Also, please make it clear that this is a proprietary license aimed at making VCs happy and keep the cash flowing, while being hostile to the tinkerer who wants to learn and reuse parts of your code.
Sure, but those are only weasel words and blatant lies. Talking about "Commercializing Open-Source", when you are in fact closing your source code is dishonest. And I think HN needs honesty. Even with some bluntness.
I am the VC. I was not really consulted on the change, and after seeing it on HN, texted the founder saying I disagreed :) That said, I'm supportive of the team making the decisions they do! They run the company, not me!
That's not clear at all. It's not hostile to tinkerers. It's hostile to entities that may want to take others open source work and provide a business around that work.
You can still run the software, for free, in your business.
You can still change the software, for free, and run that in your business.
You can still fork the software, from today, and do what you want with it.
The vast majority of work done on the software is funded by sentry. This hurts literally no one who is legitimate.
It should be noted that this change also means one can't use parts of the code in their FOSS projects, especially if the rest of the codebase in copyleft. I'm not sure anyone was using parts of the Sentry codebase that way, though.
(I guess people can use the code after it converts to BSD, but that's a dangerous gambit, because if a bug - particularly a security bug - is found, you have to wait three years for the patch)
By the way, I have no ill will towards Sentry, though I can't deny it's a loss.
fwiw we basically employ everyone (either full time or as a contractor) that contributes to Sentry, and if we don't, shoot me an email and maybe we can fix that!
It is entirely legitimate to take f/oss software and offer a hosted service of it, directly competing with those who paid money to produce the software, and potentially harming their services business. If “we literally wrote it” isn’t enough to retain your services customers, maybe you shouldn’t have them.
> You can still run the software, for free, in your business. You can still change the software, for free, and run that in your business. You can still fork the software, from today, and do what you want with it.
You cannot reuse and publish. Matter of fact, even reading it and taking inspiration from it is risky. Words from an IP lawyer I know.
It's a proprietary license. There is no shame in that. So don't try to act like you are still an open source company.
One has to make a good living. That's not what I was criticizing.
> It's hostile to entities that may want to take others open source work and provide a business around that work.
Consider yourself happy Torvalds didn't think this way. Or Guido. What's your dev environment?
dang|6 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21467673.
grumpydba|6 years ago
daniel_levine|6 years ago
koolba|6 years ago
Which direction did you want it to go? Full BSD from day one or locked down closed source?
jsmeaton|6 years ago
You can still run the software, for free, in your business. You can still change the software, for free, and run that in your business. You can still fork the software, from today, and do what you want with it.
The vast majority of work done on the software is funded by sentry. This hurts literally no one who is legitimate.
icebraining|6 years ago
(I guess people can use the code after it converts to BSD, but that's a dangerous gambit, because if a bug - particularly a security bug - is found, you have to wait three years for the patch)
By the way, I have no ill will towards Sentry, though I can't deny it's a loss.
zeeg|6 years ago
sneak|6 years ago
grumpydba|6 years ago
You cannot reuse and publish. Matter of fact, even reading it and taking inspiration from it is risky. Words from an IP lawyer I know. It's a proprietary license. There is no shame in that. So don't try to act like you are still an open source company. One has to make a good living. That's not what I was criticizing.
> It's hostile to entities that may want to take others open source work and provide a business around that work.
Consider yourself happy Torvalds didn't think this way. Or Guido. What's your dev environment?