Re:Story of Mattermost: Open-Sourced Competitor to Slack
by rakoo on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @02:19AM
(#21822629)
When I say open source means no expectations of support I obviously talk about the license the software comes with, not the overall idea and goals that are common in the open source world.
You want support! Great, it exists and can even provided by multiple different actors, with or without expected quality of service, and that's great! But that is not included in the license, you have to find another arrangement on the side. Maybe you can ask nicely and they will do it for free, maybe they'll ask you to pay them in beers, maybe they'll ask for a specific contract detailing everything. Same goes with features, you can ask for new ones but that is not part of the license. That's it, that's all my message was about.
Re:Story of Mattermost: Open-Sourced Competitor to Slack
by teddyh on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @07:37AM
(#21824190)
> But that is not included in the license
No license includes anything like that. That’s not what a software license is.
Re:Story of Mattermost: Open-Sourced Competitor to Slack
by ludamad on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @06:29PM
(#21820174)
Right, open source, like all software, has a variety of vectors of usability and suitability. Purposefully leaving out features weakens it along some vectors - especially the "I want to modify software I run in production" vector.
No. Open Source, as defined, is about what the end user is allowed to do with the code they have. That’s it. What you describe is common, but not inherent. There are plenty of exceptions, like if you get Red Hat, you’ll get to have plenty of expectations, and Red Hat is still Open Source.
Please stop the ancient FUD about Open Source means having no support.