Yeah, tell me about it, did I fail to mention I actually write widely used open source software, as opposed to the original complainer whose profile indicates little open source activity?
> In that vein, I hope they do contribute upstream where it makes sense to, at the very minimum, like applicable bug fixes.
And where’s the evidence that they aren’t already doing so? Where’s even the evidence that X410 is repackaging? I don’t know either way, but gp just started trashing the software because they sell licenses for 50 bucks a pop, which is not evidence for anything.
The only things defining open source and free software are the copyright hacks that are licenses such as GPL, MIT, BSD, etc. If someone wants their code to not be used a certain way, they can adapt their license it to avoid it.
Again... legal obligations and morality are two different things. Morality is subjective. You can’t encode morality or subjectivity to that degree into a license. You can’t legally enforce the spirit of a community or movement.
Obviously GPL strikes some kind of balance by trying to encode a legal provision that forces collaboration, and that’s cool. But GPL is a trade-off. It creates legal problems that don't hugely benefit anyone. ZFS on Linux is a perfect example of where GPL hinders a perfectly in-spirit action that would mostly be to everyone’s benefit.
Whether you prefer erring on the side of caution or on the side of flexibility is more of a personal thing. I tend to use a BSD license, and I don’t personally care what happens to my code. Still, that doesn’t mean that I think there aren’t ways to abuse that where someone benefits and open source loses.
Sorry, I can see where the frustration comes from here, but from an outsider's view the CDDL is just as much to blame. It takes two for there to be a license incompatibility. If there is some piece of information missing here then let us know, although in my experience the lawyers don't like to make this sort of thing public.
>I tend to use a BSD license, and I don’t personally care what happens to my code. Still, that doesn’t mean that I think there aren’t ways to abuse that where someone benefits and open source loses.
I also use non-copyleft licenses a lot, but accepting that other parties are going to profit and not give anything back has always been a part of that. It's not a total loss -- it gives you an in to lobby them hard for donations, support payments, consulting fees, or some other kind of contribution.
open source was coined exactly to stride away from any spirit and ethical standings, focusing only on the code and its practical advantages when available to be shared. This way, enterprise can be more likely to accept it. (also because English-based enterprise is deemed too dumb to understand free can mean two different things)
Free Software is the thing that sees practical and ethical advantages as an indivisible unit. And it's fine to sell Free Software as long as you guarantee the buyer's right to acquire the source, in the case of the GPL for example.
One of the key points of the creation of the term "open source" was the distancing from the ethical aspects of Free Software - to turn its face on it and "hope for the best". Yet, of course the ramifications of ethical creation, usage and sharing are usually still there on "open source" projects, since it's how things often tend to go when creating Free Software - _despite_ the new term, not _because_ of it.
> I will continue to use the term “open source” to refer to the whole shebang, which has been best for communicating to most people who aren’t fighting over terminology semantics as a means to push ideology.
By charging "open source" with the ethical+practical unity of Free Software, you are doing exactly what the very creators and advocates of the term wanted to avoid - "ideology". Therefore this point sounds so... weird?
JSON's don't be evil comes to mind.
I personally don't feel like we should coddle their legal teams, but it is a good idea to be careful with any license modifications.
I believe what they are doing is probably fine. However, without properly stating their value-add, it may be misleading to users that do not understand there are also open source options with very similar functionality. I think I get the idea, but nonetheless.
Legality and whatnot aside, I do believe there is a spirit of open source. Like, if everyone in the world behaved the “worst” they could while fulfilling all legal obligations, nothing would be functional at all anywhere. Similarly open source depends on certain behaviors, like sharing, community, etc. I believe everyone that uses open source, especially those who benefit off of it, should behave in a way that if everyone behaved like them, things would continue to function. In that vein, I hope they do contribute upstream where it makes sense to, at the very minimum, like applicable bug fixes. There’s probably no legal obligation to do so (X11 is MIT license, right?), and of course it would help their “competition” to do so. But I do believe it is certainly in the spirit.