Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Discriminating against commercial usage is not allowed under the Open Source Definition:

https://opensource.org/osd




Hence the full circle to my original sarcastic joke. The OS definition serves a purpose of protecting users, even the bad ones, and maybe that worked when the "bad ones" where a minority with small impact.

But nowadays things have changed. The "bad ones" are big fish, and have enormous impact. A growing subset of devs now start looking elsewhere, and a plethora of non-OS licenses start to pop out. People still want to give their work for free, as long as it is not going to help someone else get rich while the original author doesn't see a cent.

One day, maybe, some organization will study the current landscape, and write a new set of definitions that are able to catch the spirit of this new situation. I guess it's just a natural part of how things evolve.


There is the Ethical Source movement, that aims to prevent use of software by bad people. The FLOSS community doesn't even have resources enough to enforce the widespread violations of copyleft licenses, so it seems even more unlikely that Ethical Source folks will be able to enforce their licenses. There are lots of other reasons for the FLOSS approach too.

https://ethicalsource.dev/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-...



It didn't really come across as a joke despite the /s, it seemed like an earnestly held opinion that is, TBH quite reasonable, although it isn't something I would agree with.


In fact this is whole point of open source VS free source.


Doesn't seem accurate?

Both Free (of the FSF meaning) and Open Source (of the OSI meaning) software explicitly allow for commercial usage.


Read history guys. I even did a master thesis cf the two. The open source is against the free source by deliberating allow commerical software. Down vote you may, you cannot change the history. In fact learn seriously about that part, otherwise you miss the whole point of open source.

Well, whilst down voted let me repeat the thing - some Vp did not invent internet but he did let go of only education institute used that network. Now it allows commercial activities.

The mix is hard. The pure is ease. But without the mix and the complexity dealing with this, you do not have today open word of software and even internet.

And mix is hard. (And pure like free source is so pure it is a cult those days.)


> The open source is against the free source by deliberating allow commerical software.

Again, and to put it even more clearly... you're very wrong.

Source, from the actual "Free source" people you're talking about:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

> Read history guys. I even did a master thesis cf the two.

Interesting. Is your master thesis available for me to take a look at?

I'd be interested in seeing how and why you arrived at your current viewpoint.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: