<story><title>PfSense Is Closed Source</title><url>https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>vinceguidry</author><text>I feel like by this point, in 2021, if you are a developer making contributions to &amp;quot;open source,&amp;quot; and you&amp;#x27;re still getting surprised by these sorts of shenanigans, you only have yourself to blame.&lt;p&gt;This happens So. Freaking. Often. Companies take open source software private All The Damn Time. They hire the key devs away with just enough money. Then they release another version under a different license. And before you know it a previously open source project is now all but closed source.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t even have to be with shenanigans this nefarious. Once you have the two or three devs all you have to do is release a value-added component and all but cripple the community one. &lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s roughly a million times cheaper than an acquisition.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want your hard-earned contributions to avoid this fate, &lt;i&gt;do not contribute to &amp;quot;open source&amp;quot; projects&lt;/i&gt;. Find a copylefted project and contribute to that. Otherwise your work &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; end up being coopted by a profit-seeking enterprise.&lt;p&gt;Open source is the domain of large companies building fiefdoms. Just look at all those Apache projects and who contributes to them and who they&amp;#x27;re for. You would have to pay me big bucks to contribute to that ecosystem.&lt;p&gt;GPL or bust.</text></comment>
<story><title>PfSense Is Closed Source</title><url>https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>35fbe7d3d5b9</author><text>This + all the hullabaloo around Amazon &amp;#x2F; Elastic should really remind developers to carefully consider the license that they apply to their software.&lt;p&gt;FreeBSD is licensed under the 2-clause BSD license.  The OpenBSD folks have a great license page where they explain their take on why two-clause BSD serves them well[1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; [...]putting code under an ISC or two-clause BSD license essentially makes the code as free as it can possibly get. Modifying the wording of these licenses can only result in one of the three following effects:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;    making the code less free by adding additional restrictions regarding its use, copying, modification or distribution;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;    or effectively not changing anything by merely changing the wording, but not changing anything substantial regarding the legal content;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;    or making the license illegal by attempting to deprive the authors of rights they cannot legally give away.&lt;p&gt;PfSense ought not lie about what they do, but it&amp;#x27;s important to note that they are &lt;i&gt;completely&lt;/i&gt; within their rights to take FreeBSD, extend it in any way they wish, and never share that back with the community.&lt;p&gt;Other licenses[2] feel differently, and before you release code to the world you should carefully consider where you fall.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.openbsd.org&amp;#x2F;policy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.openbsd.org&amp;#x2F;policy.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;licenses&amp;#x2F;agpl-3.0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;licenses&amp;#x2F;agpl-3.0.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>