Drivers passing through San Francisco have a new roadside distraction to consider: billboards calling out businesses that don’t cough up for the open source code that they use.
The signs are the work of the Open Source Pledge – a group that launched earlier this month. It asks businesses that make use of open source code to pledge $2,000 per developer to support projects that develop the code. So far, 25 companies have signed up – but project co-founder Chad Whitacre wants bigger firms to pay their dues, too.
The artwork they did for that billboard is sick
Does anyone know the actual designer behind them? I would be curious to know.
This is why lots of software has started adopting SSPL license which doesn’t actually fix the problem and isn’t a FOSS license.
I still think a new license scheme should be considered though. Giants like AWS and Google have been profiteering off of FOSS for way too long now.
AGPL has been deemed generally successful in this regard because it has been upheld in court cases and forced companies to comply, which it seems to work pretty great for SaaS.
The problem is these giants will usually just choose a more permissive alternative anyway. Both MongoDB and Redis have forks that they can use, and GPL itself is permissive enough for private forking being legal.
No one has to pay anyone because its Open Source. Demanding it, calling out after usage is the wrong move. If someone does not want others to use the code without paying, then they need to use a license that does not allow that without a contract.
I’m all for Open Source and not against paying. But this move here seems to be wrong to me. Maybe create an eco system to pay for the software to use it, if that is what bothers you (as the one who writes and maintains the code).
This recent morality policing about contributions upstream is counterproductive to FOSS overall, and I honestly have to wonder if some group of FOSS averse corporations or a state actor is behind all the sudden drama.
I’d like to understand your point of view, why do you think that it’s counterproductive?
The software is supposed to be free as in speech, not beer, ergo you can use it for whatever you want. If right out of the gate, GNU was like “you better contribute back if you use this!” nobody would use or contribute to it. All this does is produce drama and reduce use because of negative perceptions, it is bad for corporate adoption and adoption overall. If browbeating people like an ass worked we would live in a very different world. It does not.
Which licence is open source but demands payment from companies if they use it?
There are licenses that allow for free non-commercial/personal use but paid business use.
