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Comment by staticassertion | Hacker News Reader

This is so overdramatic and unfortunate - a company puts code out there, does good work, largely follows OSS, and this topic gets derailed.

They degrade on the 'de facto' definition of OS by saying that others may not sell it.

That's it.

Comments like yours are why I don't interact with open source at all.

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These freedoms are important, and by removing them the whole license is practically undermined. They forgot about the rights of the users and contributors while they were busy thinking about the rights of the maintainers. To quote something I said in a private email:

>The Commons Clause nullifies pretty much any privledge granted by the original license, further rendering it useless. For example, the permission to make and publish changes to the work, or reuse the code elsewhere. Is the Commons Clause viral? If I take a small function from RedisLabs and incorporate it into my project, do my users have to pay RedisLabs to support my project? If RedisLabs decides not to, is my project now illegal to support at all? What if I want to fork the software, does my fork inherit the clause and do the same problems apply? This doesn't sound anything like the "commons" to me. Pretty much all of the rights afforded to users of open source are rendered null and void, and the mention of an open source license in the licensing terms of such software is laughable.

I've had my share of beefs with Sir_Cmpwn but this post is nonsense. You can't "largely" practice an open source model. Either you do or you don't.

Dgraph was interesting to me until they said they wanted to take a vig for me sharing knowledge and practical advice about the software (because that's what consulting, an activity expressly precluded in the dishonestly-named Commons Clause, is). That? That can go straight to hell.

Being a taker of open source (because you certainly "interact with open source") is your right but has absolutely nothing to do with those of us actually expecting those draping themselves in the banner of open source to practice open source principles and to run an open source project as an open source project. That exists between your ears and your ears alone.

> I've had my share of beefs with Sir_Cmpwn but this post is nonsense. You can't "largely" practice an open source model. Either you do or you don't.

Well, given that there are like 10 different criteria to meet it very obviously is not black and white.

You can view dgraph's source. You can modify and contribute to it. You can fork it, change it, etc. You just can't make it your own product that you sell.

It is open source in many, many ways, and probably the general, colloquial way. Whining endlessly because they don't want other people to sell it, and to maintain some semblance of ownership, is what's ridiculous.

You can't accept money to talk to somebody about the open-source project. The Commons Clause literally says this! Does the level of bullshit that implies not resonate? Even if there weren't a nigh-universally accepted definition of open source software that precludes it--and it does--in what universe does that suggest openness?

The code is open. You can modify the code. You can fork the code. You can do everything you'd normally do with the code.

You can not sell the code, or services that are directly based on the code.

Sounds pretty open and reasonable.

But we'll just have to disagree I think.

Suppose you need to fix a problem with the source code or want a new feature. With the clause they've got there, you can't find a developer or company and pay them to fix the software for you. So you can't practically get changes made to the product. So, it might as well be closed source.

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