A list of software that was once free and is now proprietary | Hacker News Reader

A list of software that was once free and is now proprietary

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29 pointsgrhmc20 comments

I'm not seeing the problem here. I license my open source projects under Apache specifically to allow this. I don't need a session in the Stallman Reeducation Tank to have my opinions "corrected" on this.

So long you behave consistent in that and do not complain if someone makes a gplv3 fork of your projects. So many people want to push their religious believes rather than just pick a license which suits them and then live with the consequences.

It isn't correct to call this behaviour a "copywrong". The licences allow or encourage this. People are doing what they want, as designed when the developer chose a super-free licence.

If you don't like this, don't use a MIT/BSD/etc style licence; pick one that protects your code (as well as it's future users) like GPL. Keep it slightly less free, but forever.

Just because it's legally permitted doesn't mean it's not OK to criticize.

I think there's a difference between using a piece of software (perahps with some inessential small changes) as a component in a larger system, and just striaght up forking it and then not contributing changes back.

The problem with companies who use MIT/BSD in the latter way is that they encourage the use of GPL-style licenses. I wish more people would use a license that allows the former but not the latter. That is, you're free to make small changes for iner-oping with your system and you're free to distribute that as a binary; but, you're not free to just fork the project and make huge improvements but then not share those improvements. Unfortunately, that style of license would be nearly impossible to write or enforce because the line is so subjective (e.g., I think some of the examples on the linked list could fall on either side of that line).

Concrete example: I personally believe that Apple should be allowed to build OS X on top of BSD, but should contribute back any significant changes that are improvements to BSD in general. The license doesn't require this, but I think it's the decent thing to do.

Why are your personal beliefs important to the choosing of a license for a project you don't run?

They aren't. That's exactly the point I was conceding when I mentioned that they are my personal beliefs.

(But it's worth mentioning that when a lot of people share the same beliefs, it does matter from a business perspective. Microsoft isn't open sourcing stuff out of the goodness of their hearts.)

(And furthermore, this belief doesn't entail that I should use GPL. But the combination of this belief and the realization that people conflate ethical conduct with legality causes me to use GPL. I have a feeling lots of other people are in the same boat.)

I think you're just trying to intellectualize your preference. You want downstream derivers to contribute back. That's all you have to say. I, for instance, don't care, so I choose licenses that match my POV. People who make a proprietary fork of my code are ethically as clean as anyone who gives me a PR, and they are also as ethically clean as you, in this specific sort of scenario.

> I think you're just trying to intellectualize your preference.

I don't quite understand what you mean. Do you mean rationalize?

I don't think I'm rationalizing. I think I'm just trying to explain a nice spot in the license design space that's difficult to codify and enforce legally, and that might drive someone to use GPL instead of BSD even if they don't want copyleft.

> You want downstream derivers to contribute back. That's all you have to say.

Well, it's more subtle than that. If their contribution is only useful in the context of their proprietary system, or if it fundamentally changes the character of the software, I don't much care. But if it's useful to the core project (e.g. bug fixes and performance improvements, tertiary but useful feature additions, etc.) then I think those contributions should make it back into the original project (or at least be open-sourced).

I don't want all users to contribute back as the cost of use. I just want them to contribute back when the change isn't either massive or irrelevant to the core project.

But that's so difficult to state in a legally binding way that I end up using the GPL, even though copyleft isn't exactly what I want.

> People who make a proprietary fork of my code are ethically as clean as anyone who gives me a PR, and they are also as ethically clean as you, in this specific sort of scenario.

Right. But I think it's reasonable to differentiate between "being a good member of the community" and "fulfilling legal obligations". I realize not everyone agrees, which is why I use GPL...

The license your describing is exactly the LGPL - you can link to it as you please from proprietary software, but modifications to the code itself need to be distributed in their code form.

Yeah but I also want to allow "super massive change that fundamentally changes the character/utility of the system"

Basically, don't repackage my stuff with a stupid extra feature or some crapware or a few bug fixed. But feel free to build something new using it.

(edit: I should also mention I use LGPL. But even the definition of linking can get hairy, because sometimes interop requires small changes that aren't directly linking.)

But Apple has done exactly that. The core (Darwin) is open-source since the beginning - but other newer parts are open-source too. A great example is Grand Central Dispatch[1] which Apple open-sourced and has been since ported to FreeBSD. Another example is launchd, a replacement init system, that was open-sourced too.

Even if they didn't do any of this though, it's silly to treat proprietary software as if it doesn't exist and doesn't provide any benefit. Personally, I would be thrilled if Apple (or any other company) used any of my open-source work, even if they made a proprietary fork, because as a result I'd end up with a better OS. Yes, it would be even better if they stayed open-source and contributed back - but if that's not going to happen, I'd rather software, whether open or proprietary, keeps on improving. If a proprietary fork is what it takes, so be it.

Some of my favourite and most useful software is proprietary but contains open-source libraries. If those libraries restricted the use to only open-source applications, and the developers were unwilling to open-source, those applications might not exist - or at least might not be as good. If that were the case, we'd all have lost out.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Dispatch

Those software are still free even if there are proprietary forks of them. You are not forced to use the proprietary forks.

Exactly. The title is misleading because it implies we're talking about open source products that eventually became closed source (this happens, it's annoying, and it's their prerogative). Instead it's upset that people use licenses that aren't the GPL.

It's also one of the only projects I've ever seen to use the Affero GPL.

I know Nessus (a vulnerability scanner).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessus_%28software%29

Submitted a pull request for that one.

These are false claims and some the entries are downright wrong; for example, FoundationDB was always proprietary.

Listing LaunchD and LLVM are also wrong as they're not "formerly" free, they're still free with communities supporting the free branch. They are code bases that are available under free AND proprietary terms.

What's the point? Public shaming in favor of copyleft? Someone hasn't read their Dale Carnegie.

launchd is a pretty ironic inclusion as it was developed at apple, by apple, and released under an apache licence.

So this "copywrong" would have been "right" if they hadn't open-sourced it at all?

This should not be a debate about licenses but about business models. Contributing Open Source code (whatever reasonable license) is giving a huge chunk of the value of that code to the world at large (#). But the methods available to sustain oneself and family as a developer are limited if one is not selling proprietary licenses. Donations are pants, crippleware is ugly all round and selling service and consultancy is twice the effort. So it's hard to see sustainable open source as an easy one.

(#) ok mostly the rich western world but that is changing.

FoundationDB was never free software, and LLVM is still free software. 2 of the 4, right off the bat are mislabeled.

So, which are good ways to support ourselves (ie: small team/single owner) in a open source project (not counting the "give support and docs" that are only for huge packages), and what are the right licenses to pick one?

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