What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it
www.theregister.com
'Our licenses aren't working anymore,' says free software pioneer

TLDR: Companies should be required to pay developers for any open source software they use.

He imagines a simple yearly compliance process that gets companies all the rights they need to use Post-Open software. And they’d fund developers who would be encouraged to write software that’s usable by the common person, as opposed to technical experts.

It’s an interesting concept, but I don’t really see any feasible means to get this to kick off.

What are your thoughts on it?

  • Psyklax@lemmy.ml
    0·
    10 months ago

    Companies should be required to pay if they take the software, modify or fork it, and then sell it to others. That’s the only case in which I think anyone should be paying for libre software.

    For example, the linux kernel is used by android. Google modifies the kernel source and sells it to phone manufacturers. Linus Torvalds (and the rest of all kernel devs) deserve a stipend for the use of their work to generate profit. Also, the modifications should be legally required to be open sourced if they don’t pay.

    • jaeme@lemmy.ml
      0·
      10 months ago

      If companies are required to pay, then the software is not libre. I understand your intent, but this isn’t a solution (even if it was, it would just mean that it would just be a tax for small companies, Meta and Alphabet aren’t worrying about a tax), building a stronger community is.

      Commercial software is not mutually exclusive with libre software, and things like copyleft exist to prevent companies from using libre software to create proprietary software.

    • asret@lemmy.zip
      0·
      10 months ago

      The ability to modify the code is a central tenet of free software. The GPL takes care of making those modifications available to others. That effectively is the payment the original devs get.

      • Psyklax@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        My point was that the selling of others’ code is NOT part of the agreement. For that, the volunteers deserve payment. Technically, it’s a violation of the GPL to modify the code, and distribute binaries of it without the source. Companies get away with that all the time.