[resiros]

> The endgame of that is an ecosystem of open source that ultimately serves absolutely nobody except for maybe startup PR needs.

We self-host n8n, which by definition not open-source, and love it. It serves us. Not just n8n PR. That is the case for almost all self served products for non-commercial reasons

[jchw]

This is extremely confusing. I'm just talking about how it would harm the open source ecosystem if we allowed things that were not open source to be advertised as open source (and how it's bad when something is unopened after people start relying on it being open). I am not claiming that only open source software is good for society. Like, I don't really think it's a coincidence that GNU, DSFG and OSI all remain in relative agreement for decades over what makes something truly free or open source. They weren't all bought and sold by hyperscalers. There's reasons for the freedoms that are required to meet the definitions.

On the other hand, I think you can release shared source and closed source software that is still plenty useful and beneficial. For example, I am a very big fan of how Unreal Engine is licensed. Yes, it isn't "open source" and it isn't marketed as such. You can't take Unreal Engine components and go use them elsewhere even if you're not competing with Epic Games. Still, they provide some extremely powerful and useful software free of charge to basically all independent game developers. I think that's fantastic.

But that's all aside from what open source is. Unreal Engine isn't open source and it doesn't do anything for the open source ecosystem. Which is fine, because the entire world doesn't revolve around open source.

[echelon]

"fair source" is one of the new nomenclatures for software with source available that is anti-hyperscaler.