zlacker

I disagree. Software projects that claim to be free-software instead of opensource (plus use a "contagious" license such as GPL) don't owe you more community management than the ones with an MIT license.

>>knocte+(OP)
Most high profile project that explicitly claim to be free software in fact do not do any kind of community management at all and do not tend to actively seek outside code contributions.

In fact the community involvement in development as exemplified by GitHub (and SourceForge before that) is to a large extent invention of the same group that started using the term open source (for what is otherwise mostly the same thing as free software).

>>knocte+(OP)
I'm being a little unconventional with my terms - mostly because the article is titled "Open Source is Not About You." Zach Tellman (a prominent Clojure community member who does not work for Cognitect) just tweeted a link to his post https://medium.com/@ztellman/standing-in-the-shadow-of-giant... about "open source" and mythmaking, which is a much subtler take (and, I'd guess, probably inspired by an older flareup in the Clojure community over governance).

It is, however, the case that open source under the GPL is a perfectly well-defined concept, as is free software under the MIT license. The terms refer to worldviews about the code and ethical obligations, not to licenses.

>>dfox+G
The software that allows the GitHub style (light-forking) environment is called git, created by Linus. He's a great example of a person who doesn't care about free software ideologies, but cares about open sourcing code a lot.

>>geofft+q1
Even in the world view of free software, regardless of the license being used, no community management is expected from the person that gives away the software they write. Free software is about the rights of the users (not the whims of developers/powerusers). Opensource is mainly just about transparency and efficiency of the development model.

>>xiphia+H1
And still, both his main projects (Linux and git) are under the most “ideological” license, the GPL. And the troubles he’s gone to, in order to keep this state of things in the face of commercial pressures on Linux, are almost biblical.

Linus cares a great deal, he just doesn’t want to be cornered as an FSF zealot.

>>knocte+(OP)
Without that contagious license no one would be using Linux nor GCC, and we could all enjoy Aix, Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, ...