Hm, with that logic they could dump MySQL in favor of MariaDB as well
What must be rejected is nonfree licenses like the BSL.
Yes it is. Because companies (like Oracle) will take as much as they can and give as little as they can.
> free software is a gift freely given
It's a gift to the public, not to individuals and companies (like Oracle).
> Even public domain is ok
Even worse because that expressly allows companies (like Oracle) to take everything and give nothing.
If they didn’t accept that, they could have used a non-commercial license. If they expected contributions they could have sold a paid product.
I’d suggest not using others hard work as the basis for your argument. If it was your work and you regret it, say that. If you don’t like oracle, say that. Otherwise, people who contribute to FOSS software do so knowingly, yet you are trying to inject your own opinions of “public” vs whomever, as though you know better than those contributors own feelings and intentions.
Which in the case of free software is a completely neutral fact that causes exactly zero negative impact to the project. You're trying to apply principles of scarcity to a product category that has no scarcity—replicating the bits to serve Oracle doesn't cost a maintainer anything at all.
They can prefer not to let Oracle use their otherwise-freely-provided software, but that's not a position that's as easy to get sympathy for as pretending there's harm done.
Yes, they will. So? Nobody is actually harmed by this. The software is still perfectly available for the public to make use of.
> It's a gift to the public, not to individuals and companies (like Oracle).
The public is not some separate entity from individuals or companies. It's simply the collective of all individuals and companies. So yes, when you gift something to the public it's a gift to Oracle as well. It's not exclusively to them, but they are a part.
Specifically, supposed inevitability of BSL->OSI transition is dubious. If anything, there are examples of the opposite - terraform itself being prime one.
Sure! [1]
> The Business Source License requires the work to be relicensed to a "Change License" at the "Change Date". The "Change License" must be a "license which is compatible with GPL version 2.0 or later". The Change Date must be four years or sooner from the publication date of the work being licensed
So the business source license is less "non-OSI" and more "not currently non-OSI, but eventually and irrevocable at future date".
In the case of Terraform it says [2]:
>Change Date: Four years from the date the Licensed Work is published.
>Change License: MPL 2.0
So is this ideal? No. But it's better than OpenVMS screwing over historians and hobbyists [3] decades after it's relevancy has expired.[6]
It's also better than SSPL [4] which has no such transition and stays permanently non-OSI [5].
> "BSL XP be good for wine" claims above.
Well Wine uses the LGPL, and Windows XP was released in 2001 so even if they set the expiry 20 years after release, it'd be GPL'd by now.
---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Source_License#Terms
[2] https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/blob/main/LICENSE
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/vsi_prunes_hobbyist_p...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License
[5] https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.ope...
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2013/06/10/openvms_death_notice/
A BSL project could say, hey, look at this guy stealing our code!, even if I’ve never seen it. I could have, and that opens a plausible risk I wish I didn’t have.
> A BSL project could say, hey, look at this guy stealing our code!, even if I’ve never seen it. I could have, and that opens a plausible risk I wish I didn’t have.
By that argument, you could have looked at Windows code too, since Windows source code has leaked multiple times, and 5 minutes of searching will find it.
Hey, what if they do - what we do to other companies ... to us ...
presses a red button
1) Oh, I prefer open source alternative for ideological reason.
2) This software is not really worth that much.
3) Hectoring developers every single time in providing why their software should be preferred over unpaid alternatives.
4) Blaming companies that they are bigger users so they should pay not me.
If these entitled developers who deserve all the money but no one deserve their money just shut the fuck up every once in a while it will be a good thing.
Linux as a whole exists because developers said "fuck AT&T, we're taking this train off the rails" and nobody ever looked back since.
> Those companies are merely helping to “commoditize their complements”
That's how they justify it internally, yeah. From an administrative standpoint it's pretty obvious that they all choose Linux because it's easier than retrofitting proprietary UNIX for modern software. But indeed, they market it as goodwill and complimentary development.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
This shouldn't be unexpected and it's not an excuse to be dismissive to an imagined hypocrite. Not saying there aren't hypocrites in this world, just that we shouldn't treat members of a community as some kind of superset of everything in that community.
Besides I made observation about people in community and not community itself as I did not say HN thinks software should not be paid for.
Can you link any specific HN user who holds any 3 of those specific beliefs, or was this hypocritical strawman purpose-built to bolster your argument?
Believing every employee at Walmart thinks the same is silly and while someone is to blame for policy its important to not blame retail clerks for store policy, for example.
Oracle bought MySQL which was forked into MariaDB. MariaDB created the Business Source License (BSL). Hashicorp switches Terraform to BSL which then leads to Terraform being forked into OpenTofu. OpenTofu seems to be getting adopted by Oracle.
If everyone acted like Oracle; there would be no mysql users. Which is the point being made.
Let's see;
If I giving away a product because I think it's for the betterment of mankind, and definitely not an attempt to rug-pull or anything like that: no, just for developer good will.
Then I am offered a free service, and I do not use it for fear that there could potentially be some rugpulling, despite having a reputation for that myself: and the project I'm considering having no reputation for that.
Then the pretense in which I "give away" my software, is morally dubious. I would never permit myself to be in the same situation as I need others to be in order for my product to be successful.
MySQL/Virtualbox/Java etc;
I have no sympathy for oracle or their products but I fail to see the hypocrisy here. I think oracle is pretty consistent in their position over the years.
Clearly Oracle are aware of the danger that they themselves ask people to ignore.
(There may be other reasons to do so but that's not here nor there)
You are also committing the classic mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison.