests it is an issue, we wouldn't care.
That is always true, even for non-open source licenses.
You could take MIT code and comply not just by publishing a notice but by publishing all of it. I don't think that is a meaningful argument against the annoyance of having to collate and publish notices.
Imagine if you have a commercial license that requires you be able to allow them to look through your books to verify software licensing, that often has high cost. Your suggestion is basically "why not just make your books public" (IE more than the contract requires). I don't think that's a meaningful argument against the cost of compliance, because that's not about compliance with this license, but instead one that requires more.
The whole point of contracts/licenses is that they are a deal. What you are suggesting is a very different deal, and we'd deal with it a very different way.