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dot20@lemmy.world 8 months agoIs Red Hat a conflict of interest? MongoDB (pre-2018)? Docker? Nginx? They all sell proprietary software alongside their open-source offerings.
Is it a conflict of interest that I can pay Plausible Analytics for a hosted version of their software, even though it’s open source? How about GitLab? How about Bitwarden?
If you take issue with companies selling products based on open-source software they created, there are a LOT more companies you should take issue with than just Automattic (who, as discussed, voluntarily spun off their trademarks into a non-profit, unlike the companies named above).
(Incidentally, even the Free Software Foundation encourages charging money for FOSS software.)
Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world 8 months ago
A for-profit business also offering an open-source software is not a conflict of interest and perfectly fine, and like you show, there are plenty of examples of this behavior.
However, what absolutely is a conflict of interest, and is scummy as fuck, is running an non-profit that actively works as an advertising platform for your for-profit business as well as making it intentionally confusing to people that there are two separate entities of a non-profit and for-profit while giving preferential treatment towards that business among other competitors in the market.
dot20@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So, all the companies I named and many more, then.
Go on, go on Docker’s or GitLab’s website, and let me know how clear the distinction between their proprietary and open-source software is.
Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Do people think that Docker is a non-profit? Is there a separate non-profit called “Docker.org” that runs over 43% of the Internet that the for-profit “Docker.com” (a separate entity) intentionally conflates with themselves and uses the non-profit organization to get a major advantage over many other for-profit businesses that sell hosting for Docker?
dot20@lemmy.world 8 months ago
No, it’s worse than that.
There is a separate open source project “Docker Engine” that runs 27% of containerized applications, that the for-profit “Docker Inc.” intentionally conflates with the proprietary, for-profit software “Docker Desktop” to get a major advantage over other for-profit businesses that sell tooling for “Docker Engine”.
To make matters worse, “Docker Inc.” still controls the “Docker Engine” project and “Docker” trademark. This contrasts with “Automattic”, which spun out the “WordPress” project and trademark into a separate entity “WordPress Foundation”.
Sorry, but I think this applies to you more than it does to me.
I’ll make one final attempt to spell it out. Mullenweg created WP and spun it out as a separate non-profit. Docker created Docker Engine and did not spin it out as a separate non-profit (which is the case for MOST companies that create open-source software).
I can’t put any more of a fine point on it, so this will be my last comment on the topic. Have a good day.