Gap: Postgres is among the best examples of a capture-resistant project. @craigkerstiens.com wrote this up on LinkedIn just the other day: “The Postgres core team is intentionally comprised of less than 50% of people from a single company.” Worth citing.
Gap: @opensourcepledge.com and https://thanks.dev are examples worth mentioning of efforts to increase corporate “legibility” for paying maintainers. See e.g. @vlad.website's recent talk at FOSDEM:
Quibble: Relicensing is not incontrovertibly harmful. @dirkriehle.bsky.social makes the case (based on decades of research) that we should celebrate(!) relicensing. One way or another, a position worth engaging:
Quibble: Open Source has *never* been only “an association of motivated individuals, volunteering their time and labor, or an independent values-based collective.” Open Source was born precisely as a tenuous alliance of corporate and community interests. Deep dive:
Quibble: Single-vendor control need not always be a “warning sign” against contributing. I have no regrets, for example, about contributing to single-vendor @plausible.io. I am quite happy to let them maintain it for me in perpetuity. ;-)
Comments
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/craigkerstiens_postgres-is-built-different-postgres-is-activity-7293357147428425728-8Uw4/
https://opensourcepledge.com/blog/why-companies-should-pay-open-source-maintainers-FOSDEM/
https://dirkriehle.com/2023/10/12/lets-celebrate-relicensing-from-an-open-source-to-a-proprietary-license/
https://openpath.quest/2024/the-historical-case-for-fair-source/
The official naming narrative can contribute to forgetting the corporate/community tension that was there well before OSI.
https://github.com/plausible/analytics/pull/386
Let the individual decide.