| > There seems to have been a considerable push by a number of people to dilute the meaning of open source -- in my tin-foil-hat opinion with the intent of destroying the community behind it. A cynic always looks cleverer than someone who takes people at their word. I prefer to do the latter even if I look stupid. Companies like CockroachDB and Sentry invest years of work and millions of dollars making useful products. A concern they have is that someone swoops in just as they find product market fit and hosts a version of their own. If AWS/Azure/GCP offer hosted CockroachDB, fewer people will pay Cockroach for their product. It’s as simple as that. At the same time these companies also want to make sure that firms have the option of self hosting. If you’re too small to be able to afford it, self host. If you’re large and need to be on prem for regulatory reasons, self host. If you want to make a custom fork, go right ahead. If you want to upstream any changes, you can also do that. Customers have options! The only companies left out in the cold are AWS/Azure/GCP. This seems like a reasonable compromise to me. I’d rather these companies stayed in business and continued innovating rather than being put out of business by the big boys. When they say this is their reason for going with a different license, I believe them. I don’t come up with conspiracy theories that they’re maliciously trying to harm something I love. Even if I was prone to conspiracy theories, I’d at least come up with a mechanism for _how_ the movement would be harmed. I wouldn’t just fling a serious accusation at people who are working hard just for the sake of farming upvotes |
Look, free software and open source have a certain tradeoff and definition. If you don't like it, don't use the license and don't call your products open or free software.