[danShumway]

We have two contrasting terms that work perfectly well right now:

Open Source, a set of licenses that allow users to run and modify software for personal or commercial purposes without your permission.

and Source Available, a set of licenses that allow users to see and modify your source code provided they meet some kind of criteria you set up, such as not using the code for commercial purposes or not doing things you don't like with it.

These two terms already perfectly encapsulate the entire range of new licenses that are being proposed for databases like Mongo.

But a nontrivial number of proponents for SSPL dislike this distinction because they want the goodwill and reputation that comes from being able to say, "we're Open Source." They want to be categorized the same way as MIT or GPL licenses, even though they fundamentally disagree with the worldview behind them.

> The OSI believes it owns the definition of open source and refuses to update the definition of open source, which is short-sighted and dangerous.

No. The OSI believes that Open Source has a widely agreed-upon definition, and that definition shouldn't be hijacked just because it's inconvenient for some company's software monetization strategy. The level of condescension in this article is really infuriating. Literally nothing is preventing any developer or company from using the SSPL right now: nobody will judge you, nobody will call you evil, the only thing the Open Source community is requesting is that you do not call it Open Source.

Open Source was not invented so you could use it as a PR strategy. We don't need your help.

[ForHackernews]

> Open Source was not invented so you could use it as a PR strategy. We don't need your help.

Ironically, "open source" was explicitly invented as a PR strategy by ESR and friends because the free software ideology was scaring aware rich companies:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch02s03.html

[bonzini]

> Open Source, a set of licenses that allow users to run and modify software for personal or commercial purposes without your permission.

... And do not prohibit redistribution of the work or source-form derivatives.

[cwyers]

> nobody will judge you, nobody will call you evil

I don't think this is true. Lots of people will call anything other than their preferred licenses evil.

[danShumway]

Well sure, some people will call you evil for choosing GPL over MIT.

But the developer community as a whole, which has already shown themselves to be basically fine with proprietary software existing, is not going to be thrown off because you call yourself Source Available.

And the people who would judge you for choosing a Source Available license are not going to suddenly be OK with you using SSPL just because Mongo says to call it Open Source.

[luckylion]

> and Source Available, a set of licenses that allow users to see and modify your source code provided they meet some kind of criteria you set up, such as not using the code for commercial purposes or not doing things you don't like with it.

GPL is source available, then?

[antisemiotic]

Last time I checked GPL explicitly allows using the code for any purpose ("Freedom 0"). FSF is also clear that it's fine with people making money off free software. The requirement to distribute code together with binaries makes many kinds of business impossible with GPL-d software, but that's a side effect, not the goal as in "Source Available" licenses.

[skybrian]

As far as I know GPL complies with the open source definition. You can run the software for any purpose, including selling commercial services.

Source available licenses would be appropriate if you want to restrict use. (For example by Amazon.)

[bonzini]

Nope! GPL puts conditions on redistribution, not on modifying or running the code.

AGPL does stretch the definition though, and people have argued indeed that it is not open source.

[danShumway]

Some people have argued that, yes. I've even argued it occasionally in the past.

The short justification given is that even though the GPL doesn't let you do everything, it still doesn't interfere with the 4 essential freedoms that Open Source guarantees. You may or may not agree with that justification.

But the people arguing in favor of SSPL as an Open Source license are moving in the wrong direction. If TechCrunch wanted to make the argument that the GPL wasn't free enough for inclusion into Open Source, they could do so. Instead, they're arguing that because the GPL might stretch the definition, we should just go whole hog and introduce straight-up end-user usage restrictions as well.

Techcrunch is taking the, "your thing isn't perfect, so we should all make it worse" position.

[TeMPOraL]

> The short justification given is that even though the GPL doesn't let you do everything, it still doesn't interfere with the 4 essential freedoms that Open Source guarantees. You may or may not agree with that justification.

Wait, what? "Four essential freedoms" are part of FSF philosophy, not Open Source, and GPL is literally the canonical example of a license that guarantees and safeguards them. Many Open Source (not Free Software) licenses do not, in fact, guarantee these freedoms.

[skybrian]

Yes, the open source definition has its own rules. The one that seems most relevant here is:

"No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

"The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

[danShumway]

I am conflating Open Source and FSF, and I think people are very right to call me out on that. Especially in this context :)

The point I was trying to get at is that regardless of existing debates over the merits of permissive vs. copyleft licenses, neither side of that debate would say that SSPL belongs here.

Permissive license advocates would say that while they dislike GPL's restrictions, adding more restrictions is a bad idea. GPL advocates would say that the point of the GPL is to safeguard the 4 essential freedoms, and SSPL doesn't safeguard them.

Techcrunch is arguing that because there isn't perfect consensus within FOSS, FLOSS, and Open Source communities, that we might as well just turn this whole thing into a free-for-all.

[SolarNet]

No. If you wanna get technical about it GPL is structured around ensuring every user can see and modify the code, and do whatever they want with it, except prevent people from doing the first thing (seeing and modifying the code). It's sort of a vacuously false thing where "provided they meet some kind of criteria you set up" has the criteria of ensuring the original clause of "a set of licenses that allow users to see and modify your source code".

[ngold]

Excellent point. Anything to misconstrue a common definition in the name of marketing buzz.