Is it appropriate for someone to be a mod here when they don't understand open source, and insult users in the community? : opensource

[–] shrugal@lemm.ee 48 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago

This is Lemmy, ml, and a software sub.

Chilling out is not physically possible.

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[–] EunieIsTheBus@feddit.de 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] OmanMkII@aussie.zone 15 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 27 points 7 months ago

I didn't bother responding to that post because i assumed it was a troll...

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] chebra@mstdn.io 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@onlinepersona soooo.. any non-obfuscated javascript is open-source according to you? That doesn't make much sense.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How does it not make sense?

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[–] chebra@mstdn.io 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

@onlinepersona Wait, you really think any non-obfuscated javascript code is open-source?

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wait... you think somebody's minified JS committed to a repo is opensource? 😅

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[–] chebra@mstdn.io 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@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.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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 🤷

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] chebra@mstdn.io 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@onlinepersona 🤦‍♂️ ok, that explains everything...

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

If you think copyright is great, good for you 👍

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[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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?

.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

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.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] chebra@mstdn.io 1 points 7 months ago

@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?

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[–] TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I didn't even notice that was a mod. Disgraceful honestly. I was surprised to see that post still up after the poster continuously and deliberately misunderstood what FOSS means. Like its fine if you want to make open source software without a free license, but at least recognize the difference when people spell it out for you, or at the very least don't be rude about it.

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] SheeEttin@programming.dev 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"childish trolls in this community", "this community is full of trolls", "90% of folks here dont get the issue and rather troll"

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's insulting? Quite civil words, compared to the words the community he is describing, use in that thread.

[–] SheeEttin@programming.dev 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yes. And that doesn't excuse it; a moderator should be better than the community they moderate.

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 8 points 7 months ago

Nah, they are average human beings

[–] halm@leminal.space 6 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 16 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] fafff@lemmy.ml 13 points 7 months ago

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 !opensource@lemmy.ml. 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.

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 11 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] halm@leminal.space 10 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] pe1uca@lemmy.pe1uca.dev 5 points 7 months ago

I'd say yes for the first part, no to the second.

And expert or someone knowledgeable may not have the time to invest in a community. A mod is a volunteer who helps ensure rules are followed and we can have a place to discuss about a topic.

But a mod insulting the community is a different problem. It's doing something which they should be helping mitigate.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Thanks. They are no longer a mod of this community. (I wrote this comment to them and they did not reply.)

[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

Am I missing something, ~~gnu~~ gpl is a licence, Foss a philosophy, is ~~gnu~~ gpl licence Foss? And if so why are so many people saying charging for software isn't Foss when Richard stalman himself makes the point "This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”"

Sorry if I got this wrong I am generally confused by this hole thing.

[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

GNU is not a license, it's a project, one that practically spearheaded the whole FOSS movement back in the 80s. The programs that were part of the GNU project were licenced under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which was originally written by Richard Stallman, and evolved over time to its current version, GPLv3 (now backed by the Free Software Foundation). So the "GPL" is the actual license that can be applied to any program, should the developer choose to do so (so it's not limited just to the GNU project).

All GPL licenced programs are considered to be FOSS. However, FOSS can also imply other licenses such as MIT, LGPL, Apache etc. Most of them are kinda similar, but the way but differ slightly on how permissive/restrictive it is when it comes to modifications and derivatives.

why are some many people saying charging for software isn't Foss when Richard stalman himself makes the point "This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”"

As you said, it's not about the price at all, the "free" means freedom. Specifically, the GPL explicitly states that you may charge money for the software. Other free software licences also generally state something similar.

The confusion regarding selling is best explained by the FSF:

Selling a copy of a free program is legitimate, and we encourage it.

However, when people think of “selling software,” they usually imagine doing it the way most companies do it: making the software proprietary rather than free.

So unless you're going to draw distinctions carefully, the way this article does, we suggest it is better to avoid using the term “selling software” and choose some other wording instead. For example, you could say “distributing free software for a fee”—that is unambiguous.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Also, just to be clear, opensource =/= FOSS. Opensource just means that the source code is available, FOSS however implies that you're free to modify and redistribute the program (+ some other freedoms/restrictions as per the specific license used).

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Opensource just means that the source code is available, FOSS however implies that you’re free to modify and redistribute the program

Incorrect. "Open Source" also means that you are free to modify and redistribute the software.

If the source code is merely available but not free to modify and/or redistribute, then it is called source-available software.

[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Incorrect. "Open Source" also means that you are free to modify and redistribute the software.

Not necessarily true - that right to modify/redistribute depends on the exact license being applied. For example, the Open Watcom Public License claims to be an "open source" license, but it actually doesn't allow making modifications. This is also why we specifically have the terms "free software" or "FOSS" which imply they you are indeed allowed to modify and redistribute.

I would recommend reading this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago

Not necessarily true - that right to modify/redistribute depends on the exact license being applied.

If you don't have the right to modify and redistribute it (and to do so commercially) then it does not meet the definitions of free software or open source.

For example, the Open Watcom Public License claims to be an “open source” license, but it actually doesn’t allow making modifications.

The Sybase Open Watcom Public License does allow making modifications, and distributing modified versions. The reason why the FSF has not approved it is that it requires you to publish source code even if you only wanted to run your modified version yourself and didn't actually want to distribute anything to anyone. (The Watcom license is one of the few licenses which is approved by OSI but not FSF. You can see the other licenses which are approved by one but not the other by sorting this table.)

The FSF's own AGPL license is somewhat similar, but it only imposes the requirement if you run the software for someone else over a network. (Neither of these requirements are likely to be enforceable by copyright law, as I explained in my comment about the AGPL in the thread which this thread is about...)

This is also why we specifically have the terms “free software” or “FOSS” which imply they you are indeed allowed to modify and redistribute.

I would recommend reading this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

I would recommend that you re-read that, because it actually explains that the two terms refer to essentially the same category of software licenses (while it advocates for using the term free software to emphasize the philosophical aspects of those licenses).

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