How so? That's literally the point of source-available licenses: a company using the code can audit it and sometimes, depending on the license fix issues for their own use.
I wouldn't be interested in collaborating with a company on their source-available software (since I'd be doing free work for their profit), but if my company were using their product, and we needed a new feature or bug fix that they weren't going to prioritize, I'd much prefer to build that feature or fix that bug myself and give it back to the company than have to maintain my own fork.
And I don't really see a problem with that. Presumably my company would be using their software because building the whole thing ourselves would be too costly. But if I need to spend a week or two augmenting it? That's fine. Cheaper for my company, and I'm getting paid to do that work.
> a company using the code can audit it and sometimes, depending on the license fix issues for their own use
Presumption that enterprises don't have access to / or fix bugs in proprietary closed-source software of enterprises they depend on is unfounded. iow, source-available (as a way to increase collab and be transparent) is a gimmick.
Would rather have my team to build the features we need instead of maintaining screens, custom fields or transitions, and ask for a new feature that would take ages.
You underestimate the level of cooperation that can exist between two tech companies working on each other's proprietary code-bases (where warranted). I'd wager that those agreements won't look too different than with source-available firms.
So, to me, there's no added benefit to source-available; some of these firms want to build a FOSS-like community but also don't want to be FOSS.
I don't see any misunderstanding there. Maybe you misunderstand the basic meaning of words?
Transparency: If I can see the source code, that is certainly pretty much the definition of transparency.
Collaboration: It is easier to collaborate if I can see the source, don't you think? That doesn't define the legal terms under which this collaboration happens, of course, and you should make sure they suit you before you collaborate.
Or at your own benefit. As with any legal agreement you enter into. Also, you might be able to reach out to them, pay them, and obtain a different license. It is easier to see if this is worth the effort by seeing the source code first.
The confusion seems to be all yours. This article is certainly something. First, they dispute that licenses are actually setting legal terms. If they were not, then there was no point to open-source licensing either. So that argument is idiotic. Secondly, sentences like
> Open source software companies need to come to grips with that uncomfortable truth: their business model isn’t their community’s problem, and they should please stop trying to make it one.
are full of unjustified entitlement. And also not relevant: The companies we are talking about are not open-source companies. They are just companies. Some of them, with source-available software and/or hardware. Some of them, with open-source software and/or hardware. Some of them, with both.
The entitlement therein is justified in the context of OSS.
> So that argument is idiotic.
Well, what's idiotic is expecting collab on a source-available project. There's a reason the community forks or uses OSS instead, as the article notes.
Those of us who have been around for a while — who came up in the era of proprietary software and saw the merciless transition to open source software — know that there’s no way to cross back over the Rubicon.
Open source software companies need to come to grips with that uncomfortable truth: their business model isn’t their community’s problem, and they should please stop trying to make it one. And while they’re at it, it would be great if they could please stop making outlandish threats about the demise of open source; they sound like shrieking proprietary software companies from the 1990s...
I wouldn't be interested in collaborating with a company on their source-available software (since I'd be doing free work for their profit), but if my company were using their product, and we needed a new feature or bug fix that they weren't going to prioritize, I'd much prefer to build that feature or fix that bug myself and give it back to the company than have to maintain my own fork.
And I don't really see a problem with that. Presumably my company would be using their software because building the whole thing ourselves would be too costly. But if I need to spend a week or two augmenting it? That's fine. Cheaper for my company, and I'm getting paid to do that work.