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Rug pulls, forks, and open-source feudalism

(lwn.net)
275 points pabs3 | 3 comments | 06 Sep 25 05:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.604s | source
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3np ◴[06 Sep 25 08:23 UTC] No.45147564[source]▶
Building the software you rely on from source by default is one way to reduce the impact these events have on you and shift the power dynamic. If you're installing binaries/images from a vendor (free or otherwise), transitioning to a fork may be an undertaking and a sweaty risk-assessment.

Switching your existing build-infra to sync sources from a new remote should be a snap.

Also no major need to hound maintainers to ship a release or merge that neglected bugfix or feature you desperately need - just cherry-pick it.

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pjmlp ◴[06 Sep 25 09:35 UTC] No.45147874[source]▶
Depends on the actual software licence, many commercial vendors do provide source code, however the licence doesn't allow you to do whatever you feel like with code, even if technically it is possible to do so.

This happens a lot in commercial products where scripting languages are used, for example.

Or enterprise consulting as another example, where the code is delivered as part of the project, but it is bound to the agency for compiling purposes, unless the customer pays extra for that right.

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1. MangoToupe ◴[06 Sep 25 11:11 UTC] No.45148293[source]▶
It's hard to feel any sympathy for people who spend money and still bend over.
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2. pjmlp ◴[06 Sep 25 11:29 UTC] No.45148349[source]▶
For most people it is only business, there is zero FOSS ideology.

A hard lesson many have come to learn when there are bills to pay, and coffee priced donations hardly make it.

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3. MangoToupe ◴[06 Sep 25 16:26 UTC] No.45150639[source]▶
It's not about ideology per se—the dark humor in my mind is that you're not just paying for software you run yourself, you're paying to not be able to modify it. There's a reason why that sort of arrangement is dying and SaaS is stronger than ever—paying to access a server at least makes more sense as a transaction, even if it is just about as economically inefficient.