[zeeg]

Where do we (Sentry) ever call ourselves FOSS?

If FOSS is represented by the community in this thread I want no part of that toxicity.

We do what we think is good and for developers and customers, and the broader open source ecosystem. A lot of us have been doing that for quite some time and will continue to do so.

[growse]

> Where do we (Sentry) ever call ourselves FOSS?

If you don't, it's pretty weird to want to do what you "think is good for the broader open source ecosystem".

[James_K]

EDIT: actually, you couldn't be more blatently lying about this.

https://open.sentry.io/

> We're Open Source

The title of the page. You really thought you could sneak that past me. You cannot seriously make a reply like this when you have an entire domain name dedicated to the tile "We're Open Source". That is the most obvious of obvious lies. Even the page title "yes, we're open source" is a kind of passive-aggressive jab at people who think you aren't.

Stop pretending to be open source and stop calling the open source community toxic.

------- End Edit -------

https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2023/11/19/cathedral-and-bazaaar-li...

> I assert that the FSL's approach is more closely aligned with Open Source ideals than mere source availability.

https://blog.sentry.io/introducing-the-functional-source-lic...

> We think it is a compelling option for Open Source-minded SaaS companies such as ourselves who wish to grant freedom

> for Open Source-minded SaaS companies such as ours, we think it’s a strong option.

This entire article is full of vague legal-speak designed to associate yourselves with FOSS as much as possible without actually saying you are. I can't see why you would do this unless your intention is to mislead or you have been mislead yourselves. You spend so much time talking about user-freedom, which has nothing to do with this license as it promotes developer sustainability over user freedom (even more-so than a simple non-compete license).

Like it or not, this is misleading. You should clarify your language on the matter. You aren't open source, and you've admitted as much yourself. You aren't "open-source minded" either (whatever that means). You said in the article that you should find a name for what you are doing, well, one already exists. It's called "source available". Open source software exists for anyone to use and profit from as they wish. You make the source of your code available because you think it will make a better product. You say that your software will become FOSS if you stop working on it to create more confidence in your product. These are all focused around selling your product, rather than around being genuinely free and open. Until you admit that this is what you're doing, you will be misleading people.

[zeeg]

https://github.com/getsentry

You suggesting we are anything but what we are just makes you look like you have an agenda at best, or foolish at worst.

All you're doing is harming the broader community by arguing about nonsense which is factually proven to be untrue. You came in here trolling as best you could, making false statements without reading or educating yourself on any components. Making statements as if you're a legal expert, as if you're an expert on open source history, on who or what Sentry is or has been.

1. A majority of Sentry's source code permissive open source. This is a fact, and easily verifiable.

2. FOSS is not Open Source. So when you constantly equate the two you simply come off as misinformed.

3. Sentry has continually shown good faith in a variety of activities, including donation of services, financial backing of large projects, financial backing of our dependency graph.

4. We are not rug pulling - we migrated our BUSL-licensed projects to FSL. BUSL is already non-compete source-available, FSL is the same thing but a more aggressive time-delay, and a better license conversion mechanism.

5. There is no "vague legal speak designed to [do anything harmful]". If its vague to you, maybe you should stay away from licensing, or you should start contributing back intead of creating toxicity on internet forums. In fact, the FSL is designed to be _more easily understood_ than prior licenses of its type.

[James_K]

1. Then call yourself "mostly open source" instead of "open source"

2. I know. I type one because it is shorter. As cool of a pedantic ad-hominem as this is, my arguments all hold up when you replace FOSS with open source. So imagine I have done this.

3. Irrelevant.

4. Irrelevant.

5. Irrelevant.

Stop calling everyone who disagrees with you toxic. Stop lying about being open source on your website https://open.sentry.io/.

[zeeg]

Sentry releases a large variety of software. Some of it is licensed under OSS (which, yes, I will be pedantic about, because OSS is one less character than FOSS, and I do not believe in copyleft).

Several of our core services are licensed under the FSL (previously the BUSL). Some of that code was open source a _long_ time ago, some was never open source. Most of our projects are licensed under permissive licenses, including many projects which other companies rely on _to directly compete with us_. When I say "the majority of Sentry is open source" I mean that literally, both with many older versions of our software being more free than any copyleft license would make it, as well as many of our "hard" technologies being open by default.

None of my points are irrelevant beause you're all over this thread suggesting bad faith by Sentry, by our employees, by others in the community. You seem to have an awful lot to say about how harmful Sentry is, and how harmful some of our employees are who have been contributing in significant ways for their entire career. That is definitionally toxic, and exactly why HN has such a bad reputation.

Is the messaging on that URL you found misleading? Yes, and we will improve upon that, but that doesn't make you right. You just continue to look like someone with a grudge who is wildly misinformed, making demands as Anonymous Internet User #67.

[James_K]

> Is the messaging on that URL you found misleading? Yes, and we will improve upon that

Will you improve on the rest of your messaging? For instance, the FSL is not "closer to open source than source available". It is just source available. You seem to view "that URL" as something external to your organisation – a little slip-up in an otherwise clean record – but I see it as a logical continuation of a long process of making yourselves seem as close to open source as possible. Every communication I've seen has been worded to downplay the ways FSL is not open source. You start by calling it a "not OSI approved" license instead of just source available, then you move on to an "eventually open" license then a "mostly open" license then a "more open than not" licence. Dropping the qualification is just the end point of all this. If you had started with the attitude "this isn't open source, we wish it could be but we can't manage that", you would not have eventually told a full blown lie. A lie is just what happens when you keep permitting half-truths. It's the exact reason I'm so pedantic about this and view even the small missteps as so important. You have seen here the direct consequence of them.

Real improvement on this matter will require you to change a lot more than the most obvious failure.

> you're all over this thread suggesting bad faith by Sentry, by our employees, by others in the community. You seem to have an awful lot to say about how harmful Sentry is

I believe that communicating you are open source when you aren't or attempting to create ambiguity in the definition of open source is harmful. It doesn't matter who's doing it. Doing unrelated good deeds isn't an excuse. You could be curing cancer or creating world peace for all I care, I would still insist that you do not associate this source available license with open source. I have accused you of doing this to improve sales, which is bad faith as it may be you had some other reason, but also an important point to make – these kinds of misrepresentation may influence people to pay you money and hence have real stakes. People in this very thread have said they bought your software under the impression it had some of the favourable aspects of open source which are impeded by the FSL.

> That is definitionally toxic, and exactly why HN has such a bad reputation.

Maybe people would reply to you in a less "toxic" manor if you didn't make every attempt possible to insult them and every community they are a part of. Just a passive-aggressive suggestion.

> You just continue to look like someone with a grudge who is wildly misinformed, making demands as Anonymous Internet User #67.

So you admit to being incorrect, and to having lied in a number of aspects, but you still want to keep insulting me? And you think I will come out of this looking bad? Maybe you should apologise for your mistakes instead of demeaning me and and the entirety of the open source community and HN. A simple "you are correct" would have sufficed even if you couldn't manage a "sorry".

[em-bee]

FOSS is not Open Source

sorry, what?

All Free Software licenses are also Open Source licenses. so how can FOSS be not Open Source?

[zeeg]

For clarity, I meant the two terms are not interchangeable.

[em-bee]

well, for most intents and purposes they are interchangeable. there are very few Open Source licenses that can't also be considered Free Software licenses. at worst they are the same in spirit but incompatible for some technicality. or they are much more open, but compatible, so i don't think it is fair to argue that the difference matters.

[arp242]

To claim that the FSL and Sentry is completely disconnected from FOSS and something different entirely that should never under any shape be associated with it is, quite frankly, just weird. It's "almost FOSS" and they're quite upfront about that, more so than they really need to be. You can decide if you care about that or not, but it's just not misleading under any sort of reasonable definition. This is a profoundly silly and frankly toxic hill to die on.

[James_K]

Imagine if you had donated to a "charitably minded" organisation, then later discovered that they were only an "almost charity". I don't think you would be pleased with that. This is how someone donating their time and code to FSL projects might feel. They are not "quite upfront" about the fact that they aren't FOSS [1].

Open source is constantly under attack from various corporate entities, so it makes sense that we should guard our image. Asking people to be clear about what is and isn't FOSS is a basic consequence of that. FSL is a source available license, and I am simply asking that its users make this fact clear instead of trying to associate themselves with FOSS. That is not unreasonable. That is not toxic. That is simply asking that people don't obfuscate the truth.

[1] https://open.sentry.io/

[arp242]

"Open source" is not a charity and you don't donate to Sentry. People have come out of Guantanamo Bay less tortured than that analogy.

> Asking people to be clear about what is and isn't FOSS is a basic consequence of that.

You are throwing around wild accusations bordering on the conspiratorial and making demands that are just beyond reason. The simple good-faith reading is that the Sentry people want to be as "open as possible" without compromising their business to the point of being unviable. There is nothing I know in the entire context and history of Sentry that would dispute that, and you've certainly provided zero evidence of it.

Quite frankly it amazed me that the people at Sentry even try in the face of complete rubbish that's being thrown around here by various people.

[James_K]

Go to this link https://open.sentry.io/ and explain how it is made clear that Sentry isn't actually open source. You can't. No amount of good faith turns "We're Open Source and we don't feel the need to qualify that statement" into "we aren't open source but we'd like to be close to". They are even directly asking in that page for help (for people to volunteer their time). The title of that page is a lie and they make no attempt to clarify it. I can't think of any good faith reason why they wouldn't just write "We're Source Available" since that is a more accurate description of what they are and they've been repeatedly told this. It's obviously less misleading not to over promise when you don't actually know the truth of the matter. The only justifications I can imagine for that title are that they either don't understand that they aren't open source, or that they want to appear open source to attract customers. Given they've had it explained to them repeatedly and even members of their company admit in this thread admit that they aren't open source (but claim they don't say that they are which is a lie) and that the page in question is advertising their product, I can only conclude the latter justification. That they are doing this to move product rather than to inform people.

> People have come out of Guantanamo Bay less tortured than that analogy.

A charity is an organisation of people can donating money or doing volunteer work to contribute to a cause they see as in the common good. An open source project is an organisation of people donating money or doing volunteer work to contribute to a piece of software for the common good of its users. They are more than a little similar. Even if they aren't, people deserve to know where their work goes if they are doing it for free.

[bentlegen]

Re: open.sentry.io, some of the language should probably be more clear. We’ll take a look at it.

[zeeg]

It’s not misleading. You claiming we say something we do not is.

I’m not going to continue this conversation as you’ve shown only to be here in bad faith.

[James_K]

If you explain how I've been in bad faith here, I'd be willing to rectify that. You asked a question and I gave you a pretty straight answer. I just can't see why you'd talk about FOSS so much if you really "want no part of that toxicity".

I also don't think it's bad faith to say that your decisions were motivated by selling your product. That's a perfectly reasonable motivation. I don't think it's bad faith to say you are misleading people, I never implied that you wanted to. You literally said a few replies ago that you thought I had been mislead into thinking you called yourself FOSS when you didn't. Maybe I am just stupid, but I don't think it takes and idiot to read "open source-minded company" and conclude that you are doing something open source. (In fact, wouldn't it be bad faith to assume that I was lying about what you've said rather than just mistaken?)