Comment by rvz
7 hours ago
The problem with this license change is that it is unenforceable, now that developers believe they can vibe-code their own.
Only a matter of time until we see "OpenWarden", just like we saw the migration from Redis to Valkey.
But let's be honest. "enshittification" here really means "I don't want to pay for my tools and I want it completely for free forever."
Just look at the reactions towards the single UI change made in Firefox on HN [0] and already the complaints are there. Even if you charge your users $1 to remove tracking it is somehow "enshittification" because $1 is too much to pay for software maintenance.
The real cost of maintenance is the amount raised in VC capital (Bitwarden raised $100M) or $600M a year (Google paying Firefox). Donations won't cover the capital needed to fund Firefox or Bitwarden's development at all.
"Open source" is only sustainable when someone else is paying for that maintenance. Small donations will only take you so far until one core developer says that they are underpaid.
Thunderbird is a rare counter-example of an open source project that manages to maintain a significant staff through donations. Although affiliated with Mozilla, they are not funded by Mozilla. (I am no longer affiliated with Thunderbird, but I managed the project in the dark years after Mozilla suddenly dropped all funding and tried to get us to leave Mozilla.)
> But let's be honest. "enshittification" here really means "I don't want to pay for my tools and I want it completely for free forever."
That is completely the opposite of what is happening here. Lots of us pay premium Bitwarden subscriptions and are not happy with the way the company is headed, especially for a security company that holds the keys to many of our kingdoms.
"enshittification" here means a company that we trusted is now started to make decisions which erode that trust. Its happened before and it will happen from here unto eternity.
> Only a matter of time until we see "OpenWarden", just like we saw the migration from Redis to Valkey.
Vaultwarden already exists
I "new Firefox design" is hardly "single UI change"
If it was only one change I doubt there'd be much pushback