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Comment by sbauch | Hacker News Reader

Certainly a fair critique, and one we can admit we saw coming.

We currently use the BSL license, created by MariaDB and used by companies like Sentry. We do think Osso is open source by common understanding and view the BSL as a fair model that places no restrictions on good actors - the license is intended to protect us from copycats profiting off our work, while allowing anyone that needs to integrate SAML into an app they’re building free reign. You’re free to use Osso as a widget, but you can’t use it to start a widget factory.

"Source available" seems like a fair compromise, thanks for the suggestion.

FWIW, We're big fans of Sentry's explanation of the BSL license - https://sentry.io/_/open-source/

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> "We do think Osso is open source by common understanding and view the BSL as a fair model that places no restrictions on good actors - the license is intended to protect us from copycats profiting off our work, while allowing anyone that needs to integrate SAML into an app they’re building free reign."

The common understanding of open source is that source code is available, redistribution free, and derivative works are allowed.

MariaDB specifically states that BSL isn't open source:

> "We have not certified BSL as complying to the Open Source Definition by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). However, all source code is available from the start and most of the OSI criteria are met. As long as the software is used within the usage limitations, it’s free to use at no cost."

Open source = no usage limitations.

As I've mentioned or alluded to in other comments, I think "open source" as you describe it is broken and unsustainable, and we're happy to have a constructive conversation about commercially viable open source. But if we can't agree that the definition of "open source", like any word or phrase, can change over time, then I don't think there's much of a constructive conversation to be had. Would you suggest we remove any mention of "open source" from our documentation etc.?

> I think "open source" as you describe it is broken and unsustainable,

Then dont claim to use an open source license. Its just recently people have felt foss is commercially viable. For most of its history people believed that foss was not commercially viable. That's why it was considered a radical view.

You want to have the cake and eat it too. You're trying to ride the wave of goodwill that open source provides without paying your dues. Yes open source makes it harder to be commercially viable. If it didn't, if it only provided benefits, everything would be open source.

> But if we can't agree that the definition of "open source", like any word or phrase, can change over time

If i sold nut free chocolate bars, and then someone died of alergic reaction, to which i responded by saying, definitions change over time peanuts arent included in nut-free, would you accept that?

Yes, words can in principle change over time - but you can't just change meanings unilateral, especially not as part of a false advertising campaign to mislead users into thinking you are something that you are not.

I don't think I've changed the meaning unilaterally, others here seem to agree that the meaning is evolving.

I can concede that we are guilty of wanting the wave of goodwill, but I have a hard time agreeing that this is a bait and switch. And I certainly hope nobody is going to die because we use "open source" instead of "source available".

The part of this conversation that leaves me wanting is that it all seems so positive rather than normative, and doesn't consider the benefits of choosing this license over a closed source product.

Our goals here are to make SAML SSO more accessible and run a business that helps some good customers use the software we've created. There's a lot of net positives in that IMO, and this whole "but it's not ACTUALLY open source" is a distraction borne of inflexibility and a lack of creativity.

So how do we as an industry move forward in a way that allows individual use of source available software, but prevents companies from unfairly profiting off of that? Is that desirable? What do we call that? Maybe business source, maybe source available is fine. That's a lot more interesting of a conversation to me. If you won't have that conversation until we strike open source from our website I understand.

> There's a lot of net positives in that IMO, and this whole "but it's not ACTUALLY open source" is a distraction borne of inflexibility and a lack of creativity.

Being "flexible" and "creative" with the truth is just a fancy way of saying lying.

Are you seriously arguing the ends justify the means, where the end is some cloud saml business and the means is misrepresenting the licensing terms of your product? That's probably the lowest stakes ends justify the means argument i have ever heard and is pretty rediculous.

At the end of the day, if you can't operate your business ethically and with integrity, then no, its not a net positive. This is true for pretty much any business venture, but its especially true for some random cloud offering competiting in a market with many other competitors doing roughly the same thing. The way you talk about this stuff you would think you were trying to solve world hunger.

> If you won't have that conversation until we strike open source from our website I understand.

Why do you think i'm interested in that conversation at all? I have no stake in your company, i don't care how you structure your IP, if you succeed as a company or if you fail. I do however have a stake in the open source movement and care deeply when parasites try to profit off it without fulfilling their obligations to the movement.

> Certainly a fair critique, and one we can admit we saw coming.

So you intentionally made false statements about your product, which you knew ahead of time were false and if believed might conceivably make people more likely to buy it? That's normally called fraud.

The long winded justification doesn't matter. You're under no moral obligation to make your product open source. You are under a moral (and probably legal but ianal) not to do bait and switches.

Right on. This kind of thing keeps happening. Fortunately, HN and other communities have a surprisingly sharp eye for these lies and can generally be relied upon to call them out, but people still try it on.

Here's another example: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/issues/40

I don't think we've intentionally made false statements nor committed any fraud. But we appreciate the feedback, we'll review as a team and see what sort of decision we can make that will maintain source availability without upsetting folks who allow OSI to define "open source". We made some mistakes, we're very early, and we were hoping to have a (constructive) conversation around licensing and sustainable open source.

I support this. I would gladly consider paying for this product should an enterprise customer come along.

In the mean time the free version lets me learn and experience the full product.

You are absolutely free to use Osso's source to onboard and authenticate your own customers without paying us! The goal of the license is to prevent someone from creating their own SAAS offering that competes with ours. Using Osso for your own app is within rights granted by the license.

But to your point, we also offer a demo instance that you can use in order to build out your integration, and then when a customer comes along, start paying us and swap out some ENV variables and you're ready to go!

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