A new license is doing the rounds on the internet. DHH is someone I have immense respect for. However, he has made some “distasteful” moves in the past years. Opinions vary wildly about him being extremely innocuous or a visionary. I guess some folks really have the ability to polarize with their thoughts and ways.
Take a look. Share what you think. Is this truly open? Should this be a good model for those pursuing building in the open?
“Open source” is usually reserved for licenses approved by the Open Source Foundation. This one is unlikely to be approved, if it went through OSF’s license approval process, since it restricts commercial use:
No licensee or downstream recipient may use the Software (including any modified or derivative versions) (mirror) to directly compete with the original Licensor by offering it to third parties as a hosted, managed, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product or cloud service where the primary value of the service is the functionality of the Software itself.
The SSPL didn’t get through for such clauses despite being very similar to AGPLv3.
No really, no. Much ink has been spilled on this already. Some pointers:
To his credit, DHH himself hates it when corps get greedy.
I don’t even have a dog in this fight, only a set of principles. If anything, I’d be naturally inclined to be on Team WordPress. Between creating one of the most widely used open-source programs and powering half the internet, there’s every tribal reason to side with Automattic over WP Engine’s private-equity owners at Silver Lake.
But whatever my feelings about private equity in general or Silver Lake’s management of WP Engine in particular, I care far more about the integrity of open source licenses, and that integrity is under direct assault by Automattic’s grotesque claim for WP Engine’s revenues.
And yet, I can see where this is coming from. Ruby on Rails, the open-source web framework I created, has been used to create businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars combined. Some of those businesses express their gratitude and self-interest by supporting the framework with dedicated developers, membership of The Rails Foundation, or conference sponsorships. But many also do not! And that is absolutely their right, even if it occasionally irks a little.
That’s the deal. That’s open source. I give you a gift of code, you accept the terms of the license. There cannot be a second set of shadow obligations that might suddenly apply, if you strike it rich using the software. Then the license is meaningless, the clarity all muddled, and certainty lost.
Look, Automattic can change their license away from the GPL any time they wish. The new license will only apply to new code, though, and WP Engine, or anyone else, are eligible to fork the project …
But I suspect Automattic wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to retain WordPress’ shine of open source, but also be able to extract their pound of flesh from any competitor that might appear, whenever they see fit. Screw that.
Automattic is doing open source dirty (mirror).
Though, with O’Sassy, I guess DHH’s making clear up front that the licensed software isn’t OSS, and that’s okay, too.
Comes with the territory, I guess. Has the stage, the soapbox, and the “fuck you” money to rage bait all week, and twice on Sunday.