When an open source project achieves success it does so on the backs of not only those who use it, but those who contribute. Sometimes these contributions are not just code but also include constructive feedback, bug reports (some very detailed with repros), documentation, advertisement by way of blog posts about the ways consumers use it, and more. While i fully believe that other players should be expected to contribute monetarily or with code, I also don’t believe that you should fundamentally change the relationship between the project and the consumer because the consumer has built a product on or with your project. They chose to build that product based on the license you provided them. If you didn’t want to license it that way then don’t do so from the beginning and you probably won’t get as many of the aforementioned benefits.If I choose to open source something it’s because it’s either a passion project or it solves a problem that myself and others struggled to solve. I don’t open source it under the expectation of eventual profit. In fact, i hope by putting it out there it might become better as others improve upon it and we all benefit.
SmellTheGlove|1 year ago
I agree with this. The problem is, you've open sourced it and someone else does profit to the tune of millions/billions. That seems unfair and is why I'm sympathetic to these sorts of license changes sometimes. Seems like they went into this knowing full well many would move to forks.
> If you didn’t want to license it that way then don’t do so from the beginning and you probably won’t get as many of the aforementioned benefits.
Fair point. Was that foreseeable in 2009? A lot of the actions we take now are based on what's reasonably foreseeable in the future. I honestly don't recall.
reconditerose|1 year ago
The company now known as Redis didn't acquire the redis trademark until 2018, and didn't change their name to include redis until after that. That is probably the better timeframe to think about.