Hi everyone.
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).
I accept this statement, idea.
yes yes, fine. But maybe “it confirms my thesis that the GNU philosophy and the GPL license are imprecise and rigid.” Please, see this: 1- Why I Don’t Use the GPL, 2- Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project
One of the general problems with software is that if you don’t have money to pay a lawyer or someone who studies and understands the law, many of your rights will not be possible. Due to ignorance and lack of knowledge.
In the case of the GPL, some people don’t license it because they don’t have time to read all the documentation about it. That’s why some people don’t risk using it. Furthermore, some people also consider it imprecise or rigid in some points.
Linus Torvalds considers the error to be the GPLv3 license, Google considers the AGPL license also to be an error, as it appears to be something “judicially malicious” - to legally force the delivery of the entire code base of customers or people.
In the same way that creating malicious code is considered bad legally, forcing someone to contribute source code is also considered bad (at least according to Google, Linus torvalds)
Which is “unnecessary”, considering that most of the open projects licensed by the GPL are contrary to its philosophy. Furthermore, permissive licenses such as MIT, BSD, Apache have been gaining more strength than the GPL license. Which proves that such designed limits do not protect the freedoms for which it was created. Therefore, I think imposing freedoms on software is unnecessary and inaccurate.
I would like to include your own phrase and argument: “The question is not whether the GPL has these restrictions that protect freedom, the question is whether they are in fact more or less effective in maximizing freedoms.” In this sense, I don’t think the GPL maximizes, protects the freedom of users and developers.
From an ‘anarchist’ point of view: “Is this GPL in fact more or less efficient in maximizing other freedoms? What are the other conditions under which GPL might restrict further abuses?”
I would like to include your own phrase and argument again: “The question is not whether the law has these restrictions that protect freedom, the question is whether they are in fact more or less effective in maximizing freedoms.” From an ‘anarchist’ point of view: “Is this law in fact more or less efficient in maximizing other freedoms? What are the other conditions under which this law might restrict further abuses?”
I accept this statement, idea.
I don’t think that statement is true. It is not necessary for people to remove the freedom of copyleft, copyleft itself removes the conditions under which it is possible to have copyleft. Also, copyleft freedoms are contradictory, they cancel themselves out. Also, there are people leaving copyleft to go to “unclicensed” or “copycenter” type licenses - these people didn’t need to remove any copyleft freedoms. Also, the copycenter movement (MIT, BSD, Apache…) and “unlicensed” licenses are already used to a certain extent and have the freedom of copyleft.
I didn’t say I was an anarchist, I just used arguments to point out what I was trying to say, that we have different concerns with open software. Also, the “GPL software license” is more of a code of conduct than a software license, the “GPL software license” was created by the GNU philosophy, so in a way it is more of a code of conduct than a software license. Although they say (people who license in GPL or like the GNU philosophy) the opposite.
People may have different opinions about the code of conduct or licensed software, which does not imply that the different opinions are good or bad, but that they are incompatible with each other or may differ, in which case freedoms may change from person to person . This does not mean that freedom was taken away, but that it was redefined, that is, people can give new meaning to something that does not necessarily mean removing what was old or current. For example, non-copyleft options like copycenter are interesting to me. And in some ways this still supports copyleft freedoms in another way.
I’ll read it when I have time and calm, but thanks for the comment.
This is why many people stay away from copyleft (fsf, gnu) because of these opinions. But something interesting is that even the GPL license, which is restricted in a certain way, also does not guarantee that the distribution is 100% open. Even if someone says otherwise, there is a problem of principle and practice, as you already stated, that confirms the suspicious position about whether the GPL license is actually good or makes sense for software development. Some people call the GPL license the “crayon license” - as you also confirmed by saying that copyleft is a “hack” of copyright.
I already argued about this, I said that your concern with the term 100% open is not always accurate, and I also said that open source code is what is included in the software license. In my opinion, you are complaining about features you don’t have, but by using an account on Baserow, you agree to the terms of service. You cannot complain if you are not a premium user, if you have not previously subscribed or agreed to the premium plan.
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying since the beginning. A clear and accurate representation of the nature of open source nor under a product or service is not required. I defend this point of view, as it is what the MIT license defends, and it is the same software license that the Baserow version is placed on.
That’s why I said we have similar concerns, but we have a different focus.
For example, your concern is outside the software license and business model for which Baserow was designed. Furthermore, your concern is outside the “copycenter philosophy” to which, using the MIT license, Baserow was placed. Also, your concern is not the same for OSD (Open Source Definition), FSF (Free Software Foundation), GNU (GNU’s Not Unix!). All these organizations have different concerns and objectives, that’s what I’m arguing from the beginning.
You are very intelligent and have great points of views. Although we agree differently. My concern is with technology, with the code itself. So much so that I created several Baserow technologies, I could help you create the missing Kanban features if you want.
As I said from the beginning, having part of the code can do a lot of things, there is no need to have 100% open source. Not everything in life is open, see for example “open software policies”, which do not always consider divergent or conflicting opinions.
thanks! I’m creating free (not paid) Baserow extensions, all under the MIT license: awesome-baserow. I made some forks and I’m still going to rewrite the implementation part from scratch.
It depends on what you consider “proprietary”, for example, is the trademark right owned by one person or a group of people?
For example, there are open software communities that grant trademark rights to everyone who helps with open software. In other words, it is not necessary to abolish copyright, we can create this right for as many people as possible.
It’s the same “socialist vision”, there is no need to eliminate capitalism, just use capitalism in a favorable way so that people are able to live in the most appropriate way.
Yes, I could be wrong, I said this because of the huge coincidence.
This is partly true, the fact that it does not have a license does not mean that it does not have copyright. Projects licensed without a license on GitHub are copyrighted, so there are so many projects licensed with copyright because they do not include a license, as are many licensed on MIT.
But my argument was only about licensed projects. Perhaps this argument “is still valid or could be valid or should be valid.” Because if the license changes for several projects, the opposite argument may be valid, if people license the GPL, the reason for the increase may be that people felt the MIT license is too unrestricted, restricted, or meaningless - for the they want to use.
If they (the programmers hosting code on GitHub) start not using licenses like MIT, GPL etc (maybe they use licenses like unlicensed). Perhaps we should be concerned that open source is no longer important to some or most people if these licenses (GPL, MIT, etc.) are no longer used.
An interesting problem is relicensing, when a project becomes proprietary and then opened. Or it was open and owned. Software licenses like BSD, Apache, MIT are easier in a legal sense to do this, as the distribution can be proprietary. But I moved away from the GPL for several reasons that I have already explained, from philosophical, personal reasons etc.
Additionally, there are several complex problems that I don’t think the GPL is applicable or makes sense to. The famous case is GPLv3, which Linus Torvalds himself also doesn’t think makes sense.
Another curious problem is that a “harm-free license” was considered bad. But from a logical point of view, the GPL should also be considered bad because it is not applicable in many cases and restricts the freedom of developers and users. In some cases, companies don’t use the GPL for fear of being sued for anything. For example, someone could say that charging for software is legally wrong, only no GPL-licensed software in these (for these people, companies) could charge a fair price, because charging a fair price goes against what the GPL says. has as a proposal.
The GPL argues that such a license is more a practice of conduct than an actual software license. But the GPL was made by the GNU philosophy, so in that case shouldn’t the GPL be considered as a guide to open software conduct?
This I really agree with you.
What I wanted to say is that the fact that Baserow(the community) has a proprietary part is not the same as saying that the community version must have the same functionality.
Because if the software is open, anyone can implement the missing functionality, people generally choose to pay for the extra functionality, they want to help the company grow and also because they don’t have the money to maintain their own server, so it’s fair to have a functionality extra, to which a 100% open version will cost more to maintain.
That’s not true, in discussion groups, I’ve been called a “sellout.”
This information is “biased”. If you don’t fully support the license, you might as well say it’s not “free/floss/foss/libre”. But this is not possible, because the GNU philosophy would go against the OSD (Open Source Definition). For example, the license for “unlicensed” software was considered “non-free” for the OSD (Open Source Definition) and later reconsidered as “free/libre/floss/foss”.
But now, the "Hippocratic License” license was and still is considered non-free for GNU. GNU’s argument was that the “Hippocratic License” license is ‘this is not a free software license, because it restricts what jobs users can use the software for.’ Now, the GNU philosophy produced the GPL, so from this point of view, what they want to consider as something open is outside the software, it is more of a “guide of conduct as well”? this same argument could apply to the GPL license, right?
This is a confusing argument. If you say that proprietary versions are bad and wrong, and if there is a software license that allows this, by logical conclusion(explicitly or implicitly), the conclusion is that the MIT license is bad or wrong. Furthermore, there are several statements from RMS that confirm that this position of software licenses like MIT are bad. Please, see this: “FWIW, RMS has taken to calling “permissive” licenses, “pushover” licenses. They absolutely are free, but also they permit people to just discard the freedoms and not pass them on to others.”
Furthermore, you yourself mention in snowdrift/licenses that MIT licenses are bad: " The main issue with permissive licenses is that they enable proprietary derivatives. For our discussion here and in-line with the Snowdrift.coop mission, we’ll assume a goal of promoting openness and freedom (as opposed a goal of maximizing profit or business success"
You didn’t talk about the MIT licensing problem: code control. The biggest problem with MIT licensing is the control of code changes, not the fact that it is just proprietary distribution.
Maybe “you are wrong here too”, I would say copyleft vs copycenter. I said this because your idea of open software seems to make more sense for copyleft, and here it is more copycenter, it is something more permissive. I argued something relevant here, I said that there is no such concern of yours according to permissive software licenses like mit, the fact that the software is “100% open”.
Firstly because this term is not very precise, secondly because it is not in accordance with what the license proposes, thirdly it is outside of what the software is being made and maintained by the term of use. Furthermore, the concern about something being “100% open” violates principles of individual rights that no software license in theory should abolish, in addition to your concern with the term “100% open” - this demand of yours seems to me to suggest or confirm a rigid line between philosophy and legal norms, which I don’t agree with and don’t think makes sense or is applicable. For the same reason that there shouldn’t be a strict philosophy and rules, otherwise we will be limiting people’s individual freedoms. Or as you said here: “this just again shows the fuzziness in that there’s no hard line between philosophy and legal rules.”