There is a lot in this article, so I'll start with a summarized response and then get into responding to specific points.
The purpose of open source is to ensure all users the freedom to do as they please with the software they have access to. Nothing more, nothing less. Open source isn't here to make people money. If one is participating in open source to make money, then they are doing it wrong.
Libre, free as in freedom, is the core concept of open source and anything that interferes or opposes that concept, such as limiting who has the freedom or restricting that freedom to only those that pay (whether explicitly or by convention), is against open source.
While gratis, free as in beer, isn't the core concept of open source, it is the prevailing attitude for good reason; it is the first line of defense to ensure that everyone has access to their libre freedoms, not just those with a sufficient size of bank account.
The open source community is a wonder of the world. One would be hard pressed to find another that exemplifies the concept of openness and sharing to a greater degree than the open source community. Sharing is Caring, after all, and anyone that truly loves open source understands that. It doesn't matter if the one being shared with is a billion dollar company or a dirt poor kid in Dirthole, Nowhere, software should be free as in freedom for all.
In the end, one can claim all they want that they love open source, but suggesting we lessen or abandon the gratis attitude or the libre philosophy brings that claim in question.
Multi-national organisations do not give a single solitary fuck about you.
Businesses do not care about you.
Good, because I don't give a single solitary fuck about them, and that includes not caring if they use open source software as long as they do so in accordance with the software's license.
They care about free “value” that they are able to commercially exploit. The wide proliferation of software in businesses is a direct result of licenses like the Apache license, and the MIT license being leveraged into closed source, proprietary and for-profit work.
Yep, that is why we won. That is why open source is better than closed source. I use my own open source code in my own for-profit projects, because that's kinda the entire point, making the software ecosystem better for everyone by sharing code freely and openly.
Go into your office tomorrow and try adding some GPL’d code to your companies' applications and see how your line manager responds.
Right, so? Try introducing some GPLed code into an open source MIT project and see how far you get. The answer is not far at all. GPL served its purpose in its time, but now it's an outdated bloated mess of a virus that should generally be avoided and not wanting that virus in one's codebase suggests nothing other than good judgement.
Permissive licenses explicitly and without recourse shift the balance of power towards large technical organisations and away from individual authors and creators.
No, they don't. They "explicitly" level the playing field so that people with money and people without money have exactly the same access to and freedoms with open source software. Neither has more or less access or freedoms than the other. That is practically the definition of equality.
Oh come on, exploited? That’s a bit much isn’t it?
Nope. It’s entirely accurate.
No, it isn't. If you give your software away openly (libre) and for free (gratis), then it isn't exploitation when someone uses that software however they want without paying you.
There is no art without patronage. None.
If this was true then the open source community wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be here suggesting that open source will die without patronage. Not to mention all the great art that exists and was created by starving artists without patronage. Great art is created by those with passion, regardless of how much money they have.
The only successful open source projects in the world are either a) backed by enormous companies that use them for strategic marketing and product positioning advantage OR b) rely on the exploitation of free labour for the gain of organisations operating these products as services.
Oh yea? Notepad++ would like to have a word with you. It's an open source best-in-class product that isn't backed by enormous companies and isn't operating as a product as a service. That was just the first open source end-user product that jumped to mind. If we expand to include libraries/packages and other developer-focused products, then the list would be almost endless. In other words, you are wrong, there are tons and tons of successful open source projects that aren't backed by enormous companies and don't have anything at all to do with SaaS.
Obviously I was downvoted to oblivion because people seemed to interpret “perhaps multinational organisations should pay you for your work” as “I don’t think software freedom is good”.
You may not realize it, but that is exactly what you are saying. Once you start treating one type of user different from another, the software is no longer libre. Once you start charging for software you're doing basically the same thing, saying those who can pay have freedom to use the software and those without money don't have that freedom. That's fine if that's how you want to roll, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the software is still open.
But I was more astonished by people suggesting that charging for software was somehow in contradiction with the “ethos” of open source, when all that position really shows is an astonishing lack of literacy of what open source really means.
Open source means freedom. Simple as. Anything that limits that freedom is in opposition with it.
Lars Ulrich Was Right
No he wasn't. He was a rich ass and should have kept his mouth shut.
The music business had become a corporate fat cat, nickel and diming everyone with exorbitant prices for CDs
Yep, spot on.
I spent my mid-teens pirating music on Napster, and AudioGalaxy, and Limewire, and Kazaa, and Direct Connect
Same here.
If anyone had spent time listening to what Lars Ulrich (Metallica’s drummer) was actually saying at the time, they’d realise he was absolutely, 100% correct, and in the two decades since has been thoroughly vindicated.
No he wasn't correct and no he hasn't been vindicated.
After ~1999, the music industry was never the same. Small touring bands that would make comfortable livings scrape by in 2020. Niche and underground genres, while more vibrant than ever, absolutely cannot financially sustain themselves. It doesn’t scale. We devalued the work by giving it all away.
And when you give it all away, the only people that profit are the large organisations that are in power.
Spotify, today, occupies the space that music labels once did, a vastly profitable large organisations while artists figuratively starve.
Sorry for quoting so much text, but where in any of that is Lars proved right? There are lots of reasons that bands have a hard time making money (a vastly increased pool of competition and easier consumer access to that competition being two of the main ones), but the biggest reason is that they are exploited by the corporations. If pirating of music was at fault, then the music industry itself wouldn't be making money hand over fist. None of this is the fault of free music, pirated or otherwise, and since musicians were never intending to give their music away freely or openly, comparing it to the open source world is like comparing a bird to a book.
We all made a tragic mistake in thinking that the ownership model that was great for our local computing club could scale to plant-sized industry.
It scales just fine. The only ones that seem to have a problem are those that think a company making money off their FOSS is somehow an affront to humanity. A company making money off your FOSS is no different than another dev making money off your FOSS. Both represent the system working exactly as intended, ensuring the freedom of all people to do as they wish with the software they have.
Every time a small organisation or creator tries to license their software in a way that protects them from the exploitation of big business – like Elastic, or recently Apollo, or numerous others over the years – the community savages them, without realising that it’s the community savaging itself.
Yea, what a surprise. The open source community gets mad when a developer builds their software on our backs under our name and then abandons our philosophies while also still wanting to use our name for its "marketing benefit".
It's simple. You want to be open source? Then be open source. You don't want to be open source, then don't be open source and keep our name out of your marketing mouths.
We need to be better at supporting each other, at knowing whenever a creator cries burn-out, or that they can’t pay rent in kudos, or that they need to advertise for work in their NPM package, that they mean it. That it could easily be you in that position.
Open source isn't here to pay your rent. Open source is here to protect and promote your right to do with software as wish. Plain and simple, nothing more and nothing less, hands down, QED, end of.
We need new licenses, and a new culture, which prioritises the freedom of people from exploitation, over the freedom of software.
Cool, then go do that, write those licenses and create that culture. Just don't pretend that what you're doing is open source and don't be surprised when your strategy fails against the gratis libre philosophy.
The open-source software that you produce is not the same kind of open-source software that they do, and it’s foolish to perceive it to be the same thing.
If their software is permissively licensed like my software is, then they are the same as both protect my freedom to do what I want with the code.
Support creators
Sure. If a dev offers a way to buy them a coffee or to donate to their efforts and you like what they do and you have money to spare, then throw them some coins. Nothing wrong with that.
But, instead of giving money to the project creator, it would be a lot better if you gave back to the entire open source community by improving the project itself.
The next time each of you is about to send a shitty tweet because Docker desktop made delaying updates a paid feature, perhaps, just for a second, wonder why they might be doing that.
Anyone about to tweet should stop and just not, but that is beside the point. Instead of sending that shitty tweet, they should instead go find an open source alternative that respects their freedoms and doesn't charge money for already implemented features. If there isn't an open source alternative, then they should create one to show that the freedom of everyone to access and use software is more important than anyone's profits.
The next time you see a library you like adopting an “open-core” licensing model, where the value-added features, or the integrations are paid for features – consider paying for the features.
No. Instead, go find a real open source alternative that respects your freedoms. Or go find a real proprietary alternative that provides a major bang for your buck. But don't support these wishy washy semi-open products that want your money but also want all the accolades and marketing benefits of pretending to be open source. Either have your cake or eat it, but you can't do both.
Don’t be entitled, don’t shout down your peers, don’t troll them for trying to make a living. If we all behaved like this, the software world would be a lot kinder.
Agreed, the software world would be a lot better without those that think they are entitled to both money and open source status.
For users! For teachers! For your friends!
No, not just for users, teachers, and friends. Libre applies to everyone, even people you don't like and even people you don't like doing things you don't like. Because either everyone has software freedom or no one does.
I feel like I need to double down on what I said at the start. I love open-source software dearly. I want it to survive.
You say you love open source, but you've just written a bunch of words that suggest you want to abandon the core tenet of what makes open source what it is, the freedom for anyone (even dirty evil corporations) to do whatever they want with the software they have access to.
In music, there’s the idea of supporting our scene, our heritage, the shared place where “the art” comes from.
This is our culture.
Cool, good for the music scene. We programmers have a Free and Open Source culture and while your culture is dieing under the boot of the corporate world, we won our war and now the corporate world is at our door begging us to let them play in our pool. That considered, maybe your scene should take some hints from us and you might have a fighting chance against the RIAA and the rest of your corporate establishment.
Software consultant. Bestselling Author. Loves rum, alt culture, games & metal.
Formerly Head of engineering, chief technical architect, head principal engineer, lead dev, etc.
Location
London, UK
Work
Independent Software Consultant at Electric Head Software
The central point of the piece is my disagreement with this:
It doesn't matter if the one being shared with is a billion dollar company or a dirt poor kid in Dirthole, Nowhere, software should be free as in freedom for all.
It does matter. It should matter. And the lassiez fair attitude that suggests software freedom is more important than freedom from exploitation is wrongheaded.
I appreciate your well reasoned reply, but I (obviously) disagree. Buying people coffee isn't the same as paying rent, and if the prevailing attitude (gratis) is tyrannical, it has to change.
The FSF fundamentally understood this at the very start, before the open-source movement tried to open up free software to corporate exploitation.
It does matter. It should matter. And the lassiez fair attitude that suggests software freedom is more important than freedom from exploitation is wrongheaded.
And that is what I don't understand. Where is the line that makes it exploitation? If I make a for-profit app using an open source piece of software, that's not exploitation, but if Microsoft or Amazon make the same app it is exploitation? Or am I wrong and it would also be exploitation if I made the app since my company was successful enough for me to retire in my thirties? What is the deciding factor between exploiting and not explointing?
Software consultant. Bestselling Author. Loves rum, alt culture, games & metal.
Formerly Head of engineering, chief technical architect, head principal engineer, lead dev, etc.
Location
London, UK
Work
Independent Software Consultant at Electric Head Software
Exploitation is all about a power imbalance (in almost every context).
When the organisation exploiting your work is several orders of magnitude more equipped to do so than you are, your choice and agency is removed. In those very specific examples - a small for-profit organisation may well be literally exploiting your work, but they are much more likely to interact in reasonable / good faith than a large organisation that's able to litigate you out of existence, or replace your entire position in the market on a whim.
It's not cut and dry, but the larger the imbalance of power, the more it trends towards exploitation by the original metric - "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work".
Folks that work in software are often deeply uncomfortable with that non-absolute, grey ambiguity, but it doesn't make it any less true. The scale of exploitation available to the largest organisations on earth who have the might to do as they wish, is vastly different than a small vague co-operative sibling org adding value to your work.
Even as a trite example "totally free, unless your company makes more than $3m a year" would probably be a better licensing term than anything that exists at the moment w.r.t exploitation. Sharing supports nobody, in that relationship.
So from your perspective it is the existence of the power imbalance that makes it exploitation regardless of the actions actually taken, or perhaps because of that actions that the more powerful party could take in the future. That's interesting, I've never considered it from that angle.
Folks that work in software are often deeply uncomfortable with that non-absolute, grey ambiguity
Yep, that describes my feeling of it to a tee. I'm much more comfortable with an absolute stance, ala anyone can make money or no one can make money type of license.
Thanks for your response. I still don't agree, but you have given me some things worth thinking about. :)
Software consultant. Bestselling Author. Loves rum, alt culture, games & metal.
Formerly Head of engineering, chief technical architect, head principal engineer, lead dev, etc.
Location
London, UK
Work
Independent Software Consultant at Electric Head Software
The only ones that seem to have a problem are those that think a company making money off their FOSS is somehow an affront to humanity. A company making money off your FOSS is no different than another dev making money off your FOSS. Both represent the system working exactly as intended, ensuring the freedom of all people to do as they wish with the software they have.
Why is it OK for everyone to make money off your FOSS except you?
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There is a lot in this article, so I'll start with a summarized response and then get into responding to specific points.
The purpose of open source is to ensure all users the freedom to do as they please with the software they have access to. Nothing more, nothing less. Open source isn't here to make people money. If one is participating in open source to make money, then they are doing it wrong.
Libre, free as in freedom, is the core concept of open source and anything that interferes or opposes that concept, such as limiting who has the freedom or restricting that freedom to only those that pay (whether explicitly or by convention), is against open source.
While gratis, free as in beer, isn't the core concept of open source, it is the prevailing attitude for good reason; it is the first line of defense to ensure that everyone has access to their libre freedoms, not just those with a sufficient size of bank account.
The open source community is a wonder of the world. One would be hard pressed to find another that exemplifies the concept of openness and sharing to a greater degree than the open source community. Sharing is Caring, after all, and anyone that truly loves open source understands that. It doesn't matter if the one being shared with is a billion dollar company or a dirt poor kid in Dirthole, Nowhere, software should be free as in freedom for all.
In the end, one can claim all they want that they love open source, but suggesting we lessen or abandon the gratis attitude or the libre philosophy brings that claim in question.
Good, because I don't give a single solitary fuck about them, and that includes not caring if they use open source software as long as they do so in accordance with the software's license.
Yep, that is why we won. That is why open source is better than closed source. I use my own open source code in my own for-profit projects, because that's kinda the entire point, making the software ecosystem better for everyone by sharing code freely and openly.
Right, so? Try introducing some GPLed code into an open source MIT project and see how far you get. The answer is not far at all. GPL served its purpose in its time, but now it's an outdated bloated mess of a virus that should generally be avoided and not wanting that virus in one's codebase suggests nothing other than good judgement.
No, they don't. They "explicitly" level the playing field so that people with money and people without money have exactly the same access to and freedoms with open source software. Neither has more or less access or freedoms than the other. That is practically the definition of equality.
No, it isn't. If you give your software away openly (libre) and for free (gratis), then it isn't exploitation when someone uses that software however they want without paying you.
If this was true then the open source community wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be here suggesting that open source will die without patronage. Not to mention all the great art that exists and was created by starving artists without patronage. Great art is created by those with passion, regardless of how much money they have.
Oh yea? Notepad++ would like to have a word with you. It's an open source best-in-class product that isn't backed by enormous companies and isn't operating as a product as a service. That was just the first open source end-user product that jumped to mind. If we expand to include libraries/packages and other developer-focused products, then the list would be almost endless. In other words, you are wrong, there are tons and tons of successful open source projects that aren't backed by enormous companies and don't have anything at all to do with SaaS.
You may not realize it, but that is exactly what you are saying. Once you start treating one type of user different from another, the software is no longer libre. Once you start charging for software you're doing basically the same thing, saying those who can pay have freedom to use the software and those without money don't have that freedom. That's fine if that's how you want to roll, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the software is still open.
Open source means freedom. Simple as. Anything that limits that freedom is in opposition with it.
No he wasn't. He was a rich ass and should have kept his mouth shut.
Yep, spot on.
Same here.
No he wasn't correct and no he hasn't been vindicated.
Sorry for quoting so much text, but where in any of that is Lars proved right? There are lots of reasons that bands have a hard time making money (a vastly increased pool of competition and easier consumer access to that competition being two of the main ones), but the biggest reason is that they are exploited by the corporations. If pirating of music was at fault, then the music industry itself wouldn't be making money hand over fist. None of this is the fault of free music, pirated or otherwise, and since musicians were never intending to give their music away freely or openly, comparing it to the open source world is like comparing a bird to a book.
It scales just fine. The only ones that seem to have a problem are those that think a company making money off their FOSS is somehow an affront to humanity. A company making money off your FOSS is no different than another dev making money off your FOSS. Both represent the system working exactly as intended, ensuring the freedom of all people to do as they wish with the software they have.
Yea, what a surprise. The open source community gets mad when a developer builds their software on our backs under our name and then abandons our philosophies while also still wanting to use our name for its "marketing benefit".
It's simple. You want to be open source? Then be open source. You don't want to be open source, then don't be open source and keep our name out of your marketing mouths.
Open source isn't here to pay your rent. Open source is here to protect and promote your right to do with software as wish. Plain and simple, nothing more and nothing less, hands down, QED, end of.
Cool, then go do that, write those licenses and create that culture. Just don't pretend that what you're doing is open source and don't be surprised when your strategy fails against the gratis libre philosophy.
If their software is permissively licensed like my software is, then they are the same as both protect my freedom to do what I want with the code.
Sure. If a dev offers a way to buy them a coffee or to donate to their efforts and you like what they do and you have money to spare, then throw them some coins. Nothing wrong with that.
But, instead of giving money to the project creator, it would be a lot better if you gave back to the entire open source community by improving the project itself.
Anyone about to tweet should stop and just not, but that is beside the point. Instead of sending that shitty tweet, they should instead go find an open source alternative that respects their freedoms and doesn't charge money for already implemented features. If there isn't an open source alternative, then they should create one to show that the freedom of everyone to access and use software is more important than anyone's profits.
No. Instead, go find a real open source alternative that respects your freedoms. Or go find a real proprietary alternative that provides a major bang for your buck. But don't support these wishy washy semi-open products that want your money but also want all the accolades and marketing benefits of pretending to be open source. Either have your cake or eat it, but you can't do both.
Agreed, the software world would be a lot better without those that think they are entitled to both money and open source status.
No, not just for users, teachers, and friends. Libre applies to everyone, even people you don't like and even people you don't like doing things you don't like. Because either everyone has software freedom or no one does.
You say you love open source, but you've just written a bunch of words that suggest you want to abandon the core tenet of what makes open source what it is, the freedom for anyone (even dirty evil corporations) to do whatever they want with the software they have access to.
Cool, good for the music scene. We programmers have a Free and Open Source culture and while your culture is dieing under the boot of the corporate world, we won our war and now the corporate world is at our door begging us to let them play in our pool. That considered, maybe your scene should take some hints from us and you might have a fighting chance against the RIAA and the rest of your corporate establishment.
The central point of the piece is my disagreement with this:
It does matter. It should matter. And the lassiez fair attitude that suggests software freedom is more important than freedom from exploitation is wrongheaded.
I appreciate your well reasoned reply, but I (obviously) disagree. Buying people coffee isn't the same as paying rent, and if the prevailing attitude (gratis) is tyrannical, it has to change.
The FSF fundamentally understood this at the very start, before the open-source movement tried to open up free software to corporate exploitation.
And that is what I don't understand. Where is the line that makes it exploitation? If I make a for-profit app using an open source piece of software, that's not exploitation, but if Microsoft or Amazon make the same app it is exploitation? Or am I wrong and it would also be exploitation if I made the app since my company was successful enough for me to retire in my thirties? What is the deciding factor between exploiting and not explointing?
Exploitation is all about a power imbalance (in almost every context).
When the organisation exploiting your work is several orders of magnitude more equipped to do so than you are, your choice and agency is removed. In those very specific examples - a small for-profit organisation may well be literally exploiting your work, but they are much more likely to interact in reasonable / good faith than a large organisation that's able to litigate you out of existence, or replace your entire position in the market on a whim.
It's not cut and dry, but the larger the imbalance of power, the more it trends towards exploitation by the original metric - "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work".
Folks that work in software are often deeply uncomfortable with that non-absolute, grey ambiguity, but it doesn't make it any less true. The scale of exploitation available to the largest organisations on earth who have the might to do as they wish, is vastly different than a small vague co-operative sibling org adding value to your work.
Even as a trite example "totally free, unless your company makes more than $3m a year" would probably be a better licensing term than anything that exists at the moment w.r.t exploitation. Sharing supports nobody, in that relationship.
So from your perspective it is the existence of the power imbalance that makes it exploitation regardless of the actions actually taken, or perhaps because of that actions that the more powerful party could take in the future. That's interesting, I've never considered it from that angle.
Yep, that describes my feeling of it to a tee. I'm much more comfortable with an absolute stance, ala anyone can make money or no one can make money type of license.
Thanks for your response. I still don't agree, but you have given me some things worth thinking about. :)
This is the kind of good faith conversation I'm here for 🖤
Why is it OK for everyone to make money off your FOSS except you?