[globular-toast]

There is no contradiction here. It's exceedingly simple: companies will take as much as they can and give as little as they can. That's why it's important to raise the bar on what they have to give and reject all permissive (non-copyleft) free software licences.

[sneak]

Copyleft is not required, free software is a gift freely given. Even public domain is ok (weird places like Germany that don’t have public domain notwithstanding).

What must be rejected is nonfree licenses like the BSL.

[Pet_Ant]

BSL is preferrable to completely closed because at least researchers can look at it now and it will eventually transition to open source. If Windows XP was BSL licensed then Wine would have a lot less trouble now.

[kees99]

Citation is sorely needed for both "transition" and "BSL XP be good for wine" claims above.

Specifically, supposed inevitability of BSL->OSI transition is dubious. If anything, there are examples of the opposite - terraform itself being prime one.

[Pet_Ant]

> Citation is sorely needed for both "transition"

Sure! [1]

> The Business Source License requires the work to be relicensed to a "Change License" at the "Change Date". The "Change License" must be a "license which is compatible with GPL version 2.0 or later". The Change Date must be four years or sooner from the publication date of the work being licensed

So the business source license is less "non-OSI" and more "not currently non-OSI, but eventually and irrevocable at future date".

In the case of Terraform it says [2]:

>Change Date: Four years from the date the Licensed Work is published.

>Change License: MPL 2.0

So is this ideal? No. But it's better than OpenVMS screwing over historians and hobbyists [3] decades after it's relevancy has expired.[6]

It's also better than SSPL [4] which has no such transition and stays permanently non-OSI [5].

> "BSL XP be good for wine" claims above.

Well Wine uses the LGPL, and Windows XP was released in 2001 so even if they set the expiry 20 years after release, it'd be GPL'd by now.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Source_License#Terms

[2] https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/blob/main/LICENSE

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/vsi_prunes_hobbyist_p...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License

[5] https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.ope...

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2013/06/10/openvms_death_notice/

[kstrauser]

I disagree. I don’t face any copyright issues from writing code that resembles something in Windows. I never had access to its source code, so any similarities have to be purely coincidental.

A BSL project could say, hey, look at this guy stealing our code!, even if I’ve never seen it. I could have, and that opens a plausible risk I wish I didn’t have.

[skissane]

> I don’t face any copyright issues from writing code that resembles something in Windows. I never had access to its source code, so any similarities have to be purely coincidental.

> A BSL project could say, hey, look at this guy stealing our code!, even if I’ve never seen it. I could have, and that opens a plausible risk I wish I didn’t have.

By that argument, you could have looked at Windows code too, since Windows source code has leaked multiple times, and 5 minutes of searching will find it.

[globular-toast]

> Copyleft is not required

Yes it is. Because companies (like Oracle) will take as much as they can and give as little as they can.

> free software is a gift freely given

It's a gift to the public, not to individuals and companies (like Oracle).

> Even public domain is ok

Even worse because that expressly allows companies (like Oracle) to take everything and give nothing.

[therealpygon]

All of which is well understood by anyone who release permissively licensed software?

If they didn’t accept that, they could have used a non-commercial license. If they expected contributions they could have sold a paid product.

I’d suggest not using others hard work as the basis for your argument. If it was your work and you regret it, say that. If you don’t like oracle, say that. Otherwise, people who contribute to FOSS software do so knowingly, yet you are trying to inject your own opinions of “public” vs whomever, as though you know better than those contributors own feelings and intentions.

[lolinder]

> Because companies (like Oracle) will take as much as they can and give as little as they can.

Which in the case of free software is a completely neutral fact that causes exactly zero negative impact to the project. You're trying to apply principles of scarcity to a product category that has no scarcity—replicating the bits to serve Oracle doesn't cost a maintainer anything at all.

They can prefer not to let Oracle use their otherwise-freely-provided software, but that's not a position that's as easy to get sympathy for as pretending there's harm done.

[bigstrat2003]

> Yes it is. Because companies (like Oracle) will take as much as they can and give as little as they can.

Yes, they will. So? Nobody is actually harmed by this. The software is still perfectly available for the public to make use of.

> It's a gift to the public, not to individuals and companies (like Oracle).

The public is not some separate entity from individuals or companies. It's simply the collective of all individuals and companies. So yes, when you gift something to the public it's a gift to Oracle as well. It's not exclusively to them, but they are a part.