http://simonwillison.net/2024-10-09T18:17:31+00:00Simon Willison2024-10-09T18:17:31+00:002024-10-09T18:17:31+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2024/Oct/9/the-fair-source-definition/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://fair.io/about/">The Fair Source Definition</a></strong></p> Fair Source (<a href="https://fair.io/">fair.io</a>) is the new-ish initiative from Chad Whitacre and Sentry aimed at providing an alternative licensing philosophy that provides additional protection for the business models of companies that release their code.</p> <p>I like that they're establishing a new brand for this and making it clear that it's a separate concept from Open Source. Here's their definition:</p> <blockquote> <p>Fair Source is an alternative to closed source, allowing you to safely share access to your core products. Fair Source Software (FSS):</p> <ol> <li>is publicly available to read;</li> <li>allows use, modification, and redistribution with minimal restrictions to protect the producer’s business model; and</li> <li>undergoes delayed Open Source publication (DOSP).</li> </ol> </blockquote> <p>They link to the <a href="https://opensource.org/delayed-open-source-publication">Delayed Open Source Publication</a> research paper published by <a href="https://opensource.org/blog/a-historic-view-of-the-practice-to-delay-releasing-open-source-software-osis-report">OSI in January</a>. (I was frustrated that this is only available as a PDF, so I <a href="https://gist.github.com/simonw/7b913aaaff8278d2baaed86e43ece748">converted it to Markdown</a> using Gemini 1.5 Pro so I could read it on my phone.)</p> <p>The most interesting background I could find on Fair Source was <a href="https://github.com/fairsource/fair.io/issues/14">this GitHub issues thread</a>, started in May, where Chad and other contributors fleshed out the initial launch plan over the course of several months. <p><small></small>Via <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788461">Hacker News</a></small></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/licensing">licensing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/open-source">open-source</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pdf">pdf</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/sentry">sentry</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/chad-whitacre">chad-whitacre</a></p>

2024-01-23T16:48:16+00:002024-01-23T16:48:16+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jan/23/the-open-source-sustainability-crisis/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://openpath.chadwhitacre.com/2024/the-open-source-sustainability-crisis/">The Open Source Sustainability Crisis</a></strong></p> Chad Whitacre: “What is Open Source sustainability? Why do I say it is in crisis? My answers are that sustainability is when people are getting paid without jumping through hoops, and we’re in a crisis because people aren’t and they’re burning out.”</p> <p>I really like Chad’s focus on “jumping through hoops” in this piece. It’s possible to build a financially sustainable project today, but it requires picking one or more activities that aren’t directly aligned with working on the core project: raising VC and starting a company, building a hosted SaaS platform and becoming a sysadmin, publishing books and courses and becoming a content author.</p> <p>The dream is that open source maintainers can invest all of their effort in their projects and make a good living from that work. <p><small></small>Via <a href="https://lobste.rs/s/sm3t1o/open_source_sustainability_crisis">lobste.rs</a></small></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/open-source">open-source</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/chad-whitacre">chad-whitacre</a></p>