I mean, I'm very glad that open source (and also free) software exists. I don't think there should only be software with source available licenses, and I certainly admire and appreciate the giant amount of foundational work that has been done under those licenses.
But I think it comes with its own trade-offs. For instance, I might say that preferring open source is short-term thinking, because projects can become both critical infrastructure and essentially un-funded, and use one of the same examples you did, of openssh.
And I lament that people seem to be less critical of entirely opaque proprietary software than of source available software. I think if the only viable choices are nonprofit+open and commercial+closed, then we are going to end up with more closed software that is of higher quality than its open alternatives.
In general my interest in this topic flows from dissatisfaction with funding models for open source software. I really hate that so much important software relies on under- or even entirely un-paid labor to create and maintain it. I'm not under illusions that alternative models are a panacea, but I'm also not satisfied with the status quo. I get paid well for my work, and I hate that so many people whose labor I rely on aren't getting paid well for theirs!
> I might say that preferring open source is short-term thinking, because projects can become both critical infrastructure and essentially un-funded, and use one of the same examples you did, of openssh.
I don't follow. All told, OpenSSH is still going strong, and it owes its existence to the right to fork.
The FOSS model has a good history of software project longevity, especially compared to, say, proprietary software developed by start-ups.
More generally, the rights granted by FOSS licences are a good (albeit imperfect) protection against software turning user-hostile. To that end, a FOSS licence might not be sufficient, but it seems to be necessary.
> people seem to be less critical of entirely opaque proprietary software than of source available software
The Free Software Foundation used to consider semifree software to be its own subcategory of non-Free software, but they no longer make the distinction. [0] This makes sense given the organisation's goals - they don't want to be seen to be giving partial credit to licences that, while not as bad as some others, still deliberately deny the user the '4 freedoms'.
I agree that non-Free-but-source-available is better than non-Free-and-source-unavailable, but there are good reasons the Free Software and Open Source software movements have the principles they have.
> my interest in this topic flows from dissatisfaction with funding models for open source software.
Agreed. It's frustrating that so few people or organisations think to contribute to FOSS projects, even ones they deeply rely on.
There are ways to monetise aside from patronage/donation, such as paid support and paid managed services, but unfortunately it seems these are rarely successful in generating appreciable income.
> I don't follow. All told, OpenSSH is still going strong, and it owes its existence to the right to fork.
Sorry, this was too implicit. What I was alluding to was the period of time when openssh had some showstopper security issues, and everyone realized it was being maintained by essentially one person with essentially no funding.
I don't want to downplay that the copyright owner of source-available software taking it in a bad direction or stopping maintenance or going out of business altogether is a big risk of that model (and of fully proprietary software as well). It totally is, and it is definitely something that the ability to fork solves.
But my point is that it's a trade-off. Both models have failure modes. And they both have (different) imperfect solutions for them.
> Agreed. It's frustrating that so few people or organisations think to contribute to FOSS projects, even ones they deeply rely on.
This is probably where our fundamental difference in philosophy comes from. I don't think it is at all the case that people don't "think to contribute to FOSS projects", it's that the incentives don't work out in favor of it, for most organizations. And I don't think the answer to that is to wish for altruism from organizations and free labor from individuals.
> There are ways to monetise aside from patronage/donation, such as paid support and paid managed services, but unfortunately it seems these are rarely successful in generating appreciable income.
Yeah, as I said, I find all of these solutions deeply unsatisfying. Patronage/donation has the "relying on altruism" issue. Paid support misaligns incentives, because if you manage to make perfect software, you've also managed to put yourself out of business, whereas if your software is difficult to use, that makes it lucrative. Paid managed services would be great, if Amazon couldn't just slap your code behind an official AWS service that 99% of people are going to use instead of your also-ran; but keeping them from doing that requires the restraint on commercial re-distribution that everyone seems to hate.
But I think it comes with its own trade-offs. For instance, I might say that preferring open source is short-term thinking, because projects can become both critical infrastructure and essentially un-funded, and use one of the same examples you did, of openssh.
And I lament that people seem to be less critical of entirely opaque proprietary software than of source available software. I think if the only viable choices are nonprofit+open and commercial+closed, then we are going to end up with more closed software that is of higher quality than its open alternatives.
In general my interest in this topic flows from dissatisfaction with funding models for open source software. I really hate that so much important software relies on under- or even entirely un-paid labor to create and maintain it. I'm not under illusions that alternative models are a panacea, but I'm also not satisfied with the status quo. I get paid well for my work, and I hate that so many people whose labor I rely on aren't getting paid well for theirs!