[pjmlp]

Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place.

At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence.

Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka Shareware/Public Domain/Trials) is the only sustainable way to make a living.

[chii]

> Going back to the open core/demo versions

aka, just sell software, rather than make it open source.

What is being balked at is the idea that you can use open-source as a foot-in-the-door marketing and growth hack, which you then reap after some level of popularity/network effect is reached. Some call it bait and switch.

Blaming big corps for "leeching" is just self-serving. They are doing exactly what the license allows them to do - a license for which was chosen at the start to allow for it! If you expected to be paid to make this software, don't opensource it.

[ufocia]

Or perhaps open source it in exchange for being paid, something that developers working for corpos which contribute to (FL)OSS already do.

[AnonymousPlanet]

None of what you say is happenening in this case. Unless by "entitled folks" you mean Redis Inc.

The community has been doing the heavy lifting over the years and Redis Inc has been trying to reap the benefits off of that by providing the software as a service. Which the community was fine with. Turns out other companies with deeper pockets for infrastructure can do the same. Now Redis Inc is trying to save their broken by design business model by changing the license. This casts a whole lot of doubt on the future utility and licensing of the Redis project. And this is what the community balks at.

[ufocia]

Who is the community?

[stephenr]

You keep making comments about this, as if Redis was build from scratch by the company that is now making it closed source.

They bought an open source project, and now that the original founder has stepped away they're trying to squeeze it for all they can.

The "big corps" that you claim are using it to "pirate software in a legal way" (a) have been contributing to the formerly open source redis project, and (b) are now specifically forking it to keep maintaining it as open source.

[pjmlp]

Doesn't matter, they are the rigthfull owners of Redis and the author has freely given ownership to them, and has been paid for.

Supermarket bills cannot be paid with pull requests.

[AnonymousPlanet]

Supermarket bills don't get paid by broken business models either. If Redis Inc never existed, Redis the software wouldn't be much worse for it. I'm starting to wonder who the entitled is in the first place.

[ufocia]

It's only broken when they go out of business. Just because you don't like the business model, doesn't mean it's broken.

[pritambarhate]

> rigthfull owners of Redis and the author has freely given ownership to them

By using BSD license Antirez has freely given it to the whole world, not the name Redis but the code. No matter how big the corporations, the cloud providers are just using that code the way Antirez intended when he used the BSD license. You can't blame the cloud providers for that.

> Supermarket bills cannot be paid with pull requests.

But one can become famous by writing quality open source software and this fame can be used to get very high paying jobs.

[stephenr]

> Supermarket bills cannot be paid with pull requests.

Nor with increasingly unnecessary and niche features aimed at "enterprise" customers, it seems.

One could probably even argue that buying the rights to the name of a popular permissively licensed project is a terrible way to pay said bills.

[ufocia]

One can argue a lot of things, and that's what we're doing here.

How is it terrible?

[stephenr]

It's apparently terrible because it didn't work.

[zelphirkalt]

> the whole free software movement

Eh no. What an overly broad generalization to read. Whether it is enough to make a living is another question, but that does not mean one must paint all of the communities the same color.

[pjmlp]

The fact that after 20 years this has become almost a daily discussion theme speaks for itself.

[AnonymousPlanet]

The problem is companies externalising development work on the boring parts of their software as "community edtions" and the like. That is a very distinct category of open source project and the only one that any of these discussions revolve around.

You seem to believe that all open source projects are in this category. That is not the case. You also seem to believe that there is always one company doing the most work and everyone else is just leeching off. That is also not the case.

[mort96]

I for one don't like it when companies do a bait-and-switch. It's fine to develop proprietary software, the problem is when you grow a user/customer base based on the fact that your software is open source and then turn it proprietary.

[stephenr]

With Redis it isn't even a case of "grow a user/customer base based on the fact that your software is open source and then turn it proprietary"

It's "buy the naming rights to an already popular piece of open source software and try to make a quick buck"

[ufocia]

Trust no one. Be self sufficient.

I, for one, will take the risk, reap the benefits and move on when factors are no longer conducive to my goals.

[sangnoir]

So I take it you endorse the Amazon-backed fork? Amazon too strives to be self-sufficient, and has moved on from Redis because the factors are no longer conducive to its goals.

[ufocia]

If it's legal, it's not piracy. It is merely availing oneself of an opportunity. If the authors meant to license the software differently, they should've done so.

I'm sure that (FL)OSS core/demo versions is not the ONLY sustainable way to make a living. There is no need for hyperboles.

You don't even need to author software to sustainably make a living. Don't limit yourself.