Comment by j1elo

Comment by j1elo a day ago

5 replies

Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users.

So Fair fullfills an actual need or desire not covered elsewhere, thus is not a non-solution.

It might be not the appropriate or the best solution to solve the exact concerns of people using it, that's debatable and a different topic, akin to using the wrong tool for the job. Strong copyleft is the wrong tool, too; obviously competitors can just deploy without modifications and offer it as a service.

sfRattan a day ago

> Authors using Fair want to share their code while getting protections for themselves. Strong copyleft doesn't care about authors and is all about protecting the end users.

This is a one-sided assertion of fairness, and therefore an abuse of the concept. Free software offers the same rights to both authors and users. That is fairness.

If you want to reserve rights to yourself that are withheld from end-users, that's fine. Arguably even still within a broader conceptual realm of fairness. But naming your personally preferred arrangement of rights "fair" and in so doing implying most or all other arrangements are unfair is just plain arrogant.

Strong copyleft cares equally about authors and end-users. It doesn't disregard authors. Some authors just want to co-opt the general notion of fairness to mean their own licensing preferences.

Call it a non-compete license and be forthright.

  • [removed] a day ago
    [deleted]
jtrn 11 hours ago

Allow me to try a analogy.

You and sfRattan rightfully pointing to a disease (large cloud providers using true free software to make money without contributing back). But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing), that has been available for decades. The rise of "fair source" is both as sign of "market panic" and just "marketing". It does not seem to be necessary or good evolution for software freedom.

That was HIGHLY abstract... So much so that I am not sure it maps onto reality, but I at least think this is a valid concern.

  • j1elo 2 hours ago

    (A)GPL + Dual licensing is totally insufficient to fullfill the needs, or at the very least the wants, of people using things like "Fair source" licenses (regardless of the naming): to share their code as a sign of goodwill, without that becoming a risk for their survival.

    Amazon offers lots of AGPL software, and they fully respect the license in all cases. Ultimately the GPL is about protecting users' rights at the expense of developers' rights. So as long as AWS can offer a better/cheaper managed version of a software service, while still giving the users all details on how to run the same service if they chose to, then the AGPL is completely achieving its aims, even if the original company goes out of business.

    -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095581

  • morcus 7 hours ago

    > But "fair source" cure is a new, unproven drug with serious side effects, all while ignoring the established, effective vaccine (strong copyleft GPL/AGPL and dual-licensing)

    Can you explain this a bit more? I don't understand how this is true.

    AFAIK AGPL only prevents someone from modifying your AGPL codebase without sharing that in turn, but if they're content to offer exactly the service you're offering without modification it's not an issue.

    See for example Grafana, which is distributed under the AGPL but still has to handle competition from AWS and Azure that have managed Grafana offerings.