Notes
- What is opensource?
- More than just view source
- Specific defintion of 10 points, really focused on the universal freedom to audit, use, redistribute & modify
- Most things that are referred to as “opensource” do not meet this strict definition
- Things that are only auditable are called source available
- copyleft: Not technically open source but a great way to restrict opportunistic profit off a common resource for private profit
- Which approach you want to use will depend on your intent and context. For example, if you are developing a library that is targeting software developers, you’ll want the most permissive approach — in order to enable the broadest adoption.
- Biggest problem in opensource is: funding!
- eg. Amazon hosting infra and support request being largely received by the unpaid opensource contributors.
- Many of the licenses that deviate from pure opensource, in an attempt to solve the funding problem, still have big trouble with monitoring and enforcement.
- Biggest benefits to opensource: interdependence!
- the permissiveness of the license enables a broader community to rely upon the tool
- the knock on effect is improvements in quality, reliability, security and transparency
- can offer greater guarantees wrt the longevity of the project
- Other problems are related to coordination
- disagreement over the roadmap sometimes even to the point of death threats!
- opensource entitlement: assumption that the maintainers work for the adopters.
- What does a healthy opensource community look like?
- in general, stewardship is very difficult and takes a lot of work
- human decency
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