Open Source

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WolfLink , in Copyleft licenses are not “restrictive”

The problem with a copyleft license is it’s hard to make a commercial software open source because a competitor can simply copy your work and sell it for cheaper.

poVoq OP ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

That isn't a problem, but a feature, see: https://opensource.net/why-single-vendor-is-the-new-proprietary/

WolfLink ,

I know. It’s obviously better for the consumer, but it makes it harder to base your business around it, as noted in that article.

So if I want to build a business, I have to look for libraries that are not copy left, and if I want businesses to use my software, I should not license my software as copy left.

lemmyvore ,

No. You should think in terms of offsetting development cost. When you choose non-copyleft you do it to keep code private, which means you will support all dev costs. It limits how the software can grow because it's basically vertical scalability — not to mention being culturally limited inside the company.

When you choose copyleft you commit to open source and so does everybody who wants a piece of that software, which makes it much easier for everybody interested in it to offset their development through everybody's efforts.

With open source there are documented positive feedback effects. Companies who grow to depend on specific software find it cheaper and more efficient for their own interests and benefit to maintain fewer permanent developers as high upstream as possible — as opposed to having many occasional developers downstream, dealing with stuff as it trickles down.

FOSS creates reliable, diverse and ultimately healthy software ecosystems because everybody competes to improve the software first and foremost.

maxamillion ,
@maxamillion@fosstodon.org avatar

@WolfLink @poVoq open source is a development model, not a business model, if you don't provide value beyond the bits then you're going to have a hard time but a copyleft license ensures the playing field is level and no vendor can take your code and extend it with added functionality without releasing that code too

poVoq OP ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

These days selling the software itself is rarely successful nor a particularly good business model. Basically only computer games still work like that, and the commercially really successful ones not any more either.

jnk ,

Hard agree on this. Sell software and services to companies, only sell services to end users. I believe both selling your service as a dev and selling a service behind a free app are compatible with copyleft.

bitfucker ,

And this is how we got everything must be online/subscription or everything is a web app. And people complain about that too.

ryannathans , in it is what it is

A good sign you're hostile to potential contributors. Maybe have a clear readme that gets them a working dev environment in a command or two. Try not to shit on people in issues

refalo ,

I'm not sure that was the joke they were making, and I don't think that is a majority consensus when OP's picture happens. You may not agree and that's ok.

ryannathans ,

Right so why do people shit on your projects and refuse to cooperate?

refalo ,

I don't know, there's probably not a singular reason. For one, many are just consumers/users and not actual devs, they only want "open source" because people told them to want it, or they think it's safer or has a better community or something, but many times they don't actually want it for anything useful besides being able to say it's open source, even though they never contribute anything. I think these are the kind of users who always demand ridiculous features and way too much time from the real devs.

I've also seen other devs that just had wildly different views on fundamental parts of a project, or had unrealistic expectations, or just lived in some kind of fantasy world that most people disagreed with.

pop ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the moderator]

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  • eskimofry ,

    Bro if you can't understand development that you think you need someone to give you "a command or two" to setup your own shit when people from all kinds of devices (x86, arm, PPC, etc) and all kinds of OS (windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, etc) have potential to contribute;

    Why should anybody listen to you?

    ryannathans ,

    Maintain large open source project

    unionagainstdhmo ,
    @unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone avatar

    Absolutely could be the case with things with specific tasks. It's always a good idea to share what your development environment is so others can replicate and if they're using something a bit different they probably know what they're doing anyway

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