What is? Because I don't think the point of open source is to have big companies make money off code that other entities—in many cases individuals—made available for free. It's certainly something that happens, and I don't think it's universally bad, but I wouldn't say it's the point, either. I've heard of several high profile cases of the people who maintain high-profile projects supporting $billions worth of commercial products struggling to make ends meet, and I don't think that's the point. That's not a system working as designed, because nobody designed it and there arguably is no point—it's simply a dynamic that emerged organically from the factors that drive people to contribute to open source, and those that drive businesses to maximize their profits.
I think GP meant that allowing for forks is the point of Open Source. Which I would argue is kind of a big point of Open Source -- the point isn't who's doing the forking or who's profiting -- but the point is that forks like this are intentionally allowed.
Yeah, that's fair. Maybe I should rephrase to say it's a point. I could see someone arguing that forking is just a component of the deeper philosophical attitude about how people can use and distribute and modify code in general.
Forking is the/a point in the sense that I can't think of a version of Open Source that is still Open Source but that doesn't allow forking -- that allowing for forking is a deliberate choice, not an accidental one.
I was thinking more the former. I understand the latter as more of an ethical position, and it's one I'm not really familiar enough with to talk intelligently about...
Conversations like this are just sort of pointless, where one side says it's supposed to be this and the other replies no, it should be that, when really open source software is just a thing that happened. It's up to us to define an ethics around it and to decide how we interact with other actors in the ecosystem who might not have the same principles and goals.
To have a discussion about how it should work, to make subjective value judgments like the ones these comments are full of, we need better arguments than 'the license says it's fine, so on what basis can you criticize Amazon's and/or Elastic's conduct here?' or 'but that's not nice!' or 'Amazon/Elastic has $XXXM revenue so they are bad'.
I don't know what distinction other people make, but when I capitalize Open Source, I'm referring to Libre software, specifically of the kind that Stalman or the OSI would talk about.
Lower case open source is a term that I personally try not to use, specifically because of that confusion. I personally try to refer to that as source available or shared source when possible.
Stallman and the OSI do _not_ agree on "Libre software" and "Open Source" - in a quite fundamental way.
"The terms “free software” and “open source” stand for almost the same range of programs. However, they say deeply different things about those programs, based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for freedom for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice. By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage and does not campaign for principles. This is why we do not agree with open source, and do not use that term."
When I use Open Source (capitalized) I am arguing for Libre software with the values Stallman is talking about. The point of disagreement I have with Stallman is this -- Stallman argues that using the 'wrong' word to describe Libre software risks corrupting the movement. I argue that using a generally accepted word to describe the movement, and culturally reinforcing the common understanding of that word as a subset of Libre (ie, not just giving up saying "Open Source can mean whatever the Mongo devs want it to") is valuable enough to override those concerns.
Stallman goes on to argue that the Open Source movement doesn't care about Libre software, and we should not align with that movement. I argue that a very large contingent of the Open Source community does care about Libre software, and it is worth advocating to the remainder of the community that Open Source software is Libre software and that the real ideals of Open Source beyond just source availability can not exist without the ideals of Libre software.
Stallman and I disagree about whether or not we should use the term Open Source to describe Libre software, but we don't disagree about what Libre software is. Even Stallman admits that aside from some minor differences, the official OSI definition is mostly in alignment with Libre software. What Stallman is really disagreeing with is with the PR strategy. And the reason I'm not going to try and separate those terms is because I explicitly disagree with him that his strategy in this specific case is helpful, and because I and many other people in the community want to continue to fight for the idea that Open Source needs to be Libre.
Part of the reason we use Open Source to describe Libre software is because we don't believe that Mongo or Elasticsearch have the right to decide for us what Open Source means, and we're not willing to drop the issue, give up all of the good will and public recognition we've built around the term, and just go use something else that the public doesn't recognize. Because if we do, and we have any success at all, then pretty soon proprietary companies will start to co-opt that term too.
I don't see any indication that confusion over what the OSI meant by the term 'Open Source' is the reason why Mongo felt emboldened to write a new license that took away user freedoms. Mongo didn't argue that Open Source was different from Libre, they attacked the very spirit of both movements by implying that their focus on 'sustainability' and 'fairness' was somehow fixing flaws in the OSI/GNU definitions and making their software even more free. If we were all using the term Libre instead, nothing about Mongo's PR strategy with the SSPL would have changed, they would have still claimed that their license was reinforcing the 'spirit' of Libre software.
What is? Because I don't think the point of open source is to have big companies make money off code that other entities—in many cases individuals—made available for free. It's certainly something that happens, and I don't think it's universally bad, but I wouldn't say it's the point, either. I've heard of several high profile cases of the people who maintain high-profile projects supporting $billions worth of commercial products struggling to make ends meet, and I don't think that's the point. That's not a system working as designed, because nobody designed it and there arguably is no point—it's simply a dynamic that emerged organically from the factors that drive people to contribute to open source, and those that drive businesses to maximize their profits.