The open source world needs to come together and create a license that is well crafted. Otherwise we will keep seeing these less suitable licenses.
So far the FOSS world seems to be pretending this problem doesn’t exist. Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make the problem go away. It makes you go away as you become irrelevant.
There is the AGPL, but it's not quite right. It also has the letters G-P-L in it, which spooks a ton of people still influenced by Microsoft's billion dollars worth of anti-GPL FUD. (I'm convinced you could just rename the GPL and all those problems would go away.)
> The open source world needs to come together and create a license that is well crafted.
It has created several.
It hasn't created licenses well-crafted for purposes directly contrary to the purpose of having open source software, because that's not what the open source community is interested in.
> So far the FOSS world seems to be pretending this problem doesn’t exist.
From the point of view of the FOSS world, the issue here is not a problem; creators having an exclusive ability to monetize software as a service isn't a purpose open source is intended to serve; in fact, avoiding the lock-in that results from such exclusivity is a big part of the point.
> From the point of view of the FOSS world, the issue here is not a problem; creators having an exclusive ability to monetize software as a service isn't a purpose open source is intended to serve; in fact, avoiding the lock-in that results from such exclusivity is a big part of the point.
If the creators get nothing, then why bother? Why slave away to make software just to give free labor to billion dollar companies while you get nothing? Is free labor for Amazon what open source is about?
If open source refuses to adapt to the realities of today's software ecosystem, it will die out... or at least "serious" open source projects will die out and all that will remain is hobbyist level stuff, abandonware, and half-done academic projects.
Personally I do think FOSS in its present form is going to die for most major projects. You'll still see FOSS libraries, building blocks, academic projects, and some major projects that really are large and old enough to have enough real grassroots contributors to keep them going. For major projects in the future you're going to have something more like a shareware model but with source-available.
Nobody creating a new large-scale project today is going to give it a license that they know will result in somebody else productizing it, making a fortune, and giving them nothing. At least Amazon acknowledges where things came from... in some cases the productizers even rename the project and don't even give the author credit.
FOSS and its gift culture ethos just isn't working in today's world. The software market of today is a dark forest.
> FOSS and its gift culture ethos just isn't working in today's world.
It absolutely is working the same way it always has (to which “gift culture” matters only around the edges). It doesn't work for people who want to start a business with a business model of using copyright law to extract monopoly rents, but then, it never has, and that's always been the point.
And, yes, it's not, for that reason, a good fit for narrow software entrepreneurship, but that's always been the domain of proprietary software.
What's new is startups building on OSS to build mind share, and then trying to shift to rent extraction while wanting to pretend to still be interested in OSS.
I don't think I totally disagree, but here's the problem: if OSS is not a good fit for software entrepreneurship, then it puts a really severe cap on how advanced, polished, easy to use, or well supported OSS can be, because pushing really hard on software development and implementing tens of thousands of hours of fine-grained polish is far beyond what the vast majority of people can afford to (or are willing to) volunteer for free.
It places really polished products beyond the realm of OSS. If you're fine with that, then there's no problem. Perhaps OSS has achieved its goal, namely creating a free and open software ecosystem for nerds and by nerds.
I can't think of a single OSS project used (directly) by a large number of the general public that does not have a company behind it. I think that says something.
> if OSS is not a good fit for software entrepreneurship, then it puts a really severe cap on how advanced, polished, easy to use, or well supported OSS can be, because pushing really hard on software development and implementing tens of thousands of hours of fine-grained polish is far beyond what the vast majority of people can afford to (or are willing to) volunteer for free.
Even if they start out as labors of love, OSS that gets beyond the niche stage tends not to have most work done “for free”, it's done (or paid for) by people/firms who are using the software in their business, but where the software is supporting, not the thing being sold. (Whether the OSS is infrastructure that is invisible to customers, or whether what is being sold is support and professional services tied to the OSS software.)
Very few OSS projects get popular enough and are structurally amenable to that kind of group contribution scenario. Of those that are, in most cases it results in an unusable hodge podge of crap rather than a well crafted product.
> Very few OSS projects get popular enough and are structurally amenable to that kind of group contribution scenario.
Yes, very few open source projects ever move out of the fringes of relevance. That's always been true. The idea that there has been some radical change making OSS less relevant is just false; what has happened is that OSS has gotten enough mindshare that people who want to use business models that OSS has never been a good fit want to use OSS as an early marketing gimmick, and then pivot out of it without paying a price for not being OSS. And are upset that people who do care about OSS are calling them on their B.S. when they try it.
I think we have a very different view about the goals of OSS then, and I think your idea of its goals is narrower.
I wish all software could be at least source-available and preferably available under even more liberal terms if that could be made to work. That way we could see how things work, learn from things, debug with the benefit of source, port things to different platforms or fix platform problems without waiting for the vendor, contribute if for no other reason than experience, and preserve software after vendors go belly-up without having to resort to emulating old platforms whole cloth.
I also wish there was mainstream adoption of open software for privacy and security reasons. I wish people could use operating systems, web browsers, messengers, and so on whose source could be audited so people could understand privacy implications.
That would all give us more freedom and more transparency, but it also requires a business model to sustain those kinds of projects. As it stands nobody outside geekdom uses open source software because there is no business model to sustain OSS with the degree of polish demanded by end users.
So far the FOSS world seems to be pretending this problem doesn’t exist. Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make the problem go away. It makes you go away as you become irrelevant.
There is the AGPL, but it's not quite right. It also has the letters G-P-L in it, which spooks a ton of people still influenced by Microsoft's billion dollars worth of anti-GPL FUD. (I'm convinced you could just rename the GPL and all those problems would go away.)