This is a bad faith argument and is effectively FUD.
The list of open source projects that people use in a commercial setting is long. Linux, Apache, Nginx, mysql/postgres/SQLite, Redis, Git, nearly every major programming language (C, PHP, Go, Python, Node), Firefox/Chromium, to name a tiny fraction.
Businesses that have libre/free/open source as their core product are also numerous: SQLite, Gitlab (open core), Red Hat, Docker, Nginx, Npm, Redis, Wordpress to name a few of the big players. There is a long tail and companies like Draw.io, Gratipay, Overleaf, Jitsi
and the list goes on.
The list of open source hardware companies is also long: Adafruit, Arduino, Sparkfun, Seeed Studios, Gaudi Labs, LittleBits, Olimex, Zynthian, to name a few.
GPLv3 is a so-called "viral" license, making sure that any changes are given back to the community. This is done to prevent bad actors from taking the code, modifying it and then claiming it as their own intellectual property. From what I understand, this has the effect of preventing larger businesses with a more "classic" intellectual property stack from using smaller business's code base without giving back.
I have heard rumors that larger businesses, like Amazon, specifically use GPLv2 so as to not trigger the viral licensing, effectively benefiting from the commons without giving back to the broader community at large. I have also heard companies like NVidia use MIT licensing for code given to potential clients/customers/internally and strongarm everyone involved to not release it, creating a situation where they're not violating the licensing terms but never releasing it to the public.
Though a cultural or psychological effect, from what I understand, smaller businesses tend not to be too successful at "stealing" competitors code as the brand awareness and domain intelligence looks to be the more relevant factor to success. For businesses that do use others libre/free/open source code, there tends to be a virtuous cycle, where they each build on the others success and widen the market. Perhaps it's the other way around that success in one business allows for others to expand the market further.
Making money from business is difficult to begin with regardless of whether the core product is libre/free/open. Understanding how to create a business that has libre/free/open source products at its core is still being discovered, so it's not like there's a definitive answer but to say that it kills the opportunity is flat out incorrect.
> This is a bad faith argument and is effectively FUD.
As the one who made the argument, I can assure you that it was not made in bad faith.
I'm a big fan of open formats, open source, and libre software, and have made small contributions to various projects for a number of years (usually code contributions and bug reports, but occasionally financial donations too).
The argument was made from my sincere belief that, difficult as it is to make a sustainable software business (which I've seen up close, having participated in multiple failed startups), it's much harder to make a successful business with an open source product.
I would love to find out my belief is wrong, but it's still the one I've got until persuaded otherwise.
Accusing me of bad faith added nothing to your argument and violated the site's guidelines. Maybe skip that next time?
> The list of open source projects that people use in a commercial setting is long. Linux, Apache, Nginx, mysql/postgres/SQLite, Redis, Git, nearly every major programming language (C, PHP, Go, Python, Node), Firefox/Chromium, to name a tiny fraction.
Yep, OSS is everywhere and used for commercial purposes all the time. Large swaths of what you've listed above aren't commercial products, though, AFAIK.
I think most commercial software products use open source tools somewhere in their stack.
I should have been more specific with my claim - I think if the core components that form your software's value proposition are OSS, it's very hard to make a sustainable business out of selling that software.
The fact that open core products are a popular and successful way of monetizing OSS tools suggests as much, as there's some proprietary "secret sauce" that the users pay to get access to.
Open hardware works much better, I think, because people instinctively understand they've got to pay for someone to build the physical artifacts. Somehow, even developers seem to undervalue the effort it takes to build and maintain a useful piece of software.
> but to say that it kills the opportunity is flat out incorrect.
I don't believe I said it kills the opportunity. Just that it makes it much more difficult.
> Accusing me of bad faith added nothing to your argument and violated the site's guidelines. Maybe skip that next time?
I called out bad faith argument then steel-manned your argument and responded in good faith. In this case I felt calling out a bad faith argument and FUD was concisely pointing out part of your argument, which I take to be part of being a critical reader. I assume good faith until evidence suggests otherwise, which it did in this case.
> Large swaths of what you've listed above aren't commercial products, though, AFAIK.
I point out that there are many open source projects that fuel businesses and then go on to explicitly list businesses that have as their core product a piece of open source software. You conveniently left out the line directly underneath it listing those businesses. I qualified each of the sentences correctly.
> I don't believe I said it kills the opportunity. Just that it makes it much more difficult.
This is the original sentence you wrote:
"""
SuperCollider's license effectively stops you from designing commercial products. Even the free version of Elementary allows that.
"""
---
You continue to argue in bad faith. Me pointing it out highlights that you are engaging in behavior that is undermining constructive debate.
> This is the original sentence you wrote: """ SuperCollider's license effectively stops you from designing commercial products. Even the free version of Elementary allows that. """
I forgive you, and appreciate the apology and recognition that you needed to step away and take a breather.
I do think you make a decent case for open source being a viable way to make a profitable business. There are certainly businesses that achieve that, and I would love to see more of them.
I wasn't trying to give a blow-by-blow rebuttal to everything you wrote, so it's certainly fair to say I was cherrypicking.
I was just trying to explain some of why I think making a business's core product open source ticks the difficulty level up a notch. I believe AWS has made a practice of snagging OSS systems and making them effectively their own, thus undercutting the original developers' attempts at running a business. I may be mistaken about that, though.
As I said, though, you make a number of good points (most of which I already agree with). There are a number of ways to make it work, and I may well have overstated the difficulty of building businesses with GPL software.
The list of open source projects that people use in a commercial setting is long. Linux, Apache, Nginx, mysql/postgres/SQLite, Redis, Git, nearly every major programming language (C, PHP, Go, Python, Node), Firefox/Chromium, to name a tiny fraction.
Businesses that have libre/free/open source as their core product are also numerous: SQLite, Gitlab (open core), Red Hat, Docker, Nginx, Npm, Redis, Wordpress to name a few of the big players. There is a long tail and companies like Draw.io, Gratipay, Overleaf, Jitsi and the list goes on.
The list of open source hardware companies is also long: Adafruit, Arduino, Sparkfun, Seeed Studios, Gaudi Labs, LittleBits, Olimex, Zynthian, to name a few.
GPLv3 is a so-called "viral" license, making sure that any changes are given back to the community. This is done to prevent bad actors from taking the code, modifying it and then claiming it as their own intellectual property. From what I understand, this has the effect of preventing larger businesses with a more "classic" intellectual property stack from using smaller business's code base without giving back.
I have heard rumors that larger businesses, like Amazon, specifically use GPLv2 so as to not trigger the viral licensing, effectively benefiting from the commons without giving back to the broader community at large. I have also heard companies like NVidia use MIT licensing for code given to potential clients/customers/internally and strongarm everyone involved to not release it, creating a situation where they're not violating the licensing terms but never releasing it to the public.
Though a cultural or psychological effect, from what I understand, smaller businesses tend not to be too successful at "stealing" competitors code as the brand awareness and domain intelligence looks to be the more relevant factor to success. For businesses that do use others libre/free/open source code, there tends to be a virtuous cycle, where they each build on the others success and widen the market. Perhaps it's the other way around that success in one business allows for others to expand the market further.
Making money from business is difficult to begin with regardless of whether the core product is libre/free/open. Understanding how to create a business that has libre/free/open source products at its core is still being discovered, so it's not like there's a definitive answer but to say that it kills the opportunity is flat out incorrect.