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The Life and Death of Open Source Companies (lucumr.pocoo.org)
submitted 10 months ago by schalkneethling@programming.dev to c/opensource@programming.dev
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[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago

Under the OSI definition of Open Source you are put at a massive disadvantage as you are prevented from putting protections in place that shield you from other competitors in that place that chose not to play by the same rules but can leverage your source

People don't want to hear it, but more and more companies are waking up to the fact that they can use a lot of free will, free work, and free time donated by people in their leisure time to make a bunch of money, because they know nobody's going to sue them right now.

For some reason, a bunch of people in the opensource community are hanging on to ideals and clutching their pearls when faced with reality: you live in a capitalist, dog-eat-dog world where people do not share the same ideals and will happily exploit others with no qualms whatsoever.

Those people need to stop being so incredibly naive and condemning companies that are trying to solve this problem with the business source license and functional source licence.

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[-] schalkneethling@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago

I hear you, but I also do not agree entirely. For me it is two-fold.

  1. If you intend to try and use open source as a sales vehicle or a pure marketing tool, then use the appropriate license from the start i.e. be transparent and honest.

  2. If open source and community are truly at the heart of your organization, adopt a license that makes this clear like the Apache License, and focus on adding value through services built on top or in service of the open source piece. Also, in this scenario, you must support both the community and the open source project(s) itself not just your customers. If this is not what you have in mind, see point 1 above.

For some reason, a bunch of people in the opensource community are hanging on to ideals and clutching their pearls when faced with reality: you live in a capitalist, dog-eat-dog world where people do not share the same ideals and will happily exploit others with no qualms whatsoever

True, but again, if we want this to change and/or find a balance, we need people and organizations who actively push back and clutch their pearls as you stated. If we lie down and simply accept the status quo, it will never change and those at the top will always be dictating the terms down to everyone else.

this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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