This is such a ridiculous accusation. Why do discussions about source-available models often turn into accusations of soliciting free labor? Why can't authors just provide access to source code, but reserve some or all of the distribution rights? It's their code, after all. Nobody is forcing 'the open source community' to contribute under the terms set forth; anybody who does contribute does so under their own free will, under the terms set forth by the license.
It doesn't always have to be a binary choice between open source and closed source, nor does it justify further accusations of "openwashing."
> * Contribution to Project: You are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the official repository and will be reviewed and incorporated at the discretion of the maintainers.
> * Assignment of Rights: By submitting contributions, you agree that all intellectual property rights, including copyright, in your contributions are assigned to Winamp. You hereby grant Winamp a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, and distribute your contributions as part of the software, without any compensation to you.
> * Waiver of Rights: You waive any rights to claim authorship of the contributions or to object to any distortion, mutilation, or other modifications of the contributions.
>Nobody is forcing 'the open source community' to contribute under the terms set forth; anybody who does contribute does so under their own free will, under the terms set forth by the license.
And? Yes, we're all acting out of our own free will. The owners of Winamp decided out of their own free will to release their code under those terms, and I'm criticizing them for trying to take advantage of people also out of my own free will. What's the issue?
>The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.
I find value in every one of these types of releases. Sometimes that value is just a chuckle... knowing even successful codebases are as duct-taped together as all the rest.
Look at Apple, they claim E2EE, but don't even allow to verify that defeating the purpose of E2EE entirely (lack of need to trust the provider)
Simple. Because the company literally wrote this in their press release[1] at the time they were releasing it.
Direct quote “This is an invitation to global collaboration, where developers worldwide can contribute their expertise, ideas, and passion to help this iconic software evolve.”
Further direct quote: “With this initiative to open the source code, Winamp is taking the next step in its history, allowing its users to contribute directly to improving the product.”
They are literaly soliciting free labor.
This is how the press release ends: “Interested developers can now make themselves known at the following address: about.winamp.com/free-llama” what is that if not a solicitation for free labour?
> anybody who does contribute does so under their own free will, under the terms set forth by the license
So wait. Just so I understand. Is your problem that you think they are falsely accused of soliciting free labour? Or that they are indeed fully were soliciting free labour but you would rather not want people harsh your vibes by discussing this?
1: https://www.llama-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-...
I'd also be careful attributing these actions to malice without further motive, when it very well could also be attributed to excitement i.r.t. sharing and collaborating on Winamp's source code in public, under a single-source.
Fair Source is a better model in that regard, kudos for using that! And I personally have no problem with using the term “open source” for that, although just using the distinct term is better.
In case of Winamp though, they:
1. Used a crayon license that prohibited pretty much everything and was indeed focused on collaboration
2. Made a press release about “opening up” the source – not using the exact phrase “open source” (except in the URL: https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...), but misleading nonetheless
3. Weren’t even the original authors
This is openwashing, and it is ridiculous, and they were rightfully shamed.
these actions could be construed as malice, but i would definitely attribute them as greed. AKA, they want contributions, but want to prevent anyone else but themselves from being able to commercially exploit it.
Copyleft licenses like the GPL assert the same right recursively for downstream users, more or less (details vary between copyleft licenses). But granting the right (to distribute modified copies) to first-order recipients of the source code is common to all free and open-source licenses. That's great! I imagine it's what you're getting at with the phrase 'properly secured'.
But to qualify as open-source, a license must allow redistribution of modified copies, and copyleft is not the only kind of free software license
See (for instance) the Free Software Foundation Europe's FAQ entry 'what is open-source software?':
https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/faq.en.html#opensource
as well as the Criterion 3 of the Open Source Initiative's open-source definition: https://opensource.org/osd
That assumes that everyone has full information of course. Discussing the terms publicly is helping everyone reach that state.
> Nobody is asking for an uninvolved third-party to police the collaboration.
And someone is asking you to police what people are chatting about here? Doesn’t feel to be an entirely thought through argument.
> I'd also be careful attributing these actions to malice without further motive
I don’t actually care if they are “malicious” or “inept” or “ill informed” or anything else. In fact I think someone was excited about the open collaboration, and someone else at the company was worried about losing business opportunities and that is how we ended up with this situation. Maybe it was even the same person at different times.
Maybe they heard about open source but never really understood the concept, and the motivations of people participating in it.
Or maybe they are just as greedy as they appear to be.
Who knows and who cares. What matters is that this is a rough deal and people should not play within their rules.
I dislike prescriptivist language. I will continue calling things open source whenever I can see the source code, no matter the license.
The OSD does not originate with Amazon. Its ideas and text are drawn from the free software movement and indeed from a not-for-profit, volunteer-driven, community-based project-- namely Debian. Its text is essentially lifted from the Debian Free Software Guidelines. The term 'open-source' was created to describe an effort by a commercial entity, though-- for the project that would eventually give us Firefox, at a time when the web was dominated by a deeply proprietary monopoly in Internet Explorer.
But all of this should be common knowledge among 'hackers'. At any rate it is extremely easy to discover.
> prescriptivist language
Talk about knowing enough to be dangerous! lol.
> I will continue calling things open source whenever I can see the source code, no matter the license.
Okay? You are successfully resisting being nagged about your use of terms. You are also broadcasting your ignorance of the giants whose shoulders software developers stand upon today.
Software, like many things that can satisfy human needs and wants, is an instrument and mechanism of power. In particular, software and the terms under which it is distributed are often a mechanism by which the software publishers exert power and control over the software's users. 'Open-source', like its more frank ancestor 'free software', exists to signal terms of software distribution that variously protect users from certain strategies of domination by software vendors. Historically (and recently!), that signal associated with the phrase 'open-source' has been a fairly clear (if simplistic) one, because the phrase's usage has been consistent.
When you choose how you will or won't use the phrase 'open-source', you are making a choice about how useful a signal that phrase will be for such purposes in the future. What language is 'correct' in this case gets at a practical and political question we can alternatively get at without any commitment or appeal to a notion of linguistic correctness. That question is this: should there be ready ways to identify terms of software distribution that seek to spare software users from domination by software suppliers?
If one's answer to that is 'yes', then it takes a bit of footwork to get to 'I intend to participate in applying this established safety label to unsafe things'.
> calling things open source whenever I can see the source code
This kind of behavior is arguably a predictable outcome of the strategy of distancing the licensing tactics of the free software movement from that movement's explicit politics, articulations of its on motivations, etc.