GitButler is now Fair Source

I'm really glad that they've made a conscious effort to be transparent in the fact that this is not open source. That said, I'm less sure how I feel about the movement as a whole. I admire the desire to make source code transparently available, and let people use it for free, but I think strict open source is the best net good for the world we live in. I can run apps on Linux in any cloud I want to because every cloud is free to run it. And so I benefit from getting to choose among competitors (including self hosting) where that doesn't exist in a world where competition is forbidden.

It's also ironic to me that this software is being built on top of git, and thus is a business model entirely dependent upon FOSS, while wanting to differentiate and build a business on top of it with a moat but still sharing the code in a way that protects them. It just seems like an uncomfortable position straddling the fence between two paradigms.

Maybe I'm privileged in the fact that I've always lived comfortably enough in my career to feel like I can write and release OSS under the most permissive terms (whether it's used or not). But that feels like the best way to give back to the movement that effectively led me into this career for free, and lets me pick from offerings that are forced to differentiate on price or other features rather than whether they can license the software.

Wow, I most certainly confused https://fair.io/ with https://faircode.io/

This new "functional" license is interesting, in that it converts to MIT or Apache 2.0 automatically after 2 years.

I'm all for open source (and free!) software, however I hope these new licenses move more service-level businesses to follow suit and at least open up their source code in some way or another.

That's the first time I've heard about the fair source license. From what I understand it's slightly more restrictive than FOSS, but it aims to prevent hyperscalers from basically running your software in their cloud while you can't make a dime from it.

Is there anyone who can break down the advantage of something like this over a typical open source model? I read through the page and FAQ for fair source and still don't quite grasp the angle here other than making software less free for a temporary amount of time.

Having grappled with this dillemma myself as a founder, interested to see this FS model gain traction towards a middle ground. Knowledge is shared not closed off. And the company that is keeping the tech progressing can stay competitive.

IANAL, but on a cursory read, this seems like a minefiled for use in a commercial settings: the definition of "Competing Use" in the license (https://github.com/getsentry/fsl.software/blob/main/FSL-1.1-...) can be read very broadly.

I fear that clearly defining what does it mean to compete in the context of this license is going to be a bitch.

Was it Unity recently that they had to do this ridiculous back-and-forth, issuing multiple statements to clarify whether this or that edge case is a violation or not? Or was it Redis? I don’t remember which product it was, but the turmoil I remember quite well.

Does anyone know why companies don’t release under AGPL for everyone and then under a proprietary commercial license to themselves? Essentially dual-license it.

AGPL would dissuade Google and AWS from using it, and the commercial license would allow the licensee (themselves) to commercialize it?

Here's an informing podcast episode about their thinking behind "fair source" and more, https://changelog.com/podcast/586.

Related: Keygen is also Fair Source now (https://keygen.sh/blog/keygen-is-now-fair-source/)

> On the other hand, we are investing heavily in the software, have investors and employees, and want to be able to build a build a profitable business on top of our product.

To clarify, are you trying to protect against those who don't pay (me), or those that compete with you by monetizing your product?

Is Fair Source a super set of Open Source? On other words, is any open source license automatically a fair source.

For every open source project, the source is available, under an open source license after 0 days, and usable and modifiable for anyone who doesn't compete or does.

Fine by me. It never seemed that great to begin with. I hated how it injected its own branded commits into my repos. And it never worked with the submodules I unfortunately have to work with

Got me thinking about FUTO's Source First License. I'm liking these movements in general, but they could use some consolidation and standardization similar to the *GPL family.

Can we please just refer to the license by name ("Functional Source License", or just "FSL"), rather than acknowledging and adopting this new strange (BS) "Fair Source" terminology when talking about licenses? "Source-available" is already recognized and applicable if you feel a need to taxonomize the license.

There is the "Fair Source" industry lobby group closely associated to the license and I suspect the confusable naming may be intentional here, both coming from the same parties.

I don't love the name.

It was hard to put my finger on why that is. It doesn't smell of marketing (a whiff, maybe), I don't think it's dishonest, it strikes me as a sincere way of trying to explain why the users/authors feel like they need to do anything other than just give the software away.

It's that there's an inevitable comparison baked in to the choice of name: we have open source, and fair source. Fair source is meaningfully less open, but open source is at least equally fair, one can argue that it's more so, but not less. It doesn't really hit at the reason for having these licenses in the first place, and it does have a sort of aura of "see! We're trying, we're doing our best over here", which is accurate, but also, off-putting.

I have a suggestion, not that I expect it to matter: first, drop the [adjective] source pattern completely. You don't need a category of software licenses, you need a software license — and you really, truly, do not need the headache of trying to decide which non-free licenses get to live under the 'fair' umbrella.

Call it the Head Start License. That's what it does: it gives the authors a head start. I consider that fair! As I was saying at the beginning of the post, my objection isn't nearly so simple as "you say it's fair and that's wrong".

If pushed on what "kind of" license that is, you can call it eventually-open source. There's no 'spin' there, because it's literally true: it is, eventually, open source software. Plus you can put your foot down, because the essence of what the license is now lives in the name: "eventually, in this context, means two years. We consider less than two years also eventually open, more than that is, at best, eventually eventually-open source software." That probably sounds funny but it would work, with the right memetic buy in: no, we've established this, your six-year license is not eventually open source, eventually means two years, here, check out this website I'm linking to.

I hope I've made it clear that while I dislike the choice, I don't find it distasteful. Others are going to find it distasteful. I'm not going to speak on behalf of those people, but mind share is critical with an idea like this, and you're going to be doing battle with "if it isn't free it isn't fair". Good slogan actually, you don't have to agree with it (I don't) to recognize that.

Anyway, good luck with the project. I commend you for not succumbing to the temptation to try and slice a bit of salami off the open source definition, although as I write that out, I'm realizing some of my dislike here is in fact that 'fair source' tries to borrow some of the emotional valence of free software, and that's the thing, you don't need to do that: eventually-open source becomes open source, eventually, it's a binding commitment, you just need people to show some patience, because you have a living to earn in the meantime. You wrote it, so you get a head start. Seems fair.

If it was my bikeshed, well, that's the colour I'd paint it.