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Open source is a fire-hose of value...
(lemmy.sdf.org)
Don't license it as free to use then.
Then you can't make good software... Reinvent the wheel over and over again
That's why only gpl like licences is viable for opensource, because look at freebsd, Apple uses it, Sony uses it, and many others, but did they contributed back as much as Google and others did to Linux? Nah
I love that the gpl license is taking over more and more. I have a couple projects and I proudly use the gpl license. You want to use it? As long as you're at least as open as I am go for it! You want to close source your code? You're going to talk to me about licensing my code then.
I would like to see what would happen if copyfarleft & post-open source licenses had more uptake.
How can this be fixed?
Devs can convince their companies to sponsor open source projects that companies use. Most devs don't care, why would companies?
In my experience it's because companies desire a year end return greater than the last. To do so means every investment of time to them needs to be of monetary gain, or else they show gains by cutting the employees that would work on that project and the bottom line goes up. Aka more investors and stock increases (overlap occurs there)
Most companies put money aside for community initiatives. This is important for companies because it improves moral, thus reducing employee churn, which is costly. Spending a thousand bucks a year in sponsorships is a drop in the bucket for any mid sized company. If you never ask, you'll never know.
Why would you want to prevent strangers, future humanity or governments from using open source?
I don't think they do, I think they are inquiring into how we can get them to support production of these products without emphasizing on their own profits.
What if i have an idea and part of that idea is that it's easy to implement; once the idea is out in the world, it's easy to build alternate clients for it. How do i keep megacorps from using their ressources to take the whole thing over à la Google Chrome? Should i patent the idea?
You can patent it, but here comes the patent trolls.
Patent trolls are companies that generate hundrets of as vague as possible patents and then sue you if you try to patent something similar.
This has also beed done by companies like Apple.
You don't really have a good recourse when you a fighting an army of lawyers.
Additionally depending on where you are patent that you file may be entirely ignored on the other side of the globe.
Chinese companies are infamous for doing that, but history shows that American companies also did this before their economic boom.
Other options are to use some kind of license. Very often this is used when we are talking about code.
Additionally depending on where you are patent that you file may be entirely ignored on the other side of the globe.
Swiss patent office good enough?
Other options are to use some kind of license. Very often this is used when we are talking about code.
But you can't license ideas, right?
If you want to patent something globally you have to patent it in every country, and there are some things like software that aren't patentable in some countries.
A license just tells someone what they can and can not do with something, it doesn't protect an idea. For code it literally just protects the written code, someone could write a clean room clone, i.e. never looking at your code.
No clue, not that deep into the subject.
redirect a bit more of it to the devs and you get a bigger and better ecosystem.
make it free for non-commercial use. this works even as a business model of sorts.
It's no longer open source if you restrict commercial usage. Sure, licence your software that way if you want to, but don't call it open source.
is ubuntu not open source then? or libreoffice?
if so, sure.
Ubuntu and LibreOffice are both free for commercial use. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?
canonical and libreoffice are examples of companies that do commercial support contracts. proxmox is an example of free for personal use, but paid for businesses.
im talking about licensing and business models, by giving a few examples of how devs can be paid while being free and open for users, but paid somehow for companies. and how that doesnt necessarily mean it has to be closed.
I see what you mean. Yes there are great examples like those that offer support contracts for the open source software projects.
I think one point of confusion here is that as open source licenced projects, they do not restrict commercial use. The companies that lead the development just happen to also offer the best paid support.
Minor correction: proxmox is AGPL so free to use commercially without their support contract.
i usually advocate for a more restrictive license for commercial use, to avoid openssl type situations. where huge corpos will take it, use it to build big infrastructure without compensating the creator at all, and not even bothering to help with maintenance.
Okay, I would love that but let me see if I can play devils advocate and get productive responses that work in the capitalistic world we are stuck in.
Why would a company pay a team millions of dollars annually to give it away for free. That destines their entire company for failure in their mind. They get no kick backs other than a thank you note for doing so... Which means nothing to their bottom line but down.
i think you misunderstood it.
take a look at libreoffice, proxmox, pfsense, flexiwan, canonical, redhat if you want an example of this business model actually working, at different stages of success.
the meme doesn't do it justice; the delta along makes the gilded and georgian times look like a temporary madness.
Agpl bitches!
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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