Thanks. They are no longer a mod of this community. (I wrote this comment to them and they did not reply.)
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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People are allowed to make mistakes every now and then. I would draw the line at open mod abuse such as using their rank to intimidate or just flat out removing people who they disagree with. Still a pretty crappy showing that I hope they grow from, but like, give them that chance.
Very concerning misinformation in this thread. Open source does in fact mean more than "can look at the source code." The open source definition closely parallels the free software definition, in fact.
I don't like the terms open source, FOSS, or FLOSS precisely because of this misconception.
But worse to me are their comments in that post calling the people responding "childish trolls in this community". I do not think that this is appropriate for a moderator.
Funny, because that's certainly how most of the responses sound like to me. OP was asking a reasonable question, and most of the responses there were nowhere near civil.
I'm not seeing the "insulting users of the community" point you stated OP, could you clarify? I did see one snarky response to a dude calling him an asshole, and I also saw posts stating he shouldn't be a mod, and generally very hostile responsens. Those in mind, I think his output was quite civil even though I disagree with his reasoning and opinion to large degree.
This feels like a witchhunt to me, and I for one don't think a volunteer moderators job should be in question if he has a hot take on something. He's just keeping the spam etc. clean, he's allowed to have differing opinions on subjects, as long as there is no misuse of his mod powers.
That's insulting? Quite civil words, compared to the words the community he is describing, use in that thread.
Yes. And that doesn't excuse it; a moderator should be better than the community they moderate.
That's honestly an unreasonable expectation of volunteers, and especially not one I'd want mods to measure themselves by. A mod who thinks he is better than the common users would be a massive asshole.
Nah, they are average human beings
Open source doesn't mean foss.
I think people being such zealots about getting paid is actually a huge problem with the open source community.
Giant corporations should absolutely pay to use these projects that are often labours of love done in spare time.
The purists and the zealots are the worst part of any community. If the real source (aka not obfuscated) is openly available with no access restrictions like "send me an email to get the source code", then it's opensource in my book. "Free" and "Libre" are just additional attributes for a subclass of opensource.
class Opensource {}
interface IsFree {}
interface IsLibre {}
class FOSS extends Opensource implements IsFree {}
class FLOSS extends Opensource implements IsFree, IsLibre {}
It's really simple.
@onlinepersona soooo.. any non-obfuscated javascript is open-source according to you? That doesn't make much sense.
How does it not make sense?
@onlinepersona Wait, you really think any non-obfuscated javascript code is open-source?
It's not open-source without the license. I think they may be confusing source available with open source.
In the case of JavaScript, obfuscation turns source code into a compilation result for performance and "security" reasons. It removes unused tokens, comments, spaces, newlines, etc. to reduce the data transfer size.
So, by definition, non-obfuscated code is source code, as it is the code the compiled or built product originates from. However, most sites on the web don't ship source code, only minified and obfuscated code.
Wait... you think somebody's minified JS committed to a repo is opensource? 😅
@onlinepersona Are you ok? You wrote that in your book any non-obfuscated code is open-source. But on the internet, any javascript is sent to the browser as text, so as long as the javascript is non-obfuscated (according to your definition), then it fits your statement about being open-source. But that would mean you consider many proprietary codes as being open-source, which is simply wrong. Open-source is a license, it comes with rights and obligations. It can't be just about being readable.
Why wouldn't it be opensource. It's right there in the name: the source is open.
You not being able to freely redistribute it means it a restrictive license, but it's opensource. I can look at it, get inspired by the solution, and write another one or a similar one and put another license on it. And if I don't care about the license, it can just be copied and redistributed 🤷
@onlinepersona 🤦♂️ ok, that explains everything...
If you think copyright is great, good for you 👍
The license you're attaching to your comments uses copyright to restrict commercial use. Are you okay with any company ignoring your license because you've posted it in the open?
The term source-available is exactly what you should be using instead of open-source, as the latter has been defined differently for decades.
The only instances I've seen people using the term open-source literally has been companies who wanted to benefit from positive connotations of open-source, while using a commercial source-available license which restricts many freedoms.
Another comment: https://linkage.ds8.zone/comment/1105950
You're not making much of an argument against me. I wish there were no copyright, no patents, no closed-source, no "trade secrets", none of that. But I live in the real world, not some hedonistic, communist, kopimist fantasy.
Copyright exists in this world and if it can maybe bring trouble to one org reaping the benefits of the commons without giving back, I'll gladly use it. Orgs treat copyright like bumberstickers and regularly ignore that (meaning anything) which has the low chance of being enforced or have significant monetary repercussions, so I do the same.
Yes, I've no problem with your position on copyright and many institutions do many bad things. My issue js with misuse of terms with a fixed meaning, i.e. open-source. Having different people use a single term in multiple ways makes it so much more difficult to understand each other and enables bad actors to rile people up against each other.
A tame example is "stable" Linux distros, where "stable"can mean package versions stay the same (besides bug fixes), and then people come and say their Arch Linux never broke, so it too is "stable".
Why wouldn't it be open-source. It's right there in the name: the source is open.
In the context of criticism of how copyright works I understand the above sentence, but using a well understood term differently still annoys me enough to write lengthy comments.
PS: I do hope lemmy implements a way to add copyright notices to comments like it allows for setting the language of posts. It could be implemented in a less noisy way. People who don't care about a license ignore it anyway, while people who do care would likely find it without much trouble.
My issue js with misuse of terms with a fixed meaning, i.e. open-source. Having different people use a single term in multiple ways makes it so much more difficult to understand each other and enables bad actors to rile people up against each other.
I see 🤔 Yeah, I'm not sure where I stand on that. On one hand, language evolves, on the other there's "technically correct". Maybe it irks me that calling projects like Redis "source-available" puts it in the same category as projects that just publish their code with a "no copy, no derivative" license. To me, those are nowhere near the same.
Maybe there's another term out there?
I understand what you mean. With Redis and many other database/cloud companies switching to source-available licenses, maybe the term source-available doesn't have to have such negative connotations. Open-source is also divided in permissive and copyleft licenses (e.g. BSD and GPL), both have big implications on how it can be used.
Redis and others see themselves forced to switch to a more restrictive license because of the big cloud providers, who sell services for others software, without contributing back. This change is not good, but it might be necessary. Just like GPL is more restrictive than MIT, but it's necessary to force some company to actually give back instead of only taking.
I personally don't really dislike licenses which allow for the necessary freedoms of open-source after one or two years. It's a compromise but secures the longevity of software beyond a companies success. It's way better than proprietary code.
Just like GPL is more restrictive than MIT, but it’s necessary to force some company to actually give back instead of only taking.
In a sense, forcing a commercial vendor to "contribute back monetarily" is a form of restriction 🤔 Not sure if forcing some other kind of contribution would be better, similar to how GPL forces licensing...
Anyway, thanks for sharing your point of view.
@onlinepersona Please note, by adding the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 to your comments, you are executing your copyright. Do *you* think copyright is good for you?
What the hell? This was all reasonable stuff to discuss in newsgroups thirty years ago and every time the equivalent of xz happened but somehow now it indicates someone doesn’t understand open source?
And before someone makes the absurd claim that the limits and constraints of open source were settled back then, a state funded targeted attack on an open source project is as good a catalyst as any to uhh… revisit the priors that the “community” holds dear.
I swear to god you can take the redditors out of Reddit but you can’t take the Reddit out of the redditors.
I don't mind moderators having their ideas or even ranting or even blowing off some steam in the thread they make/parecipate in.
Their moderating job is to avoid the community being drowned in spam/scam etc. and as far as I can see there are few to no spam posts in [email protected]. In that particular thread they went wild but as far as I can see did not abuse their mod powers.
tl;dr: judge the moderator as the moderator, and the user as a user. I didn't particularly like that thread too, but from moderating POV, I haven't yet seem something by haui I disagree with.
A mod of a community is there for the purpose of moderation. He neither is nor needs to be an expert or a guru on the topic. If you want to talk and learn about something somewhere where the guy in charge also knows everything go to school / university. Teachers and professors will do the trick
To anyone who believes this person is wrong, why are you not then moderating instead? Someone has to, and a good mod who knows nothing on the topic is better than a bad mod who's an expert.
I think it's perfectly appropriate for anybody in an interest based community, mod or common user, to question their basic understanding of the subject. Even if the shared topic doesn't change, its context will — and the question of funding FLOSS development has very much been thrown into the mix again with the xz backdoor.
To be clear, I don't think there is a way to license your way out of supporting developers. Short of UBI or a FLOSS unionisation that the major tech corps will then need to acknowledge and negotiate standards with — I remain unconvinced. But I don't need to agree dogmatically with the mod in question to gain from their point of view.
Worse to me are users who do not have the capacity to reflect on their views, and clutch their pearls over "appropriateness" only when challenged on what are essentially beliefs rather than established fact. Add to those the "childish trolls" which make up varying percentages of any forum. With users like this, a good telling off is not only appropriate, it's necessary.
Wtf is this witch-hunt?!
The person asked a legitimate question and was being made fun of by some people, and downvoted to oblivion for completely legitimate viewpoints imo (wanting to make companies give back to foss). A mod should absolutely be allowed to call out childish behavior and herd mentality when they see it, they aren't supposed to be mindless drones after all! If anything they showed remarkable restraint when faced with some really nasty comments, mostly just stating/defending their opinion and trying to end toxic conversations.
Please just chill out, and accept that some people have different but equally valid opinions, even mods.
This is Lemmy, ml, and a software sub.
Chilling out is not physically possible.
This wasn't even a real question. They basically wanted a brainstorming session on how to write monetization contractually into FOSS, and when overwhelmingly told by the community that their idea was counter to the Libre movement, they argued and made rude comments to anyone that wouldn't budge.
People answered the question honestly: No such license exists for FOSS and never will. If they wanted to learn more about FOSS this was their chance.
This level of ignorance of what this community stands for and contempt for the users here is completely disqualifying for a moderator. The only saving grace here is that they didn't abuse their moderator powers - if they had it would be like kicking an anthill.
I don't want them banned or punished, but I absolutely question their value as a moderator here. It doesn't reflect well on this community that someone like this has power over what the users can and cannot say, given their own propensity to endorse anti-libre values and insult people who oppose the same.
We really must have read two different posts and sets of comments. All they did was to ask for a foss license that makes for-profit endeavors give back some of the money they earn by using foss projects, just like they have to give back code under most foss licenses. There is nothing bad about that general idea imo, we've hopefully all heard about the problems os projects have to sustain themselves, even when they are being used by commercially successful businesses.
They were then told by some levelheaded people that this doesn't really work with foss alone, and so accepted that the best course of action would be to dual-license their work going forward.
Everything else (including what you just wrote) is heavy projection and very toxic behavior by some people imo. Reading things between the lines that absolutely aren't there, accusing the OP of nefarious motives without any valid justification, claiming that there is only one correct way to do foss or be against "the community", and so on. That's cult and herd behavior, it has no place in foss imo, and that's pretty much exactly what the OP said when they called some of the more toxic responses childish.
I would encourage you again to realize that there is more than one valid way to think about foss, and that people who don't 100% agree with your way still aren't bad people!
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