
Show HN: Opensource.builders, open-source alternatives to commercial software - theturtletalks
https://opensource.builders
======
pritambaral
A few of these are, unfortunately, not Open Source, on account of being
licensed under the SSPL or Commons Clause. In the latter's case, in
particular, the very prescient complaint against the original "marketing"
holds true: that people mistake it for Apache 2.

~~~
soumyadeb
Founder of RudderStack ([https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-
server](https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server) \- open-source
alternative to Segment) here. We are SSPL and this is the feedback we get all
the time.

I totally appreciate the sentiment around SSPL being not open-source but
honestly, we don't know what is an alternative. We want to build an open-
source product but also build a commercial entity around it – which means we
want to stop the cloud providers from offering this as a service.

We explored a couple of alternatives. AGPL does provide a similar level of
protection against cloud providers – any app talking to RudderStack over an
API to send events would be forced to open-source the app and hence it is
almost not possible to build a SaaS service on top. But for this exact same
reason, our users don’t like AGPL. AGPL is considered an absolute NO in lot of
enterprises. To get around this, we have also thought of releasing our binary
(and AMI images, docker images) under MIT license so that people can still run
it but then but that was getting too complicated for a licensing model plus
this doesn't stop AWS from offering it as a service. As you pointed out,
Apache with Common Clause, CockroachDB license are all alternatives but none
are true open-source.

We are just hoping that one of the big OSS guys (with the budget to pay the
attorneys) will figure this shit out once for all and we can just follow.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The SSPL seems like the ideal solution, and very in the spirit of copyleft. I
find it unfortunate that the OSI is treated as the only determiner of “what
open source is” and that they have failed to accept SSPL.

~~~
cycloptic
Trying to pressure the OSI into accepting a license is not the way to go.
There are valid reasons that they rejected it. This isn't exactly some cabal
of lawyers trying to make you miserable, the SSPL was also independently
banned by Debian and Fedora for not meeting their own guidelines on open
source licenses. The review process for all of these organizations was lengthy
and public and still available if you want to find it.

~~~
belorn
From reading that review process, the main reason Debian banned it seems to be
that in their view you can not use Debian together with SSPL licensed software
and be compliant with the conditions of SSPL. The guideline (DFSG) does not
specify what to do in this situation, which is acknowledged in the discussion,
so the reason for banning the license comes down the fact that inclusion would
not benefit the goal of the project.

The OSI seems more focused on the OSD 9, which depend on the interpretation of
Services as derived works. This a different discussion and a very large grey
zone. The review request did however get withdrawn we won't get a definitive
answer.

~~~
cycloptic
To me that illustrates the point further which is that it's not just about
some random definition of the term "open source", there were very real
practical concerns that prevented its adoption and were not addressed.

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app4soft
As for me, representation of open-source alternatives on _AlternativeTo_ wiki
looks better.[0]

[0]
[https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensour...](https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensource)

~~~
nitemice
The one issue I have with AlternativeTo is it sometimes conflates a website
and an app.

Your link, YouTube, is a good example. NewPipe is a great open-source
alternative to the YouTube as an app (it's a YT client), while PeerTube is an
alternative to YouTube as a website (it's a video-hosting platform). Yet
they're listed together.

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cweagans
FYI something is wrong with the text on this page. The name of each product
shows up initially, and then fades out so that the page looks like this:
[https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t](https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t)

~~~
mdszy
I get the same behavior. It appears that the text is becoming white,
highlighting it makes it visible.

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mistrial9
as an American struggling with some business attitudes here (versus EU mainly)
.. I find a "rush to FOSS" to be troublesome.. There is an unfortunate overlap
of "Free-as-in-Beer" and "Free-as-in-Freedom" which is not just disappearing!
If you want to make enemies quickly, you can reinforce that notion that
"software is free (beer)" towards Newspapers, freelance tech writers,
independent medical professionals, clerks or any other of dozens of business
types that are failing and going out of business in the Internet age.

.. with nature abhorring a vacuum and all, what you get instead is lock-in
monthly fee structures and massive feudal-style companies controlling those..
while the chances to earn a living independently get slimmer and slimmer.. at
least here in the USA, it is very much happening..

Software freedom -- YES; absence of citizen commerce, NO

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butz
How about using simple text for commercial software titles? That will make
page searchable with Ctrl+F.

~~~
theturtletalks
I'm working on adding search. Should be done soon.

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ensignavenger
I would add Zulip to the Slack alternatives, and Mattermost is AGPL, not MIT
licensed. And as others have pointed out, there are several non-open source
projects listed that shouldn't be.

Edit: Also, Sentry is no longer Open Source and it is still listed as Apache
licensed- [https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-
sentry](https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry) FOr an open
source alternative/fork, see GlitchTip
([https://glitchtip.com/](https://glitchtip.com/))

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leggomylibro
Nice UI - I noticed that there are a lot of web apps, but not as many
'offline' projects. D'you see this as a mostly web-based platform, or could
you also see entries for programs like Photoshop and commercial IDEs?

Either way, great job! And cool idea to use GitHub issues as a request form :)

~~~
theturtletalks
I think offline apps is a great idea too! I’ll look into some alternatives and
add those as well.

I got the idea to use Github Issues from this repo:

[https://github.com/utterance/utterances](https://github.com/utterance/utterances)

They use Github issues for comments so I thought I’d give it a shot as a
request form.

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terpimost
But open source could be commercial, right? So is it about free software?

~~~
ensignavenger
Free software can still be commercial, I think the term they are looking for
is "Proprietary" or "closed-source"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software)

------
theturtletalks
Source code:
[https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders](https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders)

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giancarlostoro
It's still mildly disappointing that we only have one offering for "dropbox"
and co and it's nowhere near where it could be after several years.

~~~
jcelerier
? seafile, syncthing, nextcloud, ...

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giancarlostoro
> nextcloud

The one I was thinking of, but the other two I've only maybe heard of one.

~~~
josteink
Nextcloud is pretty good these days.

And I say that as someone who dismissed it as complete trash when it still was
owncloud, a few years back.

It’s really gotten noticeably better, and (for me at least) syncs much faster
than Dropbox ever did.

I’m populating new clients at 500mbps (which is my line cap). I really can’t
complain.

~~~
prophesi
Yeah, I've been using Nextcloud for two years now. It overshadows Dropbox in
terms of features and file-syncing.

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Barrin92
I'd find a place interesting that would list the opposite. Commercial or more
obscure solutions that _don 't_ currently have any open source equivalent
because when I'm looking for projects to learn a new language or I'm just
bored that'd be a great starting place.

~~~
theturtletalks
That’s what the requests page is for. You can add a request for an open-source
alternative to commercial software that does not have it yet.

[https://opensource.builders/requests](https://opensource.builders/requests)

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5-
More specifically, _GitHub-hosted open-source alternatives to commercial
software_.

