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What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

submitted by gnufx+(OP) on 2023-12-27 16:25:33 | 137 points 179 comments
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4. strong+66[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 16:57:07
>>crater+y1
NYT seems to agree: >>38781941
5. Throwa+w6[view] [source] 2023-12-27 16:58:56
>>gnufx+(OP)
If you'd like to see Bruce Perens' presentation from 2021 about post-open source licensing, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRl-it1-ruI&t=470s . The title is misleading; the latter half of the video discusses licensing.

The video was discussed on HN at the time at >>27961940 .

6. yu3zho+A8[view] [source] 2023-12-27 17:11:19
>>gnufx+(OP)
I’ve built and already shat down a platform (a marketplace) that solves this exactly: https://github.com/poss-market

> define the corporate relationship with developers to ensure companies paid a fair amount for the benefits they receive. It would remain free for individuals and non-profit, and would entail just one license

If anyone is interested in helping out with business side of the project, please reach out jed@poss.market

14. _brams+bb[view] [source] 2023-12-27 17:26:08
>>gnufx+(OP)
I really appreciate how Bruce is approaching the reality of how the idea of open source played out against how technology has found itself used in the real world. I'm optimistic for a future where open source is less of a religion or a marketing angle [1], and more beneficial for those who share their knowledge for the world to use and receive fair compensation.

[1] - https://www.bramadams.dev/issue-39/

19. gtsop+uc[view] [source] 2023-12-27 17:33:16
>>gnufx+(OP)
> Our licences aren't working anymore

Lol, ok, maybe they are not working for you and some non- negligible amount of people, but this should not be generalized neither as "our" licences nor as "not working anymore". There are plenty of software I use for which GPLv3 works like a charm. E.g I loved how Apple ditched bash as the default shell because of GPL.[1]

[1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250729585?sortBy=best

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25. chrism+xf[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 17:51:22
>>RcouF1+fc
I believe https://community.ardour.org/download is the thing in question.
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40. nparaf+jm[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 18:25:25
>>ptx+a5
> is that Open Source has completely failed to serve the common person. For the most part, if they use us at all they do so through a proprietary software company's systems, like Apple iOS or Google Android, both of which use Open Source for infrastructure but the apps are mostly proprietary.

This most certainly wouldn't have happened if "open source realism" didn't stood against free software "utopian" idealists. I still remember the "Linux Kernel is now in most devices in the world" when Android came out. This didn't went well, didn't it?

Lastly, isn't redhat an enthusiastic supporter of open source ? The domain https://opensource.com/ is literally copyrighted and supported by redhat...

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43. trelan+Bq[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 18:50:04
>>playin+F8
I think open source came first, though it wasn't thought of as such at the time. Sharing the source was just what some folks did. A company locking down the source to a printer was one if the reasons Stallmann decided to make the GPL.

"I noticed this because I had the good fortune in the 1970's to be part of a community of programmers who shared software. Now, this community could trace its ancestry essentially back to the beginning of computing."

[...]

"And then I heard that somebody at Carnegie Mellon University had a copy of that software [for the broken printer]. So I was visiting there later, so I went to his office and I said, "Hi, I'm from MIT. Could I have a copy of the printer source code?" And he said "No, I promised not to give you a copy." [Laughter] I was stunned. I was so -- I was angry, and I had no idea how I could do justice to it. All I could think of was to turn around on my heel and walk out of his room. Maybe I slammed the door. [Laughter] And I thought about it later on, because I realized that I was seeing not just an isolated jerk, but a social phenomenon that was important and affected a lot of people."

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt

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52. em-bee+XH[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 20:21:03
>>ptx+a5
He laments that users "don't know about the freedoms we promote which are increasingly in their interest", but wasn't this the point of Open Source as compared to Free Software

true, but to anyone who paid attention at the time, bruce perens already pointed out this problem only one year after announcing the open source initiative: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/02/msg01641.html

so not only is this problem not new, but also at least bruce perens has been aware of it all this time.

but what is happening today probably would have happened without the promotion of open source as well. so i agree, that it is time to act. GPLv4 anyone?

56. leotra+Z51[view] [source] 2023-12-27 22:38:57
>>gnufx+(OP)
This from Melody Horn back in 2020 is a great companion piece to this. https://www.boringcactus.com/2020/08/13/post-open-source.htm... https://web.archive.org/web/20231215222059/https://www.borin...

They both echoed that we need to be prepared for such environment and they have some good points.

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57. coffee+Te1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-27 23:42:53
>>PaulDa+Oa
But would you say that Ardour is an exception and not the norm? From what I can remember, it's not like you didn't struggle with making Ardour (see [1]) a profitable business. In fact I vaguely remember that at one point you were seriously considering abandoning the project for financial reasons right?

[1] https://discourse.ardour.org/t/another-month-missing-the-fin...

59. DonHop+Ui1[view] [source] 2023-12-28 00:21:26
>>gnufx+(OP)
Wait, Bruce Perens is still alive???

I thought he laughed himself to death reading Eric S Raymond's blog!

https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/10

https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/bruce-perens/page/7

https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/terrorismistic

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1999/04/msg00623.html

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79. aragil+RD1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 03:49:42
>>trelan+So
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Perens is the interviewee. He helped create OSI, which pushed Open Source (vs Free Software).
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101. kaashi+YO1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 05:55:28
>>phkahl+th
> IMHO the biggest threat to Free Software is the proliferation of open source software.

I'm sure you know this, but to be clear for readers: almost all free software licenses are also open source licenses and vice versa.

The canonical examples are things like the BSD licenses.

See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatible...

> This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.

I think it would be clearer to say that the greatest threat to free software is the proliferation of non-copyleft free software which can be closed down if a company so wishes.

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103. albert+KP1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 06:03:40
>>zubair+KM1
When you say “open”, do you mean Public Domain?

SQLite has found that to be quite effective.

https://sqlite.org/copyright.html

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123. bawolf+QU1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 07:09:57
>>antonv+AU1
Not just that, the current definition explicitly says you cannot exclude any group. https://opensource.org/osd/ (section 5)

Its not like this is a loop hole. Not descriminating against anyone (including faang) is literally the point.

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126. m463+nW1[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 07:29:00
>>phkahl+th
I think sometimes these terms need to be defined:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html#free...

I remember rms saying that GPL software places no restrictions on how the software can be USED. It just means that the benefit goes to the users of the software.

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146. trelan+1q2[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 12:29:45
>>nparaf+gS1
> Android is now a Frankenstein spyware monster that uses mostly proprietary software.

Which android are you referring to? The table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib... may help you.

I don't think that, say, Lineage or Calyx share the same privacy concerns as Google's android variant, or the myriad vendors' proprietary forks.

Of course, if most of Android were GPL instead of Apache, the lockin wouldn't be possible.

If you're referring to locked bootloaders and not being able to use the GPL kernel due to that, that was a defect in GPLv2 that was fixed in GPLv3 (that and software patents). TiVo was the one that induced that change, and the term was "tivoization."

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151. Kon-Pe+iF2[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 14:25:36
>>PaulDa+Oa
> At this time, the main force behind Ardour is delivered by two people, with less constant contributions from 2 others, and occasional contributions from on the order of a dozen others. Consider that we do support, web site maintenance, documentation, feature enhancements, debugging, as well as development.

> There’s more people (perhaps another dozen) pitching in with translation, release engineering (preparing Ardour for users), Mantis triaging (“Mantis” is the bug database used to keep track of known problems, “triaging” the process of prioritizing/verifying bugs) and other necessary tasks.

http://ardour.org/support_expectations.html

I have a hard time believing that $240k/year is enough to pay an honest market rate to all these people for their time.

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159. kapilv+UK3[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-12-28 20:04:06
>>candid+Vj
Field of endeavour is an oss freedom

Armin ronacher, also had some thoughts on this recently, via a license that converts to OSS. https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2023/12/25/life-and-death-of-open-s...

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