Item — HN Reader

HN usually finds a theme to complain about with any cool project. Looks like this time they picked licensing. Just wanted to say thank you for making this project. I think tech like Zapier/IFTTT are really cool, but I would never trust a closed platform of this sort.

But something like n8n I would consider using, because you've provided an escape hatch to lock-in by making the source available. I think it's totally reasonable to prevent other companies from profiting from your work. I also think it falls under the umbrella of "open source". If someone wants a truly FLOSS version of this, they're welcome to make it themselves. But they won't, they'll just complain and keep using n8n, because the licensing is good enough for 99.9% of use cases.

EDIT: I just want to point out that there's been some discussion of licensing here which I've personally found interesting and instructive. I've seen several people suggest that there is a definition of the term "open source" that is essentially universally agreed upon (that being the Open Source Initiative definition [0]), and that that is the only valid definition. I've worked in what I consider to be open source for many years, and wasn't aware that such consensus had been reached. My personal views have not changed as of yet, but my paradigm has definitely shifted. I intend to pay closer attention to how others use this term, and carefully attempt to be clear about my usage in the future. Having a single agree-upon definition of things is always valuable, and if that's where we're at I'm all for it. I'm just not convinced yet that it's actually 100% agreed upon.

That said, I think the author of n8n was pretty dang clear.

[0] https://opensource.org/

1 comments

There's a weird trend on HN. For proprietary products (e.g. slack) I rarely see them getting criticized for having a proprietary license. If you are fully open source, then of course they love you. But if you try to strike a compromise and give away a lot while still keeping some licensing terms to let you make money off your creation, then you'll be bombarded by complaints about your licensing.

I don't think it's particularly weird, it's about misrepresentation. Most users attracted to open source licensing aren't aiming for abstract goals like "give away a lot" or even "give away as much as possible", they're aiming for "give away practically everything so they can use it for free in any way they want". Proprietary products don't waste these users time as they are clearly not suitable, but advertising an open core product as open source will attract a lot of unsuitable users who desire open source when you're offering open core.

If you're trying to make money, just don't do open source. No one owes you kudos for striking a compromise no one wants.

If Microsoft started calling Windows open source, I would be pretty peeved too. The word open source here is used as a marketing term for a product that isn't in spirit or reality. Yes, the source is available; that's nice, but it's not the same.

Windows isn't free. Nor is the source available to be viewed, modified, extended, learned from, etc. Also, you're comparing one of the biggest tech companies in the world, to an individual who is trying to make a living. This is an unfair characterization on every level.

>Windows isn't free. Nor is the source available to be viewed, modified, extended, learned from, etc.

I mean, I'm just using a popular non-open source piece of software as an example, you don't really have to read into it this much. Every comparison has limits, this isn't any exception. You can substitute 'Windows' for 'Gitlab EE' which is also proprietary software with available source code.

>Also, you're comparing one of the biggest tech companies in the world, to an individual who is trying to make a living. This is an unfair characterization on every level.

The depth of someone's pockets doesn't influence the definition of open source, though. This is not a characterization at all, rather, I'm saying that using the word open source to describe software that doesn't meet the criteria is always going to upset people. There is a simple solution that costs no money: removing the word open source. It is even recommended by the folks who push common clause.[1]

I realize people are very passionate about this, but please try not to read into what I'm saying too deeply.

(Also very notably: I have absolutely NOTHING against proprietary or shared source software, or developers making money; love Gitlab EE as an example. Just please be honest.)

[1]: https://commonsclause.com/

Well...characterizing the usage as a marketing term wouldn't be relevant if the potential for making money weren't an issue here.

Even beyond that, on a human level, the attacks on an individual trying to make a living seem unnecessarily harsh. My critique is mostly about the spirit of the negative comments (not just yours, sorry), which all seem to assume malice where there likely is none. I.e. several comments here and on the github repo calling the developer a liar and coward, etc (again, not you, this just happened to be the comment I replied to)

And I think this entire discussion proves that the definition of 'open source' is not as cut and dry as some people would like. And because of that, saying 'just be honest' when someone uses one of the alternative definitions of the term seems unfair.

I've always thought that the terms FOSS exists specifically to provide some extra clarity in this regard...

And I don't know what you'd call this other than "open source" because I haven't heard the term "source available" until today, and I would have had no idea what it meant if that's what the developer had used....

>Well...characterizing the usage as a marketing term wouldn't be relevant if the potential for making money weren't an issue here.

There is nothing wrong with marketing a project, be it open source, proprietary, free, non-free, etc. I never suggested that. Just about everything is 'marketed' in some sense.

>Even beyond that, on a human level, the attacks on an individual trying to make a living seem unnecessarily harsh. My critique is mostly about the spirit of the negative comments (not just yours, sorry), which all seem to assume malice where there likely is none. I.e. several comments here and on the github repo calling the developer a liar and coward, etc (again, not you, this just happened to be the comment I replied to)

It's because there's a lot of passion involved. Even people who are pretty great open source developers have acted in a way that is perhaps not so noble if you read the flagged comments.

However, I don't think this is necessarily out of assumption of malice. The problem is, it doesn't matter if the author is malicious or not. The term 'open source' carries some connotations that many people have an intuitive understanding of today. I firmly believe the very reason a lot of big projects choose open source is for the marketing benefit, and imo it is not deserved if your project isn't really open source. This could seriously harm the reputation of something that took decades to build, and if that seems alarmist, well, I know I'm not alone in this sentiment.

>And I think this entire discussion proves that the definition of 'open source' is not as cut and dry as some people would like. And because of that, saying 'just be honest' when someone uses one of the alternative definitions of the term seems unfair.

>I've always thought that the terms FOSS exists specifically to provide some extra clarity in this regard...

> I don't know what you'd call this other than "open source" because I haven't heard the term "source available" until today, and I would have had no idea what it meant if that's what the developer had used....

The thing is, if I say something is 'open source,' you almost certainly, today, will understand that to mean what it has meant for decades: the OSI definition of open source, contrary to the wishes of some (including rms, for example.) This is just the layperson's understanding. They may not have a deep understanding of licenses or permissiveness, but it comes with a sense of what a project has to offer. Being able to profit off of open source is something that people inherently understand nowadays, and it took a long time for that to happen.

The reason you wouldn't have understood another term is because there is not a common understanding for 'source available' or 'commons clause.' This is because it was not very popular in recent years, and remains relatively unpopular. It is mostly pushed by companies that built amazing open source projects and had trouble with creating a sustainable business around it.

And therein lies the contention.

- Because of what Open Source implies, it gives projects a decent marketing boost - including, of course, the common case where they are truly open source. People rely on open source projects understanding the implications and knowing roughly what they can do with it.

- Commons clause doesn't imply the same things. But some companies are trying to use the term 'open source' to describe them anyways. To me, this looks a lot like trying to have cake and eat it too. It's not the same 'open source' that people have slowly grown to understand.

Of course most people won't understand why this issue has much contention, because this type of thing seems like a minor detail. In fact, many people, including me, initially found it confusing that licenses like GPL allow you to profit off the work so as long as you follow the other clauses. It took me a long time to understand that this is a very important part of what makes open source special: the disconnect from the profit model. If you reconnect the development and licensing to the profit model, in my mind this is losing a key part of what makes open source so damn effective. Having many stakeholders that all profit from a project can be incredible - the Linux kernel being one such example.

People have to make money, though, and so going through the risky proposition of making truly open source software and trying to build a business around it is not always appealing. In my opinion, the obvious choice is to not make open source software. So-called "commons clause" is one option. But again, I think there is real danger in "open source" being conflated with things that nobody understands it to be.

Fair points. And it gives me a little more context into the intensity of the reactions. Thank you.