Comment by evanelias
20 hours ago
No, that's tangential to what's being discussed in this subthread. You're talking "free as in beer" (gratis), but open source purists ostensibly care about "free as in freedom" (libre).
The key point here is that "source available" software is still gratis, and yet the open source purists shun it -- often quite vocally, even if the software doesn't claim to be "open source".
This means if you're launching an independent software business, and you choose licensing terms that protect your own interests (such as Fair Source), the vocal ill-will from open source purists could be very harmful to the viability of your business. But if you choose FOSS instead, then larger companies will eat your lunch. I believe this is what was meant upthread regarding "open source purism only benefits the leeches".
And lately some purists have been moving the goalposts even more. Just a few days ago, I saw a comment on here where someone claimed AGPL is "open-washing" if a CLA is required for contributions. That's especially ridiculous, since there's literally no other way to sustainably develop AGPL software directly supported by business revenue. (Without a CLA or CAA on external code contributions, a creator of AGPL software cannot legally host their own SaaS.)
This status quo only helps big tech incumbents. And given how ageist tech companies can be, it's depressing to see so many programmers espouse this type of licensing puritanism. This will only serve to prevent them from launching their own businesses in the future, once they're too old to be hired by the big layoff-happy tech companies benefiting from this licensing in the first place.
> Without a CLA or CAA on external code contributions, a creator of AGPL software cannot legally host their own SaaS
What do you mean? Anyone can run AGPL software, either the creator, a contributor, or anyone else, as long as they abide by the terms of the license. You are absolutely allowed to ask for money for an AGPL service, the only restriction is that you must make the source code available under the AGPL for anyone who pays to use the software.
> but open source purists ostensibly care about "free as in freedom" (libre).
Your business is unlikely to get revenue from these customers, so your business shouldn't feel an obligation to satisfy them.
That absolutely isn't true as a blanket statement. It varies a lot in terms of B2B vs B2C, distribution model, etc.
With B2B software using the popular model of "paid hosted SaaS + libre self-host", you can definitely get revenue from companies who happen to employ some open source purists. Ditto with the model of "libre self-host with paid technical support". But all of this is much harder with a non-OSI license, since the open source purists will protest, regardless of whether or not the company is even running the self-host version.
Software adoption also tends to follow network effects, so having any contingent of vocal people complaining about license choice is bad news for a business.