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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Asklemmy
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For reference, here is the license. I'm curious which part makes it "not fully open source".
First realize what is being talked about is the generally agreed upon open source definition https://opensource.org/osd
While it seems they have simplified the license removing some reasons it's not to be considered open source, it's still restricting commercial uses in the following two restrictions:
"You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.
Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others."
In short open source would only require the software be distributed with source under the same licensed as recieved, thus can't restrict it to non-commercial, nor prevent the changing of payment details.
Obviously it's a reasonably permissive license, and possibly won't impact you from using it as an end user. It's just has some restrictions for the creators to request payment, and to prevent third parties profiting off the product. Think Creative Commons, share alike, non-commercial for software. (While most will consider this fair its not quite fully open)
One reason they went this route was to prevent third parties form distributing their software with ads and using it in systems they are actively attempting to provide alternatives for (ie software that may spy on your system useage/and call home) the non-commercial clause has more teeth than say MIT where it would be relicensed, or GPL that while the software source would need to be provided might still be embedded in a ecosystem.
Gotcha.
Yeah, it sounds like it's not "open source" according to a specific definition set by the OSI. But the term "open source" has grown beyond what they believe it to mean, and the FUTO license seems more than reasonable to me.
I think the freedom to commercialize worked in the past, but we now live in a time of weaponized commercialization, especially in the mobile world. It seems reasonable to me for them to want to ensure their code is not commercialized in ways that are antithetical to the purpose of the project.
You have to be able to redistribute commercially, but the FUTO license only allows non-commercially.
This has no effect on us users so it is essentially just as good as open source, but technically it is not open source.
So the open source community has a very clearly defined definition of "open" - open does not mean that you can just read the source code. Just reading helps with some trustworthiness, but in order to be afforded all of the protections and benefits of the word "open", they require some form of ability to fork the code, and to be able to do useful things with that fork. No fork = not open. There are a ton of good reasons for this that I won't dig into here but you can certainly find by looking up the free software foundation or the open source initiative.
Futo is considered "source available"
I don't see anything wrong with limiting the commercialization of your code. I don't agree that limiting someone from monetizing your code in a way you disagree with precludes them from "doing useful things" with a fork. Equating usefulness with commercialization seems implicitly capitalist and antithetical to FOSS. CMV.
There's nothing wrong per se with what FUTO is doing. They have the right to determine how people can use their code. What is wrong is trying to use the term "open source" which has a very clear meaning to try and win marketing brownie points among its user base when it does not actually follow that definition. It is misleading at best.
Basically: don't misuse the open source moniker for source-available projects.
The more accurate way to say that is, "open source" has a very clear meaning to a very specific set of people who agree with OSI's definition. But language evolves, they don't have a copyright on the term, more people have heard the term "open source" than have heard about the OSI, so "open source" means whatever most people believe it to mean.
Velcro can be upset when people call competitors' hook-and-loop technology Velcro, but the rest of the world don't even know they exist.
And philosophically, I think it's time OSI updates their definition to fit the times. As stated above, I think the guarantee of unfettered commercialization is antithetical to FOSS goals. And again, I'd be glad to be convinced otherwise.
The whole point of forkability is NOT for unfettered commercialization, it is a user protection. I as a user should be able to take any piece of software and modify it in any way I see fit, and then be able to contribute that back.
If you think that the OSI's definition has anything to do with commercialization (other than explicitly saying that commercializing source code is not prohibited), you have completely misunderstood what open source is about, full stop.
I apologize, I got your comment confused with the other person's who said the ability to commercialize is the important detail FUTO's license is missing. You had said, "they require some form of ability to fork the code, and to be able to do useful things with that fork" which the FUTO license does already explicitly allow, so I assumed by "and do useful things" you also meant "commercialize".
So yeah it sounds like we're in agreement, and the FUTO license is already reasonably "open source".
Does FUTO's license allow me to maintain my own fork under a different name to offer to fellow users, that is no longer under control of FUTO? I'm not selling (commercializing) it. If not, it is source-available.
It does allow this,
But hey, way to read the source material before explaining it to someone ;)