Replying with new topic since this isn’t about introductions.
Baserow is an open-core project. Open-core is not merely a business model, it also refers to a project that has both an open-core under free/libre/open terms and also part of the software project that is under proprietary terms.
I was struggling with thinking through how to talk about situations like this. One of the leaders in the Open Source world who I was discussing with brought up a great analogy, the use of “Organic” label on food. Organic food is not partly organic. If it is, then it has to say “made with organic ingredients” or similar, it can’t have the full label unless it is all organic.
If Baserow were to use an actual different name and some clear separation between an entirely open-source project and some derivative with a different name that was proprietary, then it would be honest to say “Baserow is an Open Source project”. The same applies to GitLab and other open-core projects that obscure the distinction with one name that applies to the business, and multiple versions of software.
“Baserow is a mostly-Open-Source project” would be fair. Or “Baserow is an open-core project” is the simplest honest thing to say. Being open-core does itself say that the core is open, as is true.
As much as I don’t see any malice, any attempt to hide anything, it is a real problem pattern (which is not exclusive to Baserow) to dilute and obscure the meaning of Open Source such that people learn about many Open Source projects and then have to investigate further to see which are actually just Open Source and which are open-core. That distinction is pretty important. So, while you are absolutely right and good to use “Open Source” as a term for the open core, I’d urge you to say explicitly right up-front that it’s “an open-core project”. That will avoid anyone reacting negatively to thinking it’s fully-Open and then later learning it’s open-core. Being clearer with the language this way builds stronger trust. Keep in mind that we live in a world where a lot of once-community-first projects have sold-out their values, and you want to assure people that’s not you.
That is a great and honorable. Unfortunately, there is a tension because some amount of modest lock-in might be in your business interests. If you want to make an absolute commitment to fighting lock-in, you could take these steps: put that commitment in some hard-to-change governance document and figure out what coding and legal choices would remove from you even the possibility of lock-in temptation. It is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it — Dan Ariely.
Thanks for what you’re doing to care about and engage with the community.
One thing to take into account when you decide if you call yourself Open Source or Open Core is that we have to consider who the audience is and what their understanding of these terms are.
Most people that use Baserow, do not know what Open Core even means, we have clarified this in our documentation so that we can be more specific if you want to know exactly how our project is licensed.
So to the average Baserow user Open Source is a term they understand, and they wouldn’t even know that technically all of the software has to be freely available (which seems to be your definition of Open Source roughly?) , for the average person when they hear Open Source they think “you can have a look at the code yourself”.
Now I understand that you are frustrated about the fact that the term is being watered down, but people do this all the time to make things more understandable for the average person.
If you were talking to your non-technical friend about Modals you probably wouldn’t call them Modal you would call them Pop-Up, which is technically wrong but it is the term non-technical people understand.
Let me know what you think about that aspect of the naming
The proprietary part of any open-core project does not meet the definition. Baserow doesn’t have any problematic claims to the contrary either (meaning Baserow doesn’t ever say wrongly that the proprietary part is Open Source).
That’s not a useful emphasis because it’s like describing that a lot of people know that “Organic” is a label on some food, but they don’t know what it means. We never defer to the existence of totally ignorant people as a way to defend what a label means.
The average person among those who do understand generally what Open Source means is indeed a non-wonky sort. They don’t know which licenses are officially recognized as Open Source. They may have misunderstandings about exactly what it does and doesn’t cover. Yet overall, they do mostly know that Open Source means more than source-available-to-read. They know that Open Source means there are no legal obstacles to using, modifying, and sharing the software.
I’m not objecting to making things accessible to a wider audience. But just insert the “organic” food analogy to see the problem with your framing:
“I understand frustration about the organic label being watered down [and used for food that has only partly-organic ingredients], but we want to make things more understandable for the average person.”
This sort of thing isn’t making things more understandable, it’s making it less understandable. “Open Source project” as a label without qualifications generally and strictly means anyone can get the source, share it, modify it, and use it freely. If it only sorta sometimes means that some of the software is like that but also there’s proprietary parts you cannot share, use, and modify, then this is reducing understanding.
The “Modals” vs “Pop-Up” comparison doesn’t have the same problems.
For clearer and more honest labeling, (e.g. at the GitHub README) instead of " Baserow is an open source no-code database tool", make it “Baserow is a no-code database tool that is open-core (mostly Open Source with some proprietary premium features).”
But I have a suggestion for Baserow to consider that would remove all the issues because it would no longer violate any aspect of the Open Source definition:
Use an open-core business model but with 100% Open Source software. Here’s how it would work: Keep the limitations around certain features even though the entire source code gets licensed under MIT (or switch to AGPL to block others from making proprietary derivatives). So, all the users at Baserow.io would still have all the same limitations, still be prompted to pay to get the premium features. All the self-hosting where people host unmodified software would also have such limitations except you’d have a variation of the message so that prompts them to pay for a support contract or become sponsors/patrons. Perhaps some code or something associated with their contract would be used to enable the features. Alternatively, allow the features to work but put modals in certain places that tell people they should sponsor Baserow. Done the right way with the right messaging, there are businesses that would feel adequately obligated to indeed fund Baserow, have a contract etc.
With that approach, people could modify the software to remove the modals or limitations, but there’s friction both socially and technically in doing that. Some people will be more comfortable funding Baserow because they appreciate it being 100% Open Source. Others who don’t understand Open Source anyway will just treat it exactly as they treat it now.
Because this approach is 100% Open Source, if you also drop the CLA, that would remove from Baserow the capacity to impose lock-in or to move to mostly-proprietary (or even all-proprietary) terms later. The ultimate in this direction is AGPL without CLA becuase it avoids the risk of ever being tempted to sell out values. It engenders trust when a company shows willingness to close the door on the option to go in a community-hostile direction.
Side-note: who makes proprietary derivatives
Despite my wanting to not draw attention to a direction I dislike, I will be complete here. There’s another benefit to CLAs from a business perspective besides the project itself building proprietary software. Some 100% Open Source projects with zero compromises still use CLAs along with copyleft licenses like AGPL in order to sell proprietary licenses of the same software to businesses who separately want to make proprietary forks for themselves. In that case, the project is enabling proprietary software as a means to get funding, but the project remains 100% Open Source itself. Despite my complaints about that direction, it does leave the main project with more integrity than if the project itself mixes FLO and proprietary software. I don’t know of any licensing-based method for a project to block itself from being more proprietary while still having the option of selling proprietary licenses to others. If the project has the capacity to shift to proprietary (either because of CLAs or because of permissive licensing like MIT), then it has the capacity to do it directly or to allow others. The one method to keep itself FLO while offering proprietary licenses to others would be to have CLAs or permissive licensing but some governance structure that prohibits the project itself from becoming proprietary.
Anyway, the main point is that there are ways to be completely Open Source and still use open-core elements in the business model. And doing that has some merit, especially if you do sincerely value Open Source principles.
And yes, there are some still-open-core things you can also do to entrench Open Source values. The concern here isn’t just a picky one about prescriptive labeling. The concern is whether I and others can trust the long-term trajectory of Baserow given numerous examples of Open Source (and especially open-core) projects that sold out their communities or got proportionally more-and-more proprietary over time. And there’s also just some inherent conflicts with open-core in general, e.g. the Kanban feature being proprietary means people can’t contribute to that part of the software in the same way, it feels different and is less motivating to the community.
Perhaps the most prominent of open-core projects is GitLab, and I noticed that they take care to present themselves accurately.
At GitLab.com landing page, they never claim to be Open Source. At Why GitLab? | GitLab they write “It’s open and always improving. Because GitLab is built on open source software,”
That is accurate because they do build the whole product on their open core. It is also accurate to say “GitLab CE is Open Source”.
I think it matters to be transparent and not oversell something. Visitors who feel tricked and oversold may get frustrated in ways that won’t happen when they feel the presentation is honest and accurate (even if they would have preferred a 100% Open Source project).
All that said about the simple labeling, I do want to still emphasize my suggestions about ways to consider being more completely Open Source.
Incidentally, Discourse (this forum software) is an example of a functional working business with paid employees that is 100% uncompromised Open Source.
1. I don’t come here to talk about personal attacks, but I’m talking about counter-arguments, different arguments for anyone to analyze and substantiate their opinion. 2. I would like to contribute to this topic with various academic, theoretical references and through arguments, conclusions and true statements in the “logical and scientific sense”. 3. My goal here as a user is to “defend Baserow” (I mean the company, community and the tool. My arguments can be useful for the community or not), because some users can make the mistake of misunderstanding certain things from the point of view of what is “libre” and what is “open”, how much of what is “open movement”, “”. 4. I can be wrong in some arguments or not. 5. I’m going to consider 8 peculiar facts that always appear in vogue in a discussion of what is “open or open source or floss or libre etc”. 6. I’m going to talk about these points from my experience in the development of open solutions and also some things I’ve learned throughout my life, and other complementary information. And how does this accord with open core. The statements, arguments here must not endorse any position of the Baserow company or the Baserow users. 7. I would like to know all the weaknesses or strengths that this text can show. I hope to have contributed in this post the greater clarification of the subjects. 8. This text should not be seen as a scientific article, I would like someone to raise any criticism related to all this. 9. I would like us to follow the community conduct manual for greater technical and inclusive discussion.
Initial considerations:
I think what you said makes sense, but it also confuses your own definitions. For example, there are many business models in the open source world, open core is just one of many types of open business model. Any open source license allows you to license any part of the code you want. For example, if you license software under GPL or MIT, you can have proprietary license versions if you want. In that sense, I don’t think that open core is wrong, if open source licenses allow multi-licensing, open core etc.
But the definition you bring of open core makes no sense, as this is contrary to the definition of open core in the theoretical sense of the word. In that definition, I couldn’t say that linux is open core. But in this case, linux(kernel) is open core (libre/floss). For example, open core is not about including proprietary parts, although it may have something like that. "There is a difference between saying that every open core ( business model) includes proprietary code and saying that not every open core ( business model) can includes proprietary code. "
Open core is just a business model, nothing more or less. For example, open core is to adopt an open version (GPL, MIT etc) with a paid version (GPL, MIT etc). Let’s do a simple example, let’s say you want to receive money from your user and be compatible with GPL v3. You can receive money through financial donations, and some users may not pay. In this case, you would have here open core, a paid version and a non-paid version. So, what separates what is fair or unfair is how this business model is adopted. No license defines or restricts how to make money or how to market a product, because it always depends only on the developer or team or company, not the user. So, users’ concern is meaningless. Just like this definition you bring doesn’t make much sense.
What I mean here is that open core has nothing to do with whether or not to include proprietary things, it has to do with including specific open licenses for use. And your text starts talking about something confusing and not very verifiable, so I don’t agree with your argument.
I agree with some of the points you’ve said here, but I would like to raise another point.
For example, many people confuse open source, closed source with proprietary source. But any server hosting software by architectural definition is closed source, this is not the same as proprietary code. But another problem with your argument is that it does not take this into account: “people’s limited understanding or my limited understanding is always possible, there’s no avoiding it”. The point is that changing the terminology is not going to solve people’s general problem with understanding what software or a business model is. And another problem with your argument here is that it doesn’t take this into account: “open core” and “license”, they are different and distinct things, as I will talk about before.
Another problem I see with your argument is the following: I am not a judge, lawyer, prosecutor or law student. But if any user feels that the Baserow (the tool, community or company) is not complying with the terms of the license, that user may feel that the company should be legally sued. This is what happens in some cases of communities, which sued many companies for not following the licenses, as it violates the consumer code. As a user, I can be wrong in my statements, as well as many who do not understand such matters and statements. This shouldn’t be a criticism of anyone, but a fact if something is thought in a way that is not within the area of knowledge of most people here. I do not feel that Baserow (company, community, tool) are wrong in the legal sense of the word, or are wrong in the consumer law sense. Because I don’t feel the MIT license is wrong, because MIT is open source. Everything is in line with what is expected and promised here, the 4 freedoms are guaranteed: modify, distribute, share, study.
Another problem I see with your argument is the following: In theory I would need to prove such facts, if the Baserow labels are acceptable and not malicious. Then, what is not proven, it is assumed that it is not true. And since I have no way of proving it, I assume in this topic that this concern is not relevant or true.
Then, an concern I have is that we should be careful about labeling things. A bigger problem would be for me, if there is such a radical change in the code base, considering that all my codes here are in the same MIT license (which is the base of Baserow).
I partially agree with what you said, but not completely. Because, I believe that companies should be responsible, but not fully responsible for everything. That is, certain responsibilities belong to the users, and other responsibilities belong to the company. If users do not seek to read books, scientific articles etc. I don’t think the lack of knowledge of the license or business model is entirely the responsibility of the company. And because, “I don’t think honesty is done through words, text but actions”.
For example, from the moment you log in to any company, be aware of what is proposed and analyzed. It makes no sense, for example, to question a license change or “specify that things are more understandable”, “if you yourself have a certain difficulty understanding certain things, this is not an Ad hominem argument”, if you have agreed with a license or business model by yourself.
In that case, I also don’t understand why there is a concern with the open core business model, if people have previously agreed to the an “business term” when creating an account in Baserow. If you(anyone reading this here or I), as a user, do not agree with the business model: open core or the license made available, you should look for alternatives. And not in my view, forcing things to be your way. I talk about this because the open community often attracts malicious or toxic users that avoid development progress. My point here is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
The fact that I say there are malicious or toxic users is not an opinion, it’s a fact. You can find this in any issues, reports in GitHub, GitLab, Blogger etc. To make this very understandable, I am not saying that you are toxic or malicious, but that in any open community or place there are people like that. And that this often starts with labeling what is right and wrong, which impedes developmental progress. In addition to harming the company, although they do not intentionally do so.
The license ( MIT, GPL etc ) or business model ( open core, bug-bounty etc ) is only a “formality”, and it “only makes sense in the economic or legal environment between communities, companies and government”. But this is never applicable to the user, I’ve never seen a case where a user was sued for not contributing to GPL, MIT etc. I don’t think we should say that the open core is a real problem for users, when it’s usually only a problem for governments, companies and communities.
I kindly ask you all not to think that just because I said this: “that I don’t know of any user cases that have been prosecuted for not contributing source code” is the same as assuming, affirming, saying, concluding that: ‘doesn’t there are cases of users being sued for not contributing to the source code’. I am not saying that my lack of knowledge necessitates the absence of evidence.
Another important thing to say is that nobody is obliged to offer free or paid support, each company or developer or team has some freedom to design their business model. Another important thing to say is that nothing prevents you from downloading the source code and using it the way you want to use it. In theory, as you have a common base (a open core) you can develop your way, trusting the community or not. In this sense, I agree with your initial position, but not completely as I said earlier.
What I mean: I don’t think such considerations can solve general problems that people may have when using Baserow on their own. If likewise, you argue that companies can misuse open source. I think that users or developers can also misuse open source. The difference in our vision is that I accept that not everything is perfect and that’s why I think MIT is more viable.
I don’t agree with your argument here, and I’ll see how I can argue otherwise. I believe that the current big problem in software development is wanting to please everyone or using labels saying what is right or wrong. In the same way that some users may have difficulty in knowing the difference between libre and what is open, imagine that users would also have difficulty working together if they do not have the same ideas of working as a team.
Another problem is always the conflict we have with the opposing ideas we believe in software development. Licenses like MIT and models like open core manage to solve such conceptual problems, saying that each person contributes the way they want. For example, by law “it is the right of each copyright holder to decide whether their code should be published”, by having restrictive licenses this is complicated, with MIT this is not complicated. One of the advantages of open core and MIT is that it allows each person to receive a proportional right to what they develop.
If there are companies with bad behavior, this shouldn’t be a problem for the Baserow company and Baserow users. It’s a separate problem, outside the circle. That is, there are problems that are beyond our control and reach.
What I said is: while I agree with you all that we should be transparent, transparency by itself is not an easy absolute value to have or build. There are several problems along the way. For example, although there are ways of being more or less transparent, there is no absolute, real, concrete way of doing so. The problem with having general and specific transparency is that it limits the privacy and freedom of users.
Several projects I participated in were closed, because usually “user-developers”, “developers”, “user-non-developers”, “non-developers” or “users” requested things that were impossible to be done, or requested things without help or collaborate in a positive way. Or they had increasingly rigid and closed positions. I would really like Baserow not to turn into a closed company because of “societal pressure with open and sustainable development”
Even if you change the open source license, even if you change the business model, the “server remains closed”, outside your range. And this is not a surprise, because from a security point of view, when we want to have more security, we have less privacy or anonymity. And even if someone changes open core (business model) to any alternative business model, as is the case with BugBounty, financial donations etc. The fact is that you “cannot audit the Baserow server”, because by definition of web architecture, that “server is outside the network that you have access to”. Even if we “didn’t have servers”, “we’d still have things running that can’t be audited”.
Making software available under an open license and saying that it provides security, or that we should use the x,y, z license makes no sense. The license only makes sense for companies that sell software. In this case, this shouldn’t be a concern for Baserow users or non Baserow users.
There is difference between “open movement”, “business model” and “open source license”. The “open source license” says about how the software can, must, will be used. An “open source movement” is not license related but the characteristics of how we work in the labor market. For example, we can use any proprietary thing on the “desktop” on some personal computer for work. This is not the same as using software licensed under the MIT, GPL etc. As I want to exemplify here: it’s one thing to license the software, it’s another thing to use only open source software. Another different thing is having freedom to develop software. And another different thing is to market the software.
Also, a lot of people say things without reading and without researching. So the open core examples are not the same as most people talk about. Many times people are saying that open core is free-premium, but they are different things. It’s like comparing a bicycle to a car. From the consumer’s point of view, both the bicycle and the car are vehicles to take you anywhere, what changes in both is the purpose for which you use them.
My example here is not to equate things, but to exemplify that most code discussions are done this way. The fact that I exemplify this is opening up the discussion to the things that matter. For example, the discussion between open source code x closed source code x proprietary source code are different things. Baserow is open source code and is licensed for specific use. Having a specific use license is not the same as having a closed, restricted, or proprietary license. And nothing prevents the license from changing in the near future. In this case, the discussions do not make sense from the logical point of view of argument, because we are not discussing license alternatives, and also because such discussion is not about that specifically.
The fact that I talk about the open movement and open source licensing is because most people, when they talk about software, they’re talking about something other than software. It’s the x, y problem. For example, “the XY problem occurs when someone asks for help based on their attempted solution, rather than their underlying problem. They have a pretty good understanding of their problem (X), and believe this can be solved by doing Y. So they ask for help with Y”
People talk about open core problems as if these problems should reflect greater control by the company. It is the same as arguing that the world’s general problem is “capitalism”, “lack of love” etc. The problem with this is that we are not thinking of alternatives to real problems, only problems without foundation. For example, Baserow shouldn’t be blamed for another company using the wrong business model. The most interesting discussion would be, what alternative do we have in opposition to open core?
But I don’t think any user will do this kind of research, because usually end users want a product and don’t talk about a product. It’s not that the discussion about what is more right or wrong isn’t interesting, it’s that for the user, like me, I don’t take this type of discussion so seriously. For example, talking about technical details usually makes sense to technical people, the user will not always understand or want to do this.
But I agree in part, but just because you don’t know the law doesn’t make you exempt from being responsible for the law.
This definition is not used in business models, only for software licenses. You talk about Baserow’s business problem, but then you say it’s a license problem. Which problem do you consider important: the software license or the business model that the software is in?
This is what some call the “argumentative fallacy of analogy or comparison”. The point of fallacy or error begins when we compare equivalent things that are not equivalent. It is the same as saying that a bicycle is a car, yes a bicycle is a type of vehicle like a car, but the comparison must stop here.
The point is, “people keep saying that bicycle are cars”. I don’t think in this sense that users have the time and concern to define labels, use labels or differentiate types of labels. For me, the problem with labels is their use, context and not everyone does it right. Just as there is a concern about labels as you argue, my concern is that this is not relevant and even if it is relevant it doesn’t make sense.
There are several books and authors that talk about the problem of “impossibility of knowledge, choice”. That is,problems about some general conduct of the xyz company, in my opinion, should not reflect on Baserow. In these cases, Baserow may send an official post to say that it is against such action by one company or another. Only if this is really necessary and if there is some social pressure from its users, otherwise, no company should be required by law to take a stand against another company.
From a user point of view, I’m less concerned about having my server. Therefore, I believe that open core is a good business model, it may not be for most people, but for me it makes sense, as a user. I’d like to conclude by saying here, I’m happy with Baserow being the way it is. Even because it is not possible to please everyone, and who does, does not please anyone. I must also say that there is no such thing as a free lunch, even 100% open source running with financial donations doesn’t outperform source code with some support payment and expert staff in terms of recurring updates.
And that even if they change the terminology, it might not make sense to end users. I do not believe that there are solutions to all the world’s problems, but that there are specific solutions that we must study if we wish to help. For me, it would make sense to say, that Baserow includes MIT license etc within the specific plan (example, free is MIT, premium is GPL).
“Usually some people who only like open source want to impose their will on the desktop.” Which I consider to be a mistake, because according to any open source license you shouldn’t be restricted to just open source software. Also, this imposition also makes no sense legally speaking, since everyone is free by law to use anything they want, unless that thing violates a specific law. Also, no open source license prevents people from using proprietary stuff. The fact that people want to install or only use proprietary things must be their will, although you may not agree. Otherwise, you are not being open in the sense of freedom.
My point here wasn’t in regards to the law. When we refer to the code as Open Source or Open Core publically we have to consider the audience that is addressed and what their understanding of the terms are. Using a “technically correct term” that 99% of the audience doesn’t understand is unproductive for everyone invlovded.
When a non technical coworker asks you to explain something technical to them do you make sure to be 100% technically accurate to the point where your coworker understands nothing or will you water down the concepts and terminology to a level that they can understand?
That’s the point I was trying to make. People know what open source is, they don’t know what open core is.
I agree with the pragmatic point, but the question here is more about openwashing.
Indeed, people know “open source” much more than “open core”. Just as I said above, people know “organic” for food. And there happens to be legal enforcement for “organic” and not for “open source”, but the advertising issue is otherwise similar. If you have a product with some organic ingredients and some not, just calling the whole thing “organic” and then using an excuse about not wanting to get pedantic with jargon…
Despite all the rest of the debate above, nothing seems to address the core deceptive conflict-of-interest. “Open Source” is the known term, it has a clear definition, and Baserow has an incentive to be considered “open source” without qualifications even though it is not fully open source. As long as most people either don’t care or are actually deceived, that’s fine for Baserow’s business. Baserow doesn’t have a strong incentive to disabuse people from believing it is a fully open source project — unless enough people get upset about it. Similarly, a company labeling a product “organic” has little incentive to qualify that and make people understand that it isn’t as fully organic as they thought.
So, yeah… when faced with “do we just make it simple or get picky?”, it’s not a coincidence that the leaning is toward simple when that happens to also look better and make people think the project is more open than it is. If the simpler explanation made the project look worse, there’s no way they would still say simple is better.
There’s a reason people say “open” and “green” and such all the time, and there are reasons why terms like “openwashing” and “greenwashing” exist… choosing to stick to just “open source” without qualification amounts to preferring the facade of a fully open source project over actually being fully open source or caring about people actually understanding the status.
Regardless of the excessively long newer post above that seems to somehow defend the openwashing direction and to downplay the importance of full software freedom, I notice that the BaseRow homepage now says:
No vendor lock-in; Our open source core means that you can run Baserow independently on your own server.
And in one place:
open source nature
And these are definite improvements in being less boldly openwashing. The main highest and boldest uses of “open source” are still unqualified, but I appreciate what appears to be good-faith effort toward more honest presentation. Thank you at least for that
The difference here is that the consumer of the organic food actually cares about it being organic.
If you take our audience and you tell all of them that we are open source, then you go back a month later and you explain to them “actually we are open core”, they wouldn’t feel betrayed or as if they weren’t getting what they wanted, they would just be like “okay, no idea what that is but sound good”.
The implication you are making is that calling something “open source” instead of “open core” is deceiving the consumer because they are getting something that they didn’t want. In our case the consumer is still getting exactly what they want since even if you were to tell them the 100% accurate term it wouldn’t change a thing for them and how they feel about the product.
Does that make sense? People feel cheated with the organic example because they wanted 100% organic, people don’t feel cheated by the open source example because the average consumer doesn’t care if it’s technically open source or open core, they just happen to only know the word “open source”.
Well, I just flat out disagree. By what basis do you think that the users of Baserow don’t care about it being open source? The reason Baserow (and many other software projects) bother prominently advertising being open source is because people do care. And here you are in conversation with someone who cares. And for that matter, some people buy organic food while not caring especially, so the analogy even holds with that in mind.
The rest of your argument is the same problem. Everything you are saying is a mix of incorrect bias that shows a lack of awareness of the people in the world who care about open source and about software freedom and showing that you somehow think the situation is not analogous with organic.
MANY people would not feel cheated with partly-organic stuff being misleadingly marked as organic, just as you are right about many people feeling that way about open core labeled as open source. Maybe you are denying the difference because you personally at least recognize organic foods as important (at least you get why, even if you don’t care much yourself) and you just don’t understand open source as a movement?
Disclaimer 1. I’d like to insert a brief comment that might highlight my point of view on open source development that might be of interest to this discussion. I think to help as many people here as possible about what open source is. 2. As I said before, my goal is to answer possible questions related to open source and not to start a personal attack. Given that, by: community, society, humanity, philosophy, conduct, norm: we must help each other and respect ideas that we do not agree. 3. I think this thread is very interesting, and has a lot of good and bad arguments about what open source is. 4. This text is going to be big, so I hope you all have the patience to read it and possibly point out criticisms, general problems later. 5. I don’t want to be right or wrong about any point of view, but always doubt so that it’s possible to think about different things. 6. I hope I helped, if I didn’t, I apologize.
I agree to disagree with your opinion and the reason for this is quite simple. To argue that your argument is not something I agree with, I would like to exemplify this by inserting the opinion of the developers of the ‘biggest open project’ or ‘biggest open source project’ or ‘biggest open source’: Android. Please, see this:
“Why Apache Software License?”
“Android is about freedom and choice. The purpose of Android is to promote openness in the mobile world, and we can’t predict or dictate all the uses for our software. So, while we encourage everyone to make open and modifiable devices, we don’t think it’s our place to force them to do so.”
This quote appears at that url: https://source.android.com/docs/setup/about/licenses and explains what is open sourced by Android developers, Google specifically as it is the company that manages Android in part.
Most of Android is licensed with MIT, Apache etc. This is interesting, because it’s not restrictive, meaning you’re free to do whatever you want. Which is to say that ‘not everyone cares about open source code’ or ‘only some people might care about open source’. Which reinforces saying that your position is not more or less right for those “who develop software” at least by Android(Google) or by the Apache community, MIT, BSD etc.
That is, some licenses this is a concern, in other licenses the label is not important.
I agree to disagree with your opinion and the reason for this is quite simple. To argue that your argument is not something I agree with, I would like to exemplify this by inserting the opinion of the developers of the Baserow. Please, read this information here:
“Which open-source license does Baserow have?”
“Almost all of the Baserow code is MIT licensed, and it is the most permissive license out there. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restrictions on reuse and has, therefore, high license compatibility.”
This quote appears at that url: https://baserow.io/faq and explains what is open sourced by Baserow developers, users.
‘There is neither partially open source nor fully open source’. As I said earlier, if you have a web server as Baserow, by definition of “software engineering”, “it’s not something you have access to”. In this sense, I imagine that given the context of the license MIT, the importance of saying or creating a label saying that ‘fully open source code’ or ‘partially open’ does not make sense for the business model, for the community and for the license itself that licenses the software.
1. If even software licenses don’t say what’s right or wrong in business models, why should we think this is a problem for Baserow? 2. If the MIT software license says that something must not be fully open or that something is partially open, why would the open core be a problem for Baserow? 3. The MIT open source license itself, doesn’t care about labels. Why should the Baserow community care whether the available source code is fully or partially open source?
But what you said confirms the previous argument, that there may be users who don’t care about open source. What I mean by that is that for people who want to buy something organic, the label should be something relevant to them or not. But for those who develop or use the software, it doesn’t make the same sense too.
I agree to disagree with your opinion and the reason for this is quite simple. To argue that your argument is not something I agree with, I would like to exemplify with this:
The very definition of ‘something open’ implies that it is something that is not ‘fully open’ or ‘partly open’: “Open” means something that is not “finished”. In the Cambridge dictionary, the word ‘open’ means something: “not closed or trapped”. This means that we as human beings have no understanding of what is open, because by the very etymological definition of ‘something open’, it is ‘something that has no definition’. This argument is interesting, as it closes the discussion, as it assumes that everyone makes a mistake when defining “what is open”.
For example, I’ve used software license definitions, used the dictionary to say that what you think is “open” isn’t “necessarily open” to most developers or users here. I was not based on restricting what is ‘open’, but on providing better guidance on common doubts that people have that are inside/outside the scope of software development. Which implies that there are several definitions, concepts here of “what is open” that cannot or have not been considered. Perhaps partly because of my lack of knowledge, ignorance of the subject or because what is open is something we are not sure what it is. But what is open in the software is what appears in the license, outside of that it is something else.
Since you took time to be thorough and lengthy with your thoughts, I hope you will be gracious with my attempt to clarify, though also longer than I wish were needed here.
That is not arguing against a position I or anyone else have. Nowhere here did anyone suggest that everyone out there cares about open source. The same is true about organic foods, not everyone out there cares about organic foods or organic labeling.
The Open Source Definition is unambiguous and widely respected. Anyone who would write a new license and call it “Open Source” but violate the OSD would get significant push-back and be in ill-standing in the open source community. Of course people have opinions, and there are debates. There are now “ethical source” licenses and other varieties of non-open-source-but-related licenses people have explored. The existence of such debates doesn’t take away from the general acceptance of the definition of the term.
None of this says anything about the Baserow business model. That is a separate issue. It is comparable to a food company making business choices about whether to have all-organic or partly-organic products. People can have opinions about whether partly-organic is fine or is an unfortunate compromise. Either way, the labeling needs to be honest and clear.
The concern in this topic is not just whether or how much the Baserow community cares about the licensing. Baserow could make no reference to the licensing in any of the advertising or main website. Any service is free to incidentally put some of their code under an open source license. Facebook makes a lot of open source projects. They don’t advertise Facebook itself as being open source. Baserow could remove all references to open source in their marketing if they think nobody cares, and they can still have the MIT-licensed repository of course.
The point of marketing as “open source” is because it does signal something that some portion of people do care about.
Bit of advice: you never need to say “this closes the discussion” or “the argument is over”. If you have made a convincing definitive point, it stands on its own. If you want to stop a discussion, you can say “I’m not going to discuss further” or “I’m not interested in further discussion”. Just asserting that you have “closed the discussion” as if this is check-mate in chess is usually just an overconfident cop-out.
Stretching this to the meaning of “open” makes the “organic” analogy even stronger. It’s quite the same as someone debating about organic food labeling who looks up the dictionary definitions of “organic” and tries to argue from there. Open Source has a recognized definition that is not merely the etymology of the words. Organic has a formal definition for food that is not merely the colloquial or dictionary definition. If you want to criticize these labels for using unclear, debatable terms, that is an entirely tangential topic from engaging with discussion of the labels as they are used in practice in a known context.
Any effort to say “well, I think Open Source means something else” is the same as “I think Organic can mean something different from what these certifying agencies say”. You can have that opinion, and you won’t even be alone. And yet these terms do mean precise things in a context with widespread understanding. And if a company goes around saying “Organic” or “Open Source” or other such labels in their marketing when they do not fully meet the recognized definitions, people from among those who care will complain that the marketing is deceptive.
Now, are you interested in accepting the basic facts of the Open Source Definition existing and meaning precise things and yet interested in discussing Baserow’s business model or marketing? Or are you more stuck on denying the credibility of the OSD? If you want to discuss the reasons for people caring about Open Source marketing details and about fully-Open-Source vs Open Core, we can have that discussion. That might help you understand the issues much more than debating semantics.
I’m aiming to be clear here. The MIT-licensed Baserow repository is Open Source. Period. Same as a product that uses Organic wheat where the wheat is indeed certified Organic. One concern is whether baserow.io asserts that “Baserow” (as presented as a product/service, not a code repository) can be simply called “Open Source”. And it can’t accurately be described that way without qualification because it has parts of the software that are excluded from the MIT-licensed repository. Just like crackers that use Organic wheat but the other ingredients are not Organic cannot just say the crackers are Organic.
The other concern is about the presence of proprietary parts of Baserow at all. That is the deeper significant issue. That brings up issues of power dynamics and the fact that if Baserow goes in an objectionable direction, the community is more limited in how much it can take in a different direction with a fork. Ideally, forking is something that doesn’t happen but is there as a check on power — something that shows that the company does not reserve any special control over the software that it could use to push for things that the community would otherwise fork over. So, some of us understand why it matters if it is fully-Open Source or just partly. And it is for those real-world reasons that we first-off care about the marketing being honest.
If you just focus on the terminology, you can be annoyed about the stickling. Better to be curious about why anyone would be a stickler here. The same analogy applies. Why would anyone be a stickler about the crackers being labeled Organic? For that matter, why are there organic-certifying organizations? Why does the Open Source Initiative exist? If you don’t understand these positions, you lack the perspective to understand the discussion. If you want to express why you have your opinion despite these things, it would help to show your understanding.
As is, your comments sound very similar to someone saying, “I don’t think most cracker-eaters care whether all the ingredients are Organic; Organic has this other dictionary definition; and anyway the wheat is Organic; whether using purely Organic ingredients is a good business decision is debatable; and so anyway, I can thus conclude that there’s no reason for concern about this.” And that is full of sensible points that nonetheless completely miss why the topic would be an issue and completely fail to engage in an open curious way (hah, see, I use normal words too) with what the concerns might actually be.
Novice question, sorry i’m not a lawyer: let’s say Baserow suddenly goes evil and severely cripples the open source product. What’s to stop me from forking the N-1 version and going about my business without a care in the world ?
Personally here’s the value of open source for me: 1. something goes wrong, I can fix it, it’s completely transparent and given enough time, I can get to the bottom of any issue. 2. open source software completely dominates closed source software. Look at stackoverflow, and search for mysql or sqlite questions vs sybase. Proprietary software has horrendous documentation, hidden behind paywalls. 3. it’s a guarantee the product will pretty much live on forever, as long as it’s useful.
I’m going to be quite honest , i don’t even understand the difference between open source software licenses, I tend not to care much. I’m an engineer, you need to speak to me by showing me code. That’s how open source software businesses get my attention.
Finally I have no problems with proprietary premium features. Otherwise where would you stop this reasoning ? A lot of software businesses have associated marketing and CRM aspects. Those are usually proprietary even if the core offering of the business is open source. Taking an extreme example, does the payment processing associated with the premium subscription need to be open source as well ? We’ll tell paddle and stripe they need to open source their platform then I guess
Everything they put in the MIT-licensed repository is indeed fully free/libre/open, and you can fork it.
The question is indeed about how far this goes. Practically speaking, there can be a to-the-letter Open Source project that does nothing to honor the spirit of Open Source, and there can be Open Core not-fully-open projects that overall do better by the community by comparison. Same with Organic foods. A non-Organic or partly-Organic product might actually be better honoring the spirit of healthy, sustainable agriculture (treating the whole ecosystem as an organism that we care about its long-term health), while a fully certified Organic product might do nothing besides the letter of the rules (use excessive packaging, poor labor practices, excessive transportation, careless about food waste, and excessive use of Organic-permitted fertilizers…)
For the immediate discussion, it doesn’t matter. All Open Source licenses meet the definition. The proprietary premium features are not Open Source. That’s the focus of this topic: concerns about premium proprietary features being part of the project and the potential issues with that as well as presenting the situation transparently.
FWIW, the issue with different licenses is mostly copyleft or not, which simply means whether the Open Source terms must be passed on (forks and copies retaining the freedoms for others) or whether there is no such requirement. The significance here is that if Baserow were copyleft and accepted code contributions without a CLA (Contributor License Agreement), then they would be required to keep the same license for the project overall. That is the best guarantee of a project staying forever open. With either a non-copyleft license (MIT for example, as Baserow uses) or with a CLA, a business is legally free to stop being open source or to be partly-open and partly-closed. Even still, a business free to stop being open could be currently completely Open Source, and so that case would not have the issue that Baserow has with being Open Core.
Indeed, where to draw lines is difficult. Life is fuzzy. One line is whether the business itself produces proprietary code. Another line is whether any customer is required to run client-side proprietary software. And yes some people will focus all the way to the line about whether any aspect of the service involves proprietary software.
One of the ways to moderate the issues and avoid purism is to focus on transparency. So, for example, at the FOSSY conference I attended recently (organized by Software Freedom Conservancy), they encouraged speakers to use all free/libre/open software where feasible but understood that people do not or sometimes cannot do so. The balance was a request that proprietary software be noted so that it was marked when something was proprietary. Thus, the audiences could fairly assume that any software shown or discussed is Open Source when not noted as proprietary.
Businesses can do the same direction in caring about simply presenting themselves clearly and transparently.
In practice, Open Core business models with premium proprietary features do set up a power imbalance. At the most obvious, nobody can simply make a competing service hosting identical software. It makes business sense to keep that monopoly on the hosting service. What makes business sense is not always what matches the ideals of free/libre/open values.
Just like most grocery shoppers and even most farmers don’t really understand the full ethical ideas that the Organic food movement is based on, most software users and even most software engineers do not understand much about the Open Source movement let alone the software-freedom side of it that originally led to Open Source as we know it. Whether or not one agrees with various ideas, it makes sense to engage with and understand the issues if you care to discuss them. There are a lot of common misunderstandings, even among programmers, about what free/libre/open software is about.
In practice, I have seen too many cases of Open Core businesses that slowly get more and more proprietary over time until their Open Source part is closer to freemium model — functional but noticeably lacking compared to the proprietary version. And by that time, forking is a much less effective and less likely option for the community. This doesn’t happen in every case, but it’s common enough to be a legitimate worry. This never happens with projects that are completely Open Source.
Disclaimer 1. I’d like to insert a brief comment that might highlight my point of view on open source development that might be of interest to this discussion. I think to help as many people here as possible about what open source is. 2. As I said before, my goal is to answer possible questions related to open source and not to start a personal attack. Given that, by: community, society, humanity, philosophy, conduct, norm: we must help each other and respect ideas that we do not agree. 3. I think this thread is very interesting, and has a lot of good and bad arguments about what open source is. 4. This text is going to be big, so I hope you all have the patience to read it and possibly point out criticisms, general problems later. 5. I don’t want to be right or wrong about any point of view, but always doubt so that it’s possible to think about different things. 6. I hope I helped, if I didn’t, I apologize. 7. I’m going to use the concept of “counter-argument” to enhance the discussion about software and community concerns. 8. I will be direct, frank and sincere in my views. Please do not think that my being direct, frank and sincere with you is the same as thinking that I am rude or disrespectful. I’m just pointing out criticism, general comments. 9. I am not a lawyer, law student, prosecutor or judge. If in doubt, consult your lawyer (I am not providing any legal advice).
We have concerns differently. In this sense, I hope that you will also be kind to me after new arguments, ideas, concepts that I will bring here as counterarguments to your comments, questions, arguments.
I disagree with what you said, because I was speaking the opposite direction to which you were speaking. Also, there is no such thing as partially open or totally open source, what is in the software is what is in the license: MIT, GPL, AGPL etc.
The question of using open or closed software is just a matter of choice by developers, companies and users. So, “labels” continue to be irrelevant for those who produce or use software.
And according to the OSD(Open Source Definition): no technology should discriminate people - that’s why some software licenses are restrictive in distribution, but liberal in private use. And there are software licenses that are liberal in both private use, commercial use and distribution. In other words, people can use open or closed software.
There are “violations of the OSD(Open Source Definition)” in the sense of how people deal with each other in the open community in some cases. Also, there are several open source licenses that people use that are not even approved by OSD(Open Source Definition): C00, public-source etc. So OSD(Open Source Definition) is not as widely used as you argue. Also, another important thing to highlight is that it is not a question of “certification”, but of “ideology” or “choice” from which the programmer or community group selects the license. So OSD(Open Source Definition) is not as widely used as you argue here again.
This is not true. Some GPL community users attack users from the BSD, Apache, MIT community calling them “capitalists, sellouts”. In some cases, in technical discussions, when people have no more argument, they talk about personal attacks. Also, “open software” is not the same as free/libre/floss(free/libre and open source software).
Another essentially important thing is to contribute. If you use something open and don’t contribute, you are misusing it. Although this is not a rule, but a style of conduct. Therefore, if you didn’t fork Baserow you are as wrong as your own criticism.
What I mean is that most of the discussions are outside the license: open core, openwashing etc. And OSD(Open Source Definition) is not always right or is a relevant argument for any philosophical discussion. The greatest resistance to open or free source is not in the license. But in discussions outside of technology and the license of a certain technology. Another “biggest resistance” I see with “open or free source” is usually “misinformation” or “false information”. In other words, beliefs that people have that do not exist in reality. For example, thinking that the GPL or MIT is the most open, or that software licenses are a form of non-capitalism etc.
“Most of the problems come from the developers and users themselves”. This is why licenses like Apache, MIT are more popular than GPL, because in part anyone can use it and there is not even an unnecessary legal concern. Furthermore, many people who use the GPL do not look favorably on such open and valid licenses as MIT and Apache. Your argument seems to ignore this facts. Also, “some GPL people” consider licenses like MIT, Apache as open license violations. However, such licenses are still used and respected. Furthermore, some people don’t even consider OSD relevant. some people consider other entities like GNU to be more relevant.
I partially agree here, I think it’s interesting to see positives and negatives of any idea of what we believe, argue or have. But there are not always debates of ideas when people want to be right, or think they are right. The GPL people think it’s right, the BSD people do too. In my case, I don’t care if it’s right or wrong.
The concept of ethics should not come from “utility”, saying that something is ethical because it is useful for a group of people is so fallacious. For example, saying that open source promotes “security, privacy”, and therefore “people should use it”, is as fallacious as saying that the capitalist system is fair because it promotes greater direction in the development of technology through competition and free prices. I consider this fallacious, as it does not present subsequent problems that could actually occur. The licenses that the OSD (Open Source Definition) has already approved are already widely used: Apache, MIT, BSD, etc. Therefore, there is no need to say that one or more licenses are better or more ethical, this is unnecessary.
I don’t agree with your argument, the more people discuss what is open, the less open it becomes, because people always restrict something open to certain characteristics.
For example, in the software license definition “OSD(Open Source Definition)” says that the technology must be “neutral”, but its concerns break with the "neutrality "of the technology. Separating developers who believe in “labels” and developers who “don’t believe in labels” as I.
By using the “OSD(Open Source Definition) argument”, you forget that no technology should impose on another technology. Also, “debating ideas” often alienates users and developers because there is often a conflict of interest, responsibility, organization and control. There is no balance when one party feels distrustful towards the other. Also, debating ideas is not always the best way, sometimes the best way is to contribute instead of thinking and reflecting. Although reflecting and thinking are important parts of anyone’s life, in the “workplace” or “internet” this is not always possible.
I’m not saying that thinking and reflecting is unnecessary, but that most cases don’t make sense and lead us down the path of irrationality. Because we think and reflect things that are not always true. The fact that some choose MIT or GPL is generally not a rational choice, sometimes it is more of an emotional choice, of what people believe to be true or to be free in the sense of the word.
My point here is this: the general acceptance of the term “open” is generally what people believe it to be. There is a problem of “nomenalism” here, the idea that things only make sense to you and not to anyone else. In other words, people generally don’t look for the semantics of the term or even the epistemology of the term. They think they own the meaning of the term. So yes, the debate of ideas can harm the acceptance of the term. As a side note, note that my “software openness” is restricted by the software license. It’s not the same “open you think or argued here”. We have a different view of what is open.
This is where we agree ±.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because this is understandable in the terms of service, privacy or use of the Baserow, in the OSD(Open source Definition) etc. There are even consumer rights laws to establish better targeting of the product or service. Also, “labeling” is already done when licensing the software: MIT, GPL etc. Also, It is the “user who needs to be clearer when reading and searching on their own”. Or “companies in the sense of understanding the law”. So, your concern is only on the company side, and forgets about the user - that’s why I also disagree.
Your comment suggests a doubt, and in my case this doubt does not make sense with reality. This is not correct, because the software Baserow is MIT licensed, so there is a licensing concern in Baserow(community, company, tool).
This is where we agree ±.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because the marketing, it is out of technology. Any company works the way it sees fit. Furthermore, any open source does not guarantee open source, this discussion is the same as in the 80s and 90s.
That’s why there are things like Apache, BSD, MIT that guarantee that “open source” is only possible in terms of freedom and choice, but not a real guarantee.
“No code license says that distribution will be 100% open”, because no guarantees of this in private or commercial use. Even the GPL is restrictive because it thinks that since this can happen, “prevention is better than cure”. But licenses like MIT say “why prevent and remedy something we have no control over?”
I disagree, because I find your argument biased. What I said is: “either everyone is wrong and this discussion should be closed”, “or everyone is right, and in this sense such a discussion should not be proposed or open”. “Or some people can be right or wrong epistemologically, etymologically, semantically”. The idea of ending the discussion is to focus on the key points of a new philosophical discussion or to end this philosophical discussion completely.
You complain that Baserow isn’t being clear about what “open” means, but at the same time you say things that aren’t easy for most people to understand. Clearly you are using the fallacy of analogy: “False analogy is a fallacy that occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on a similarity between two objects that have relevant differences.” Technology and organic food are not the same thing. Therefore, your entire anology makes no sense and should not even be a starting point for this discussion. Also, some of that, OSD definitions are not applicable to the company in the business model sense.
I’m not criticizing labels, I’m criticizing your concern about labels. My argument is the following: You don’t need to believe that software is “open” because it is maintained by company x,y,z or because some terms of use. You just need to have the right to the license. Likewise - how to have a strong argument for why someone likes something open or not depends only on the argument and not the belief. You don’t need an “open label”, just an open license. Open core is a type of business model that is outside the software, so it makes no sense to talk about something that is outside the software. Furthermore, according to the OSD definition, technology must be neutral, so it makes no sense to have a label or add a license to the code distribution for this.
The general point of my criticism is that: you don’t need to make an analogy about organic food to prove your concern about technology.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because I didn’t say that, you’re just distorting my arguments. I said that Open Source Definition (OSD) is not applicable to business models - just that and nothing more than that. Also, I said that your concern is incompatible with what you discuss and reference here.
I agree to disagree. We can all be right or wrong about everything. Or we can be wrong or right about some things. The idea of freedom is something solitary, we always take something the way we think, act, want. That’s why I always doubt my ideas and arguments and other arguments and ideas too.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because things are precise when they are understandable, there is no need for ‘obscurantism’ to make something more understandable. The freedoms of the software are under the license, other than that your concern makes no sense.
Here I agree. but company marketing is something outside the software and it is not the software’s fault, but the people’s fault. So if the marketing is bad, the person who did it should be fired. Responsibility is not for the company, but for any employee of the company and not the tool itself.
As I said previously, Open Source Definition is not applicable to marketing or business models. If you feel that the marketing or business model is bad, use or create software.
I am denying your credibility and not OSD(Open source definition). What open codes have you contributed or created here?
Here is a discussion that I consider to be interesting and viable. I have several arguments that I can argue against or for this if you want to see, criticize such arguments by pointing out fallacies, argumentative flaws or even negative or positive points in relation to it. But as a starting point I must warn you that:
1. “Open Source marketing is not a precise, widely circulated term.” 2. “There is no definition or term “fully-Open-Source”, this is something as popular as saying that the “free market” is “capitalist market”, the capitalist market and free market are general concepts of economy that intersect , but has different ideas.” 3. Open Core is a business model, therefore it is not in the field of “marketing”, but rather an idea or concept between economics and the market.
The semantic debate is interesting, But an debate of ideas at an ontological, analytical, logical, rational, methodological and epistemological level too is.
The license does not certify the software, the license only directs or formalizes certain freedoms of the user or developer.
Part of Baserow is open and part is closed.
Please, stop making analogies - your analogies don’t make sense. I talk about this because they seem confusing and not very didactic to me. If you have time, could you explain them better?
Everything is covered by the MIT license, otherwise use Nocodb(AGPL). There’s no point complaining about something you don’t use, right?
“As I said earlier, your worry is not good”. Because, there is “no total or partial open source”, open source is something continuous and not stuck or closed. But license changes may occur, and users may not use the product due to licenses. In my case, I use MIT and I use Baserow, from the moment they switch to GPL, LGPL, AGPL I kindly ask them to close my account. But in theory there is no change of license, because from the moment the code is public, anyone can use it. Also, Baserow’s direction is questionable and I really like that. Therefore, your concern ceases to be relevant when Baserow is already licensed under MIT and not GPL, LGPL, etc.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because: there is no honesty in marketing, this is a fantasy, like someone who says that freedom is “unrestricted”, “absolute”. And second, because semantically marketing is a word and not a person. Therefore, it makes no sense to demand virtues from words instead of people.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because I have a lot of calm, patience to listen to everyone.
That’s an interesting question, which I couldn’t answer.
I don’t know and I’ve never asked myself about it, I like fast food things.
I can answer this question: The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was created to promote and protect open source software and communities, but the OSI(Open Source Initiative) does not certify software, but formalizes certain software license standards. In this case, you can be an OSI Affiliate or not.
I have been programming open, closed and proprietary software for a long time. But this experience is not a starting point to say why I like open software and sometimes I don’t. One of my biggest concerns is the software elitism that some people have (thinking they do the right things for the right reasons). Another concern is the fact that companies or people or the government misuse open software, restricting people’s freedom, controlling certain usage permissions, etc. But all of these concerns are outside of the software and are more human concerns in where the technology can go.
No. I disagree. I disagree, because this conclusion is false because your technology analogy makes no sense.
There are things I agree with you and others not so much. For example, I understand that open source software is becoming the new hype of the moment, with people having a lot of expectations. But I must warn that this is by far not the biggest concern anyone can have.
There seems to be a misunderstanding. There is no such thing as a partly-open-source license, but there is such a thing as a partly-open-source project. That is: a project that puts some of its code under Open Source license and some under non-open terms. Baserow is such a project. That is the primary topic here.
Please try again with this point. I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
[labeling] this is understandable in the terms of service, privacy or use of the Baserow, in the OSD(Open source Definition) etc.
Maybe there’s just misunderstanding again. I’m talking about advertising, and there’s no sensible position to argue that nobody should express any views about advertising/promotion simply because those are not the place where legal issues come up. I’m not arguing about things from a legal perspective, I’m coming from a social perspective concerned about how things are presented to the public. You can’t be seriously suggesting that nobody should express concerns about how projects are advertised.
There is an MIT-licensed software called “Baserow” but there are also premium features that are software that are also part of the project called “Baserow” and that confusion is the topic at hand, not the licensing of any particular software repository.
Okay, but marketing is part of the topic here, that’s what I brought up. So don’t argue with me while disregarding my position. I’m saying that it is an issue whether a project keeps some of its work proprietary (see the points earlier about forking and power among other things), and that because this issue exists, it makes a difference whether this status is expressed honestly and accurately in marketing.
Try that nonsense in court, and you’ll be laughed out. Analogies are a thing. They aren’t invalid, they are analogies. Their extent of validity depends on how well they work for particular cases. It was sensible enough for people to argue here about why the organic food analogy doesn’t work. I replied to those to explain why the analogy is good.
The “fallacy of analogy” is strictly a logic issue. Analogies do not work in logic as in A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. They are not for that sort of argument. I’m not using them that way. I never said that because organic food labeling works a certain way, that is why Open Source labeling works a certain way. I’m asserting that the issues in this case are comparable. And you are not making any logical proof to reject that, you are just asserting “fallacy” at me in a place where there’s no fallacy. Please stop trying to use some sort of rhetorical puzzle to figure out some fundamental error. There’s nothing erroneous in anything I’m saying, you’ve not found a single example, and you are still free to express your opinion that you don’t really care about the things I care about.
This is totally mistaken thinking. I can and do talk about things outside of the software. This entire topic is outside of the software. This entire discussion is not a discussion about code, it is a discussion about marketing, power, customer-relations, and related issues around a software project. There’s nowhere in this community some rule that says that all conversations have to be only about the operations, use, or licensing of the software.
Of course that’s true. But I made the analogy because some people don’t understand the problems with Open Core. People just think it doesn’t matter, and that marketing an Open Core project as Open Source is a non-issue. So, I’m bringing up an example of the exact same sort of issue in a different context to help people see the point. The fact that people argued about the differences shows that they do get the point. If people just disagreed with my opinion overall, they would accept the analogy but assert that it doesn’t matter for a partly-organic-ingredients product to be labeled “organic”. Instead, what’s happening is that people are struggling to see the analogy because they are more used to “organic” mattering to consumers and have only (until talking to me here) been thinking of “open source” as mattering to developers.
The general point of my position is: Open Source matters to more than developers, and anyone who doesn’t know this is just ignorant of the fact. And I’m not naive here, I’m not saying it matters to everyone in the world, just that caring about it is not a develop-exclusive concern.
Really?? Anyone who makes a mistake or who makes some decision that could be criticized should just be fired and take the blame? That’s nonsense. Companies can accept feedback and criticism and act on it (and they did in this case, early in this topic). It’s normal enough for marketers to do something that gets push-back and then they can hear the criticism and make changes. Don’t just fire people for ever doing anything bad in any way.
It is when anyone anywhere uses “Open Source” in marketing materials.
And you were the one bringing up fallacies… I’m not going to further defend my credibility. I already mentioned that I was at a conference recently with many of the most senior and active people in the world on the topic of Open Source and I knew about half of the attendees personally already.
Yes, and thus my entire complaint, this entire topic is based on two issues with that. One, I don’t like this, and there are good reasons for people to be concerned about any closed parts of such projects (even though closed aspects of projects is indeed a widespread business pattern). Two, calling the project in marketing “open source” without qualification hides the fact that part is closed and gives people the impression it is fully open. Contrast that with projects like Blender which have no closed anything. That is the topic here. Having closed parts and marketing that is meant to make it appear to have nothing closed.
Wrong. The point in complaining about things you don’t use is because you care about their effect in the world. The Open Source Initiative formally as an organization complains about any project using the term “open source” when it is not open, such as referring to a proprietary-licensed project that is still public on github as “open source”. That is just one relevant example of complaining about something that someone doesn’t use.
Well, people could say the same about Organic food. The purpose of analogy is to make a point for consideration. Organic food and Open Source software are both decades old ideas. Popular “hype” for them arises much later and often makes mistakes in understanding the ideas. People’s expectations and marketing around these ideas does often veer away from the original intentions. And yes, people can get overly focused on labels. See, the point of the analogy is to show similarities to help with intuitions and understanding. Where the things differ (which they do, of course), it must be because of something different about them.
So:
invalid reasoning: “Labeling matters to organic but not to open source because one is food and one is software” — there’s nothing obvious about food vs software that would make labels matter or not matter, there’s nothing in that argument explaining why this would be different
valid reasoning: “By law, products cannot be labeled ‘organic’ without certification; but there is no such law for ‘open source’” — this is a difference where the analogy does not hold, and it clearly states what the difference is and why the difference affects the discussion of labeling
I really think this whole discussion comes down to this: Like many (but certainly not all) developers, you just do not particularly care about the issues of power and software-freedom and such that the Open Source movement is based on. So, you don’t understand or respect concerns about those things. You can just say this. You can just state your position clearly and succinctly. You don’t need to get into trying to find some logical error (which there’s none to be found) in someone else bringing up concerns that you don’t share. You can just say you don’t share the concerns — though I think you would do better to ask questions about the concerns (such as “why does this matter to you?”) before you decide not to care.
Disclaimer 1. I’d like to insert a brief comment that might highlight my point of view on open source development that might be of interest to this discussion. I think to help as many people here as possible about what open source is. 2. As I said before, my goal is to answer possible questions related to open source and not to start a personal attack. Given that, by: community, society, humanity, philosophy, conduct, norm: we must help each other and respect ideas that we do not agree. 3. I think this thread is very interesting, and has a lot of good and bad arguments about what open source is. 4. This text is going to be big, so I hope you all have the patience to read it and possibly point out criticisms, general problems later. 5. I don’t want to be right or wrong about any point of view, but always doubt so that it’s possible to think about different things. 6. I hope I helped, if I didn’t, I apologize. 7. I’m going to use the concept of “counter-argument” to enhance the discussion about software and community concerns. 8. I will be direct, frank and sincere in my views. Please do not think that my being direct, frank and sincere with you is the same as thinking that I am rude or disrespectful. I’m just pointing out criticism, general comments. 9. I am not a lawyer, law student, prosecutor or judge. If in doubt, consult your lawyer (I am not providing any legal advice).
You didn’t get it wrong, you got it right. Exactly this, this is what we call “open source”. People are free enough to create non-free versions. That’s what I’m trying to talk to you about. This is called multi-licensing, when a company has an MIT version and a proprietary commercial version. It’s the same case with postgres, mongodb, mysql (there are proprietary versions in an open project) that’s not bad. Because the money has to come from somewhere, “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. What I’m trying to say is that your concerns are not the same as Baserow’s concerns about the license term.
Your concerns are not the same for OSD(Open source Definition). The OSD(Open Source Definition) doesn’t care about the “100% open label”, it’s floss(Free/Libre and Open Source Software) or GNU who cares. Also, I said to be careful when using the term open source and free code is not the same thing. Furthermore, I said that this concern could make the software unviable for those who contribute source code.
’There is neither partially open source nor fully open source’. As I said earlier, if you have a web server as Baserow, by definition of “software engineering”, “it’s not something you have access to”. In this sense, I imagine that given the context of the license MIT, the importance of saying or creating a label saying that ‘fully open source code’ or ‘partially open’ does not make sense for the business model, for the community and for the license itself that licenses the software.
For open source, marketing doesn’t matter, only the license matters. As someone who is honest, you should be concerned with virtue and not the appearance of honesty.
You didn’t get it wrong, you got it right. Exactly this, this is what we call “open source”. People are free enough to create non-free versions.
I understand that there is a marketing concern with open source, I just don’t take it into account.
I don’t understand what you said here. I don’t have the knowledge to judge anyone.
I said this because I wanted to counter-argument and it seemed to me that your analogy didn’t make much sense.
I agree with this topic. So I said that we should have better guidance on this matter. I just said that your point of view: “cannot be asserted as evidence”. I said your point of view doesn’t make sense, even though you have the right to do so. Another thing I said is that the analogy doesn’t make sense, because people never act the same way with technology and organic food.
But the general point is that you could not use this analogy, use a more specific one.
I agree with this point here.
We are all responsible for everything in life, what exists are degrees of awareness and responsibility that we assume we have or have. If someone uses open source for spam? Is it the fault of the community that developed the software or the person who created the spam in an open source tool?
Sorry, but It’s the person’s fault and not the tool’s fault.
what can we do? none.
I didn’t say you’re a person we shouldn’t trust, I said I shouldn’t give you credibility. Credibility and trust are different things. It’s one thing for me to read something scientific published by Carl Sagan, it’s another thing for me to research something on YouTube. What I want to say is that credibility is different from trust.
Not everyone in the world has the same concerns as you. “It’s like saying doctors should have the same concerns as lawyers.” See, it’s one thing to be a doctor and another thing to be a lawyer, they are different areas of knowledge. In the same way that using the example of an open community like Blender does not invalidate Baserow’s positioning. Baserow’s decision is different from Blender, the fact that you like it or don’t like it - does not invalidate the business model or the license used by that community or company. For example, the fact that you believe in anything does not invalidate someone who believes in anything too. Just as I didn’t invalidate your argument, I didn’t invalidate mine. So, “freedom between users and developers is different in license MIT”. One thing is who uses the software and another thing is who develops it.
I don’t want to be right about anything, if I said something wrong, point out the improvement, suggestion or correction. But I’ve always said that I’m worried about open source, what I said is that my concern about it is different from yours. We have different concerns regarding open source.
I understand what you said, but not in the way I argue.
I have not used this type of argument here.
This is a general argument that I have already said here. I said this, for n reasons.
1. Distribution: as the code is open, anyone uses it, there is no way to check what is open or closed.
2. "Regumentation: Open source regulation" is carried out by the license and not by a certifying identity. In other words, it is a legal matter for whoever maintains the software, which can be a company, community or individuals. In the case of the user, developer or individual there is no way to prove that the user, developer or individual is actually certified to contribute to open source, because the code is public. What many companies do is sign a CLA (Contributor License Agreement) type contract that defines the terms under which intellectual property was contributed to a company/project.
3. ’There is neither partially open source nor fully open source’. As I said earlier, if you have a web server as Baserow, by definition of “software engineering”, “it’s not something you have access to”. In this sense, I imagine that given the context of the license MIT, the importance of saying or creating a label saying that ‘fully open source code’ or ‘partially open’ does not make sense for the business model, for the community and for the license itself that licenses the software.
4. Software is not food. As there is no regulatory agency or certifying agency, this concern(open core, open washing) is not as important in “open source”. Generally, this concern is of the ethical nature of the norm of the community, company - but not everyone’s. Likewise, as the software is public, anyone can use it. See the case of Google and Oracle for further guidance.
Since the tool is open source, “there is no power or anything like that”. Many people consider code to be what it is not. “Code is not money, status, recognition or people’s power”. Code is code, a formalization. Now, you may have purposes for which some code was written. For example, the law is a code that everyone agrees to for greater autonomy and responsibility for people (this can be good or bad, or not).
This is why I said we should be careful about expectations related to open source (because it distances us from open source expectations related to reality).
But we are often talking about different things with opposite meanings. Freedom for MIT is freedom for developers and freedom under the GPL is the middle ground of freedom for users and developers. But in practice, it doesn’t make much difference to change the code license, because once the code is open, anyone can use it. What separates the fair or unfair use of the code is just people’s awareness or responsibility when they sign a term of use.
When I talk about having expectations about open source, I’m talking about thinking that open source is a form of non-capitalism, or a way of providing greater responsible accessibility. I don’t think that open source is a non-capitalist form or a form of greater responsible accessibility, since any software license is characterized by exemption from liability. In other words, the tool itself does not give you responsible accessibility, you are the one who makes it, with your autonomy and awareness.
I said to respect as I respect the terms of use, privacy and license considerations of the software.
Maybe “you are distorting my arguments, ideas”. I care so much about code that I will help anyone in this community. What I don’t understand are your concerns about how Baserow works. I could list all my code concerns that involve things outside or inside the code.
For example, “private, commercial use and fair distribution”. But these things inside and outside the code are important (because they create technology). Technology solves problems, but there are problems inside and outside of technology, problems that are not easy to solve.
Despite this, at the same time it is what creates the condition for technology (this is not morally right or wrong, this is just a problem that technology has and by which it originates, develops, improves)
