this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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having contributors sign a CLA is always very sus and I think this is indicative of the project owners having some plans of monetizing it even though it is currently under AGPLv3. Their core values of no dark patterns and whatnot seem like a sales argument rather than an actual motivation/principle, especially when you see that they are a bootstrapped startup.
Thanks for pointing that out—looks like they’re working on a Server Suite. I’d guess that they try to monetize that but leave the personal desktop version free
I mean anybody can fork it and keep developing it without a CLA under AGPL3.
Yeah it's easy to fall into a negativity bias instead of doing a risk benefit analysis , the company could be investing money and resources that could be missing from open source projects, especially professional work by non programmers (e.g. UX researchers) which is something that open source projects usually miss.
You could probably figure it out by going over the contributions.
Of course, I am not against software being open-source, and I much prefer this approach of companies making their software open-source, but it's the CLA that really bothers me. I like companies contributing to the FOSS ecosystem, what I don't like is companies trying to benefit from free contributions and companies having the possibility to change the license of the code from those contributors
I’m starting to come around to big corps running their custom enhanced versions while feeding their open source counterparts with the last gen weights. As much as I love open source, people need to eat.
As was mentioned, if they start doing something egregious, they’re not the only game in town, and can also be forked. Love it or hate it, a big corp sponsor makes Joe six-pack feel a little more secure in using a product.
Free as in freedom, not free as in beer.
GPLv3 allows you to sell your work for money, but you still have to hand over the code your customers purchased. You buy our product, you own it, as is. Do whatever you like with it, but if you sell a derivative, you better cough up the new code to whoever bought it.