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by nickpsecurity 3865 days ago
All evidence is to the contrary. The companies making the most profit on software are licensing it somehow while others that are at least successful are using plenty venture capital with SaaS. So, both are the best choices and the use of a proprietary license preserving FOSS-style freedoms is interesting.

Strange how much negativity proprietary OSS gets on HN vs cool, proprietary, closed tech.
1 comments
dragonwriter 3865 days ago
> Strange how much negativity proprietary OSS

"Proprietary OSS" is an oxymoron, like "four-sided triangle".

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nickpsecurity 3865 days ago
I retract my statement for any given commenter that was purely concerned with my misuse of the OSS phrase, which I'm fixing in future comments. However, there's often an overly-negative reaction to anything that involves payment and shared source w/ OSS-like benefits. If they were reacting to that, then it still stands if they don't do similar for cool, closed-source stuff here. Just seems hypocritical to me. That's where I was going with that comment.
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dragonwriter 3865 days ago
> However, there's often an overly-negative reaction to anything that involves payment and shared source w/ OSS-like benefits.

I think you miss that the biggest and most important benefits of open source are tied to the freedom to fork, which is both the source of the greatest security against divergence in interest between the original copyright holder and the user community and the enabler of community-driven innovation.

Put simply, shared-source does not have "OSS-like benefits".

> If they were reacting to that, then it still stands if they don't do similar for cool, closed-source stuff here.

Unlike shared-source stuff like the Fair Source License here, simple closed-source proprietary software generally doesn't try to pretend to be Open Source-like (and, when it does, it is attacked in the same way.)

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nickpsecurity 3865 days ago
"I think you miss that the biggest and most important benefits of open source are tied to the freedom to fork, which is both the source of the greatest security against divergence in interest between the original copyright holder and the user community and the enabler of community-driven innovation."

I agree that's a major benefit. It's why a form of it is on my list. :P

A non-profit maintaining a shared-source software requiring a mere $1 a year wherever it was used would have enough for a full-time developer plus the website by time it hit 20-20k users whether in original or forked form. Plus could take contributions from others while giving them credit and/or a pass on the money. Whereas many OSS projects get used all over the place with about nothing in return and depend on goodwill of occasional volunteers or sponsored developers. So, there's definitely a benefit here with similar innovation, even community driven if a membership fee model.

"Unlike shared-source stuff like the Fair Source License here, simple closed-source proprietary software generally doesn't try to pretend to be Open Source-like (and, when it does, it is attacked in the same way.)"

Nah, shared-source stuff gets attacked more than proprietary or even shoddy OSS when it shows up. I was happy to see some exceptions considering the license a nice evolution in OSS direction from a proprietary angle or just better than most proprietary licenses.

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