
A list of software that was once free and is now proprietary - grhmc
https://github.com/fommil/copywrong
======
oldmanjay
I'm not seeing the problem here. I license my open source projects under
Apache specifically to allow this. I don't need a session in the Stallman
Reeducation Tank to have my opinions "corrected" on this.

~~~
belorn
So long you behave consistent in that and do not complain if someone makes a
gplv3 fork of your projects. So many people want to push their religious
believes rather than just pick a license which suits them and then live with
the consequences.

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oliwarner
It isn't correct to call this behaviour a "copywrong". The licences allow or
encourage this. People are doing what they want, as designed when the
developer chose a super-free licence.

If you don't like this, don't use a MIT/BSD/etc style licence; pick one that
protects your code (as well as it's future users) like GPL. Keep it slightly
less free, but forever.

~~~
nmrm2
Just because it's legally permitted doesn't mean it's not OK to criticize.

I think there's a difference between using a piece of software (perahps with
some inessential small changes) as a component in a larger system, and just
striaght up forking it and then not contributing changes back.

The problem with companies who use MIT/BSD in the latter way is that they
encourage the use of GPL-style licenses. I wish more people would use a
license that allows the former but not the latter. That is, you're free to
make small changes for iner-oping with your system and you're free to
distribute that as a binary; but, you're not free to just fork the project and
make huge improvements but then not share those improvements. Unfortunately,
that style of license would be nearly impossible to write or enforce because
the line is so subjective (e.g., I think some of the examples on the linked
list could fall on either side of that line).

Concrete example: I personally believe that Apple should be allowed to build
OS X on top of BSD, but should contribute back any significant changes that
are improvements to BSD in general. The license doesn't require this, but I
think it's the decent thing to do.

~~~
sparkie
The license your describing is exactly the LGPL - you can link to it as you
please from proprietary software, but modifications to the code itself need to
be distributed in their code form.

~~~
nmrm2
Yeah but I also want to allow "super massive change that fundamentally changes
the character/utility of the system"

Basically, don't repackage my stuff with a stupid extra feature or some
crapware or a few bug fixed. But feel free to build something new using it.

(edit: I should also mention I use LGPL. But even the definition of linking
can get hairy, because sometimes interop requires small changes that aren't
directly linking.)

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lugus35
Those software are still free even if there are proprietary forks of them. You
are not forced to use the proprietary forks.

~~~
steve-howard
Exactly. The title is misleading because it implies we're talking about open
source products that eventually became closed source (this happens, it's
annoying, and it's their prerogative). Instead it's upset that people use
licenses that aren't the GPL.

It's also one of the only projects I've ever seen to use the Affero GPL.

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vmorgulis
I know Nessus (a vulnerability scanner).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessus_%28software%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessus_%28software%29)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Submitted a pull request for that one.

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parasubvert
These are false claims and some the entries are downright wrong; for example,
FoundationDB was always proprietary.

Listing LaunchD and LLVM are also wrong as they're not "formerly" free,
they're still free with communities supporting the free branch. They are code
bases that are available under free AND proprietary terms.

What's the point? Public shaming in favor of copyleft? Someone hasn't read
their Dale Carnegie.

~~~
soneil
launchd is a pretty ironic inclusion as it was developed at apple, by apple,
and released under an apache licence.

So this "copywrong" would have been "right" if they hadn't open-sourced it at
all?

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lifeisstillgood
This should not be a debate about licenses but about business models.
Contributing Open Source code (whatever reasonable license) is giving a huge
chunk of the value of that code to the world at large (#). But the methods
available to sustain oneself and family as a developer are limited if one is
not selling proprietary licenses. Donations are pants, crippleware is ugly all
round and selling service and consultancy is twice the effort. So it's hard to
see sustainable open source as an easy one.

(#) ok mostly the rich western world but that is changing.

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nemothekid
FoundationDB was never free software, and LLVM is still free software. 2 of
the 4, right off the bat are mislabeled.

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mamcx
So, which are good ways to support ourselves (ie: small team/single owner) in
a open source project (not counting the "give support and docs" that are only
for huge packages), and what are the right licenses to pick one?

