[toomuchtodo]

I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. Source available is the new open source, and what young technologists will grow up grinding on. You’ll have folks complain about it during the transition (as happens with any Overton window sort of event), but they’ll move on eventually and a new crop of tech industry will grow up with this as the new normal. Change is inevitable, broadly speaking.

[JoshTriplett]

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means

Only if we let it, and stop shouting about it and finding alternatives every time a company does this.

This isn't a new thing; companies have been trying to play "almost open source" games for decades, and they'll continue playing those games as long as it either works or doesn't have sufficiently large penalties for trying. (Much as companies will continue violating copyleft licenses as long as they either get away with it or the penalties for trying are simply an expected part of the risk.)

The best possible response to a company doing this is that someone forks the code, starts or expands a competitor, and the original company's revenue drops massively as a deterrent.

[toomuchtodo]

> The best possible response to a company doing this is that someone forks the code, starts or expands a competitor, and the original company's revenue drops massively as a deterrent.

Example of the last time this worked?

[riffraff]

Jenkins/Hudson?

Oracle decided to make Hudson commercial, it was forked and Jenkins is still around but Hudson is dead.

[pjmlp]

Meanwhile Cloudbees has several product to sell you on.

Turns out Jenkins development needs to be sponsored somehow.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I don't know what the impact was on their revenue, but pretty much anything Oracle has ever touched.

[toomuchtodo]

But still wildly profitable!

https://investor.oracle.com/investor-news/news-details/2023/...

[gkbrk]

ElasticSearch? A lot of people moved to open source forks.

[BoorishBears]

I hate OpenSearch with a passion, an absolutely horrid lagging project that can't get basic autocomplete working (https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards/...)

but still manages to suck the air out of the room when you want Elasticsearch because AWS already has the company's billing details and no one wants to figure out paying another provider.

[pjmlp]

From where I am standing, no one cares they exist.

[pessimizer]

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival.

I don't think this is happening at all. Open source means the same thing it's always meant. Some people are just retreating from open source. Which is fine, they should be writing Free Software anyway if they want the world to have it, or use proprietary licenses if they don't. Otherwise very wealthy people will live on your back.

[JohnFen]

I agree. But there are an awful lot of younger devs who really do seem to confuse "open source" with "source available". It's worth educating people about this.

[sanderjd]

So, I don't think this is a generational thing. I think most people of all ages and generations have mostly just not thought about this. But the reason more people are thinking about it now is that the distribution model has changed on a way that has highlighted an existential weakness with this model.

[JohnFen]

I lack data, so I cannot say anything broadly. But in the devs that I know, this is 100% a generational thing. It may be different in different circles.

[sanderjd]

:shrug: your mileage may vary.

[dragonwriter]

The OSI Open Source Definition and the FSF Free Software Definition are for most practical purposes identical (and most licenses meet both or neither); historically, the Open Source and Free Software communities have somewhat different reasons for preferring the same thing, but the things are the same.

[hkt]

Not so: open source licenses tend not to have any clauses requiring reciprocation, free software licenses do. Think MIT or BSD vs GPL.

[account42]

That distinction is what makes copyleft licenses. Free software is just as overarching as open source, see e.g. the FSF's list of free software licenses: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

[dragonwriter]

MIT, BSD, and GPL are all on both OSI’s list of Open Source licenses and the FSF’s list of Free Software licenses.

Yes, the FSF has a general preference that people use copyleft licenses like the GPL, but they recognize that permissive licenses meet the Free Software Definition.

[pxc]

GPL is an open-source license, and MIT-licensed software is free software.

The difference between free software and open-source is a matter of marketing. Open-source is a way of presenting free software to businesses and investors. Free software is an unabashedly political movement, openly concerned first and foremost with the public good. But the licenses themselves and the software itself, those things are identical.

[davidgerard]

I urge you to look up the open source definition at OSI. It doesn't say that at all.

[sanderjd]

My perspective is more like the parent's. As someone who has grown up along with open source, I've found it surprising recently how up in arms people are about how critical the ability for anyone to commercialize a project is for the definition of open source. To me, I care a lot about whether I can see how software is implemented, and modify it for my own use, but it has never really occurred to me that I need to have the right to commercialize any arbitrary project.

But :shrug: I guess different people care about different things, is what I've realized watching these discussions unfold.

But I do think this purist perspective on open source is just going to result in more Snowflakes and fewer Hashicorps, because why bother with this fight?

[orra]

> But I do think this purist perspective on open source is just going to result in more Snowflakes and fewer Hashicorps, because why bother with this fight?

Orgs like Hashicorp clearly think they benefit by pretending to be open source.

They could simply stop being disingenuous about their source available proprietary software, and nobody would stop them.

[sanderjd]

First of all, as is probably clear if you read my comments on this, I personally think it would be better if the definition of "open source" did not exclude this kind of re-sale limitation. I don't think it's intuitive at all that this is required to fit the definition of "open source". It seems to me like a tacked on ideological stance from the gatekeeper of the definition, that isn't present in or implied by the words themselves.

But while that's what I think, it isn't at all the view espoused here by Hashicorp. They aren't claiming this is open source. They are accepting the OSI definition and not claiming their new license falls within it.

They aren't being disingenuous. You're putting words in their mouth, and then getting mad at them about those words they didn't say.

[orra]

> They aren't being disingenuous. You're putting words in their mouth, and then getting mad at them about those words they didn't say.

No, they say open source needs to evolve, the implication this is an evolution (not devolution) of open source.

Their announcement talks about how they spoke to OSS experts. That's not relevant: the experts would simply have said: that's not open source.

Hashicorp several times say the BSL is permissive. Permissive is a well established term in software licensing. No, the BSL is not. The BSD and MIT and Apache licenses are permissive.

Finally there is this claptrap from their FAQ:

> 17. Does HashiCorp still believe in open source? > > Yes. [...]

[sanderjd]

> the implication this is an evolution (not devolution) of open source.

"implication"

> the experts would simply have said: that's not open source.

Presumably the experts did tell them that it is not an open source license, which is why they chose not to claim that it is.

> Permissive is a well established term in software licensing. No, the BSL is not.

I think BSL easily fits the bill for the word "permissive".

It's just all so much gatekeeping, and it's really tiring.

[davidgerard]

> why bother with this fight?

Because companies keep bringing this fight.

[sanderjd]

No, companies keep making services with code I can read and modify for my own use, and people in the community keep bringing this fight to them because they're peeved that other companies can't commercialize that software that they didn't build.

Companies will naturally conclude they should just make proprietary software, which doesn't require a big fight. And I think that's a shame.

[cthalupa]

The problem is these companies almost universally could not exist without open source software that allowed them to commercialize things. It is impossible for the vast majority of companies to ever "give back" as much to open source as they profit off of it - from the Linux kernel, all the GNU stuff, the nginx or apache webservers hosting webpages and API access, the haproxy load balancers, the corosync/pacemaker they're using to keep things online, etc. etc. etc.

How many of these companies could exist if all these projects underpinning their own swapped to the SSPL, BSL, etc? And I don't mean now - once you reach a certain size, if you have to replace a bunch of dependencies, you have the resources to do it. But when these companies were smaller, would they have been able to create their own implementation of all these dependencies and still get their product to market? Would they have had the resources to commit to all of it? Would they have had the money to pay for non-FOSS options?

How many of these projects would still exist if the community couldn't commercialize them? We're not even talking about whether or not they ultimately end up contributing code back, etc., because it's not like these licenses give you some threshold of code contribution after which you can commercialize it. Sure, the possibility exists of some special private licensing agreement being struck, but that's possible with proprietary code, too.

Source available might sound fine from a personal use perspective, but it ignores the fact that the environment that made all of this possible would not have been possible under that model.

[sanderjd]

A very thoughtful argument, thank you!

To me, the difference is that these are all building blocks rather than standalone products. I think of these commercial products as making sense for standalone services, rather than libraries and other building blocks.

But also: I think the business model that built all those open source building blocks has always been pretty shitty, relying on a lot of altruistic un- or poorly- compensated work from people. And I think that's bad. But I don't think demanding that companies making useful services also be subjected to a shitty business model is a good solution.

[umanwizard]

“Free software” and “open source” mean the same thing.

[riffraff]

The window can't move, as there is an official version of what "open source" means, the Open Source Definition, which does not restrict you from reselling stuff.

We've had "source available" for a long time, which means something else.

I don't disagree that people may still use SA software more as time goes by, but I would argue that when possible people will prefer open source controlled by entities that keep it such.

[sanderjd]

This is not how language works. The phrase "open source" will mean what people think it means. An organization with a lot of credibility and mindshare can affect that meaningfully by maintaining and explaining the official definition from their perspective, but they can never be guaranteed success in convincing people that their definition is what those words will mean forever.

[cjaybo]

“The window can’t move”

I’d kill for your confidence

[davidgerard]

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means

This has been the case since the 2000s, as companies want the branding without the openness. This is extremely well worn by now.

I argue that companies who want it both ways are continuing to throw up chaff. But we know this chaff extremely well.

None of this discussion is new. "open core" has always been a euphemism for "proprietary."

[pxc]

> "open core" has always been a euphemism for "proprietary."

Yes. And in some ways, source available licensing is a nicer model for proprietary software than open core. At least with the former you can actually see all of the code to inspect how it works when something is broken.

Bleh. Every business wants to build on software freedom but they don't really want to see others freely build on their own software.

[version_five]

I agree except I think it's our of short term greed plus arrogance rather than survival. Maybe in some cases that's not true, but when companies like Meta are championing pretend open source, it's not existential for them, it's trying to push for a world where they have more control. Like I said, I don't have a problem with closed source business models, it's the deliberate conflation that's troubling, especially when it's leveraged to get community contributions.

On the other hand, if popular software becomes faux-pen source (I read that somewhere recently) and community members stop contributing, it's a loss too because it means we all become takers on whatever company's terms.

Your almost certainly right about the window shifting, I'm going to keep complaining anyway.

[toomuchtodo]

I encourage you to continue to complain. Sometimes it’s the only way the rest of us have signal we might be wrong.

[seneca]

This is what these companies want you to believe, that it's a fait accompli and you just have to accept it. That's not actually reality, and giving up words and communities to people who want to corrupt them is not the right reaction.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means

perhaps according to Hashicorp's marketing team, otherwise I haven't seen any evidence this is the case

[094459]

Yup this is how I see things evolving too. It’s a long game though and I suspect there will be a few twists yet to come.