Gumroad’s source is available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43580103 (380 points | 9 hours ago | 185 comments)
I don't have an issue with this kind of license being used where open source does not suit, but I don't think we should change/widen the definition of "open source" to suit the sustainability needs of those that open source isn't compatible with, at the impact of the freedoms and open rights it provides.
And hosting while keeping your prices down is not just a whole different skill set, anyone that's already a big will have pricing deals with AWS so they will beat you even if you host in the exact same way.
It's probably less differentiable in the case of something like Gumroad which is less likely to have big scaling problems, but for things like a distributed database, you run a serious risk of someone who is paying AWS half of what you are per compute hour just deploy the Helm chart and undercut you completely.
That's fine and dandy, but that doesn't inhibit me from rewriting the code from scratch and creating a clone myself by just matching Gumroad's existing feature matrix.
RoadGum.py, here I come!
This allows them to offer a free "plan" without incurring the hosting costs of providing the service.
Don't get me wrong. I think OSI's approach to open source is admirable. I think there should be a useful term to describe what they currently call "open source" and I think projects which use those licenses should be celebrated. I just don't think they're going to win the battle for the term "open source" in the long term.
I disagree. To the layman I think "open source" means "I can use it for free". Which in this case may not be true depending on your employer and whether this is a good revenue year or not.
I think OSI's definition is well thought out, widely understood, and regularly referenced. We should continue using it.
I agree it is well thought out, but I strongly disagree that it is widely understood and regularly referenced. By the kind of folks who frequent HN maybe, but not by the industry at large - and definitely not by most people outside the industry.
Stripe + Lemon Squeezy was a competitor.
Paddle is a competitor (which I use precisely to avoid having to deal with worldwide regulations) and they charge around 5%.
Gumroad also gives you a marketplace so there's some extra value.
I pay 25% for another marketplace, so 13% is not that crazy if they can bring you traffic.
Gumroad is tiny and does not have the economies of scale of Stripe, without knowing their financials this does not say anything at all.
Heck, the .NET Framework source has been available for eons (referencesource.microsoft.com), but you can't go compile it and build your own .NET Framework distro (Mono is a different story).
Like the issue I think becomes that .net itself was written in .net and so you needed the earlier proprietary versions right?
But Gnu also had a .net compiler and he had actually used it on guix (basically like nix) to really create sort of reproducible .net , I am sure that some reader of this comment will attach the post on which I am talking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
Destroying the meaning of words is an activity for Orwellian villains.
No, that's not it. What you can do with the source code is just as important as the source code being available.
No, that's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software
Other than that, some that come to mind: Proxmox, Opnsense, SnipeIT, GitLab, Canonical, Codeweavers/wine, Plausible, Home-assistant/open-home-foundation/NabuCasa, FreeBSD Foundation, Laravel, Blender, Godot.
Within there is a whole mix of business plans, some offer hardware, some are open core, some offer related paid services, some offer hosting, some offer support etc...
This post also seemed to be thrown off the front page for some reason.
But with this title, the discussion can be drawn towards the question of whether the license would or wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source, rather than whether it meets each commenter’s own definition of open source, which would be a much less gratifying discussion.
(I've frequently suggested title changes to HN's mod team, I'm pretty familiar with this.)
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29425675> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42679582>