When Open Source Software Comes With a Few Catches (wired.com) 120
As open source software grows more popular, and important, developers face an existential question: How to make money from something you give away for free? An anonymous reader shares a report: The Open Source Initiative standards body says an open source license must allow users to view the underlying source code, modify it, and share it as they see fit. Independent developers and large companies alike now routinely release software under these licenses. Many coders believe open collaboration results in better software. Some companies open their code for marketing purposes. Open source software now underpins much technology, from smartphone operating systems to government websites.
Companies that release software under open source licenses generate revenue in different ways. Some sell support, including Red Hat, which IBM acquired for $34 billion earlier this month. Others, like cloud automation company HashiCorp, sell proprietary software based on the open source components. But with the rise of cloud computing, developers see their open source code being bundled into services and sold by other companies. Amazon, for example, sells a cloud-hosted service based on the popular open source database Redis, which competes with a similar cloud-hosted service offered by Redis Labs, the sponsor of the open source project. To protect against such scenarios, companies behind popular open source projects are restricting how others can use their software. Redis Labs started the trend last year when it relicensed several add-ons for its core product under terms that essentially prohibit offering those add-ons as part of a commercial cloud computing service.
That way, Amazon and other cloud providers can't use those add-ons in their competing Redis services. Companies that want the functionality provided by those add-ons need to develop those features themselves, or get permission from Redis Labs. [...] Analytics company Confluent and database maker CockroachDB added similar terms to their licenses, preventing cloud computing companies from using some or all of their code to build competing services. Taking a slightly different tack, MongoDB relicensed its flagship database product last year under a new "Server Side Public License" (SSPL) that requires companies that sell the database system as a cloud service also release the source code of any additional software they include.
Companies that release software under open source licenses generate revenue in different ways. Some sell support, including Red Hat, which IBM acquired for $34 billion earlier this month. Others, like cloud automation company HashiCorp, sell proprietary software based on the open source components. But with the rise of cloud computing, developers see their open source code being bundled into services and sold by other companies. Amazon, for example, sells a cloud-hosted service based on the popular open source database Redis, which competes with a similar cloud-hosted service offered by Redis Labs, the sponsor of the open source project. To protect against such scenarios, companies behind popular open source projects are restricting how others can use their software. Redis Labs started the trend last year when it relicensed several add-ons for its core product under terms that essentially prohibit offering those add-ons as part of a commercial cloud computing service.
That way, Amazon and other cloud providers can't use those add-ons in their competing Redis services. Companies that want the functionality provided by those add-ons need to develop those features themselves, or get permission from Redis Labs. [...] Analytics company Confluent and database maker CockroachDB added similar terms to their licenses, preventing cloud computing companies from using some or all of their code to build competing services. Taking a slightly different tack, MongoDB relicensed its flagship database product last year under a new "Server Side Public License" (SSPL) that requires companies that sell the database system as a cloud service also release the source code of any additional software they include.
The choice of software license... (Score:5, Informative)
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"... is the sole discretion of those who write and offer the software to others."
Exactly! Just as the people who write jokes and bits.
You can publish them for free or sell them to a comedian or go on stage yourself, it's your choice.
Re:The choice of software license... (Score:4, Insightful)
... is the sole discretion of those who write and offer the software to others.
Yes, but when they give it away for free with few limitations they shouldn't be complaining when someone else figures out how to monetize it or otherwise use it in a manner you object to.
If you don't want others benefiting from your work, don't give it away. That is kind of contrary to the OSS principle though...
Re:The choice of software license... (Score:5, Insightful)
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They aren't complaining. They are releasing new versions under updated licenses with terms that better conform to the original license intent.
If the code isn't completely new but builds open previous opens source would it not still be bound by the original license if they decide to distribute it; unless they verify that every line of reused code was their own and not contributed by someone else? If it's all theirs then can release the same code under a different license if they want since they still are the copyright holder.
That depends on both the license and contributor (Score:2)
Some open source licenses expressly allow one to release it under a different license. Notably, GPL does not.
Also, separately, you said "and not contributed by someone else? " It depends on the terms of the contribution. I made both open source and closed software. I would accept contributions to either. If you send me a change you want made to my *closed* software, your contribution comes with copyright assignment. I hold full rights to my closed software, to do with what I want, whether or not I accep
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If the code isn't completely new but builds open previous opens source would it not still be bound by the original license if they decide to distribute it; unless they verify that every line of reused code was their own and not contributed by someone else? If it's all theirs then can release the same code under a different license if they want since they still are the copyright holder.
They cannot "unrelease" the code which is under a previous license but anything they hold the copyright to can be released under a different license. Many projects require non-exclusive copyright to be assigned to them for this reason.
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In other words, they weren't ever interested in the spirit of FOSS, they were just riding the coattails of the open source community in an attempt to unethically gain attention and money. Got it.
Re: The choice of software license... (Score:3)
Re: The choice of software license... (Score:2, Informative)
open source means the source is open - available to anyone. Not limited to licencees. You describe a source licence, which may be a closed/commercial licence.
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No, OP is right. You're thinking of Free Software, which is similar but not identical to Open Source. Open Source definition is that licensees have access to the source.
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Personally I am not aware of any license that makes such a statement. Thinking like that is just the result of the hype around the Open Source and how it was presented to common people. With portraits of Stallman on a red background and quotes in pseudo Cyrillic. But free (as spe
Re: The choice of software license... (Score:2)
I think most FOSS authors do want natural human persons to be able to use the software however they see fit. However most FOSS authors do _not_ want to extend that same right to fictitious legal persons like corporations. A new license is needed.
Re: The choice of software license... (Score:2)
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You completely missed the point. Whoosh.
Sabatier [wikipedia.org]
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Re:The choice of software license... (Score:5, Interesting)
You miss the whole community thing. You can't expect to take from the world but not give all back.
Clearly people don't want to see their work go to enriching governments and corporations they dislike but then you probably shouldn't write open source software. Pick a different license and find like-minded developers to work with.
Trying to pretend to be open source but only kind of is just being dishonest. If you don't want people using your work, that is fine. It just means you shouldn't try using an open source license.
Re: The choice of software license... (Score:1)
Why can't we have both? An open source license that says "not for commerical use"
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Re:The choice of software license... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems people have confused open source and free software. They are close, but not identical.
Open source means you can see the source code. That's really it. There can be restrictions on how you use the source code, so Microsoft can "open source" Windows but not allow you to actually, say, build it or use it in another product. There is value here, since if you encounter a bug, you can step through and figure out what's going wrong.
Free software means you've got freedoms as a user - it implies open-source, with added terms. Basically the terms include the ability to run the software and to modify the software.
You might ask "run the software"? Yes, because open-source may let you look at the source code, but you may not be allowed to actually run binaries that come from it - look but don't touch, and if the developer hates you, don't run. Free software doesn't let you put that in (because it impacts freedom). So if you're a software developer who hates Trump, or hates war, or doesn't want your software used by dictators or the Chinese or Americans or whatever, you can still make it open-source, but not free software.
Modification is also a free software philosophy, which means you're free to modify the software to suit your needs better.
Distribution is a third philosophy - you're free to distribute your changes to your improved version to the benefit of others.
So open source can have commercial licensing behind it just fine. It can say if you're Chinese you're not allowed to run it. Or it can say if you're American you can't run it. Or if you voted for Trump you're not allowed to run it. That's perfectly legitimate, as Open Source does not imply Free Software.
Free Software implies Open Source out of necessity (your right to modify the software requires it), but freedom to run the software is paramount as well, so it's not possible to restrict how anyone uses your software. You can't write a term that prohibits someone from taking your software and putting it on a nuclear bomb (because it's against the freedom of being able to run the software).
Microsoft and Apple have open-sourced bits and pieces of their software, but no one's claiming it's Free Software. It's why they even just call it Open Source.
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No, it's really not [opensource.org]....
I'm not sure where you got that misinformation from, but what you're describing sounds a lot more like something called "shared source" which was a strategic licensing model that Microsoft was trying to use in the early 2000s to undermine open source in general and GNU/Linux specifically.
You might as well be arguing "free softwa
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I thought all of this had been pretty thoroughly hashed out decades ago, at this point.....
Not in the slightest. Take google's use of the "open source" Apache2 license. This decision - which was 100% against the wishes of the original key developer behind Android - has resulted in MASSIVE systematic exploitation of end users, endemic Copyright violations due to assumptions by Corporations assuming that just because Android is Apache licensed, they have ZERO obligation to the GPL licrnse on uboot and the linux kernel.
Read this:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy... [gnu.org]
Note in particular, "open source pays
Gotta keep the lights on somehow (Score:2)
There just doesn't seem to be many ways for developers to survive independently long term. Shareware was a bust. Selling support services doesn't scale that well, and the thinking is that if it's so badly designed that you need support, just keep looking. Don't hear much about beerware or chocolateware either. Beggerware seems to be the default.
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The narrower the target, the more likely one person can do it, and do it better than a general purpose product that is designed by committee, implementation by multipl
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I wish I'd survived independently for two decades before selling my company to IBM for $34bn.
Fucking terrible outcome that, the former Red Hat owners must be gutted.
Google / Android (Score:3)
I remember when F/OSS software was dependent on support contracts and update services to generate revenue for professional support services. How blind I was that one could just break the software entirely and people would still eat that shit up.
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Clearly the easiest way to insure profit is to load the source code with tracking and advertising engines for passive income and then make sure the "Open" portion of the OS is IMPOSSIBLE to install in a functional fashion on any target hardware
Hence the need for GPLv3.
without lots of other licensing encumberments on the hardware / driver side or key APIs (Google Play Services).
MicroG [microg.org]
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Clearly the easiest way to insure profit is to load the source code with tracking and advertising engines for passive income and then make sure the "Open" portion of the OS is IMPOSSIBLE to install in a functional fashion on any target hardware without lots of other licensing encumberments on the hardware / driver side or key APIs
You can install vanilla AOSP on any Android device that has an unlocked bootloader. I built and flashed a tip-of-tree AOSP master build onto a Pixel 3 XL just this morning. In practice if I were planning to use this phone (I'm just doing development on it), I'd flash a more-polished modification of AOSP like LineageOS, but the plain AOSP system works.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the definition of software freedom. (Score:5, Insightful)
If your response is "you don't" or "you shouldn't do it for money", etc, then you've relegated FOSS to free-time hobby-only status, so good luck getting FOSS to advance, or even be maintained.
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Corporations can have hobbies too!
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1. Do like companies that sell their software without the source do - base it off FreeBSD-licensed code;
2. Embed so much assembler in it, as well as routines that check that the binary is not from a recompiled/modified version, that nobody can successfully modify and recompile it - no encryption needed;
3. Buy licenses for any commercial code you need to build your product, no obligation to supply source.
There is nothing wrong with making money through work rather than just giving it away. In fact, #3
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Actually, when I started you bought or leased your hardware, and the vendor supplied "for free" the software needed to make it worth buying. (Of course, the software only worked on their hardware...and often only on one specific model of the hardware.) And it usually wasn't copyright. (Berne came later.)
Re:the definition of software freedom. (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't address the question in the TFS "How to make money from something you give away for free?".
Sell a product that is based upon it, let everyone else help you develop it, and then profit from selling the product.
Sell customizations.
Sell support.
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Yes. And musicians should make their money selling t-shirts and their concerts!
And network admins should make their money making hamburgers
And dentists should make their money selling beautifully crafted stoneware pitchers
And web developers should make their money roofing houses...
Or you could expect to make money doing your job and doing it well.
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Yes. And musicians should make their money selling t-shirts and their concerts!
They actually do, traditionally.
Or you could expect to make money doing your job and doing it well.
That's what I said.
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Doesn't that encourage developers to make software that does not work out of the box, is hard to use, and missing pieces?
If it's too much of a PITA, people won't bother with it. Or, if someone does, their fork will dominate because yours is annoying.
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The trick is finding a balance that entices and draws in users who then find themselves trapped in an ecosystem they can't escape.
Or build a very strong sales team.
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And yet, here we are with the Linux kernel everywhere and free software in abundance. Apparently there are lots of people that enjoy doing this and aren't doing it for the money.
There are also plenty of companies that are willing to pay people to work on some of this software, knowing full well that all the code contributions they make are going back to the community. The software isn't where these big companies are making their money. It's most likely selling reliable service support on expensive hardware
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The real question is, if you have a popular open source package, is there an automatic way to make money? The answer is no. You still need some business sense.
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Or I can just load it up with so much assembler, including cod
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We disagree on your assertion that "The AGPL violates right #0 by imposing", unless you can give a better explanation of *how* it violates that "0. Freedom to run the program as you wish.". I, personally, don't consider storing software included in "running" it. I will acknowledge that it can be a hassle, but if you don't want to keep versions, don't release them.
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AGPL requires making available any changes you made to the software which you are running as a service. If you did not make any modifications you have no obligations to make the source available.
Msmash... (Score:1)
Not because I ask but because it's the right thing to do.
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Shut the fuck up.
Practice what you preach, mkay?
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Man, you can't even troll well.
mindset: patronage (Score:5, Interesting)
i've written about this before, a number of times. in the Victorian times, the wealthy made so much money from the innovation of technology that they didn't know what to do with it. so they engaged in something called "Patronage".
Patronage was where a wealthy individual - a patron - would fund upcoming artists, entrepreneurs and scientists to pursue their passion. ultimately, we cannot be sure if this was done for genuinely altruistic reasons, or as an excuse to be able to have something to "one-up" their wealthy peers at the parties they threw, or if they were hoping that something would come of it that they could financially exploit: it's probably a healthy mixture of all of those, and by and large they system worked.
now fast-forward to where "Corporations" are the "norm". if you watch the documentary "The Corporation" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - you learn in the first few minutes that "Corporations" were originally a Civl version of "Drafting". a team of people would be "In-Corporated" by a Government to oversee a public work, such as "building a bridge".
i do not know the full history of how that then morphed into the pathological and criminally insane system that we have today, however it is at last - after over ten years of trying to make people aware of the harm that pathological profit-maximising focus causes when expanded to an International stage - being recognised that an exclusive focus on profit is absolutely no different from the disease known as "Cancer".
in a climate where Directors are REQUIRED BY LAW to order Management to take whatever they can get, for as little as they can get it, it should come as absolutely no surprise that Software Libre developers are exploited and sponged off of.
ultimately we need a total mindset shift in the world-wide community to fix this. we need people to recognise that employment - receiving a paltry "wage" and having zero rights to the full benefit of our ideas - is the modern equivalent of SLAVERY. this is something that has gone completely under the radar. it's so "normal" for people to be "employed" that the thought of employment being equivalent to slavery is both shocking and scary, yet this is just how it is.
think of it this way: next time you come up with a great idea, go to your boss and say, "i've got a great idea: i'd like 10% of the company in voting shares, because it will increase company profits by at least 20% year-on-year". does the thought of doing that scare you? if it does, then sad to say, the relationship that you have with your boss is no different from "slave" and "owner" - just not your physical body, but the IDEAs - your KNOWLEDGE - your WORTH is enslaved and "owned".
it probably says so right there in your employment "contract"! "Employee shall grant all rights of OWNERSHIP to all Intellectual Property", right? you signed it and probably didn't even read it or understand the full implications!
Software Libre developers completely buck this trend, being true entrepreneurs or altruists who recognise that the world-wide system is broken *and continue doing what they can to fix it regardless*.
Personally, i have given up on software libre developers ever being properly recognised and funded, so instead have moved into hardware (https://libre-riscv.org/3d_gpu/, https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... [crowdsupply.com]). at least with hardware, it is a physical item that is easily recogniseable as requiring payment before supply and distribution can be carried through. if that hardware happens to have software libre applications on it, that's a bonus as far as i'm concerned.
bottom line: i recognise the problem, i don't have all the answers, however i'm following what I feel is the right thing to do.
Re:mindset: patronage (Score:5, Interesting)
> think of it this way: next time you come up with a great idea, go to your boss and say, "i've got a great idea: i'd like 10% of the company in voting shares, because it will increase company profits by at least 20% year-on-year".
What happens if my idea decreases the company profits by 20%? Will I incur a huge personal debt?
What if my idea produces 0% change in profits, but by pursuing it, the company foregoes great riches that would have otherwise come from adopting my coworker's idea instead?
Weird -- it's almost as if business economics is somehow more complicated than elementary school arithmetic...
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i've written about this before, a number of times. in the Victorian times, the wealthy made so much money from the innovation of technology that they didn't know what to do with it. so they engaged in something called "Patronage".
It's funny that you mention patronage in the Victorian times, since that's when it was coming to an end, and artists were able to support themselves without the need of a patron.
Re:mindset: patronage (Score:4, Informative)
You're so full of shit. The first company, the Dutch East India Company, was nothing like getting people to do involuntary labour. Same with the Comagnie des 100, which was set up to engage in the fur trade.
You lost all remaining credibility when you claim that companies are required by law to do everything to make a profit. There is no such law, and every time I've challenged people to point to the law that requires this, they failed. Never mind that the existence of non-profit and not-for-profit corporations exist and their existence is supported by laws.
With glaring mistakes, the rest wasn't worth reading.
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You lost all remaining credibility when you claim that companies are required by law to do everything to make a profit.
That is utterly false and I did not state so. Let me re-read it... damn, I didn't use the usual phrasing that I have repeated about 10 to 15 times here on slashdot (because it is painstaking to do so, the language is quite awkward).
So I can see where you got the misunderstanding from. However... the anger you display... mmmm... could you possibly ratchet that down a notch, or five?
There is no such law,
That is correct. However (and this is UK only, I do not know how companies are set up in the US) once a Corporation deploys a b
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I once taught a guy how to fish. Then he went and set himself on fire trying to cook it. He'll never be cold again. Hooray for Open Source!
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think of it this way: next time you come up with a great idea, go to your boss and say, "i've got a great idea: i'd like 10% of the company in voting shares, because it will increase company profits by at least 20% year-on-year".
If something was developed on their own time with their own resources, I've seen people do this. This whole 'voluntary trade of work for money' is nothing like slavery.
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If something was developed on their own time with their own resources, I've seen people do this. This whole 'voluntary trade of work for money' is nothing like slavery.
The employment contracts that I have been presented with alwats stated that the employer took full and complete ownershipbof ALL work, ALL ideas, regardless of the time or plave in which they were developed.
This is not legal to do, so they had to modify the contract (without prejudicing the employment offer, which would have opened them up to a lawsuit). HOWEVER, if I had not checked, and signed the contract as-is, as many people do, it would be legally enforceable.
I don't understand... (Score:2, Funny)
The article is pretty crummy on specifics (the devil is in the details in a license), which is exactly what the damn journalists is supposed to be doing. So I don't really understand if there's really a legit complaint against Amazon, or Redis just doesn't want to give away code to a competitor.
Apache is the base software for a lot of websites. People build apps on top of Apache, be it PHP, Ruby, whatever. Should Apache software get mad at everyone because they use Apache as the front end to proprietary
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The AGPL would probably open up markets for closed-source software that small developers could turn into a decent revenue stream easier than OSS.
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Enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
All these various license are fine and dandy. With clauses for this case and that case.
But really, at the end of the day, it comes down to enforcement. If a team of half a dozen grunts work on a project in their spare time and release it under GPL, they don't have a prayer if a larger entity grabs it, makes a few changes and declares it 'theirs.'
Even if the small potatoes can prove they were ripped off, can they really fight this in a court? That's expensive! They weren't paid for their work, so it's not like they're swimming in money. While the big fish could be profiting from their work and using those profits to fight them in court.
Without a system that treats all sides fairly in regards to court proceedings, all this license mumbojumbo is pretty moot IMHO. If the big fish wanna eat the little fish, they're little they can do.
And the other side of the coin is forking. Open source is nice in a lot of ways, but if someone doesn't like how you're running a project, they can just fork your project and go their own way. This is both good and bad, especially regarding licensing. At which point does a forked project become thing all on it's own that is permitted to change it license model? Never? Who's gunna stop them from doing that? The forked project? Court battles between two entities that have no money?
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So give away the product but not the source.
This defeats the entire purpose of open source. I can't believe you even suggested this.
If you're not giving the source out, then, low-and-behold, it's not open source anymore. It's proprietary.
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Even if the small potatoes can prove they were ripped off, can they really fight this in a court? That's expensive!
This is why the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Software Freefom Law Centre offer free legal help to any team whose copyright hae been violated.
ssh.com had a licence restricting commercial use (Score:4, Interesting)
Paraphrasing, when version 2 of SSH 1st came out, there was a license disallowed using it to administrate your company's systems internally or externally. If I was an ISP, I couldn't offer ssh logins, etc. to customers. Even as a company with private servers, I could not use ssh to connect to those servers. This was at a time where telnet and rsh were still in use.
ssh version 1.27 didn't have this restricted license nor the v2 protocol. OpenBSD started with that version's code, removed patented/licensed bits and added the v2 protocol and released it with the BSD license. I seem to remember the US was restricting export of crypto, so OpenSSH development was explicitly done in other countries. One developer would cross the US border to do development in a library in Canada IIRC.
Today, OpenSSH is everywhere and the original from ssh.com is not. ssh.com has since changed their licenses.
not an existential question (Score:1)
Camus and Sartre and Kierkegaard would be rolling in their graves.
Just because you can intellectual stammer your words does not mean you have anything existential going on.
Before all the whining..... (Score:1)
Real hippies .... (Score:2)
and then sell the manual for $50
Nope.. (Score:2)
The Open Source Initiative standards body says an open source license must allow users to view the underlying source code, modify it, and share it as they see fit.
Uhh, no that's not true.. Yes to being able to view the underlying source code, but no to modify it and share it as they see fit. That's all up to the license that the open source code was released..
Amazon (Score:3)
Too big to sue.
The hardcore is paid anyway, refuses to see a prob (Score:2)
Translation (Score:2)
But with the rise of cloud computing, developers see their open source code being bundled into services and sold by other companies. Amazon, for example, sells a cloud-hosted service based on the popular open source database Redis, which competes with a similar cloud-hosted service offered by Redis Labs, the sponsor of the open source project. To protect against such scenarios, companies behind popular open source projects are restricting how others can use their software.
Translation:
Companies are making