If you've followed the recent (fake) news, you've probably already heard it. Oracle is "massively ramping up audits of Java customers it claims are in breach of its licences" After a quick check on the source (The Register), here's a more realistic, probably more accurate version of that headline: Oracle is thinking about auditing 1-2 … Continue reading What we Need is Standardised Non-OSS Licenses
Category: open-source
With Commercial Licensing, Invest in Innovation, not Protection
When people start creating commercially licensed software (like we did, in 2013 with jOOQ), there is always the big looming question: What do I do about piracy? I've had numerous discussions with fellow entrepreneurs about this topic, and this fear is omnipresent. There has also been a recent discussion on reddit, titled "prevent sharing of … Continue reading With Commercial Licensing, Invest in Innovation, not Protection
The 10 Things Everyone does Wrong when Committing Pull Requests
So, you've found a nice Open Source project that has added great value to your own work and you want to give back. Before we move on, let me stress that this isn't anything personal. This article doesn't criticise anyone particular, and the ranty tone is just for your reading entertainment. I do not want … Continue reading The 10 Things Everyone does Wrong when Committing Pull Requests
Yak Shaving is a Good Way to Improve an API
Yak Shaving (uncountable): (idiomatic) Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem. (idiomatic) A less useful activity done to consciously or unconsciously procrastinate about a larger but more useful task. Both interpretations of the term Yak Shaving as explained by Wiktionary are absolutely accurate … Continue reading Yak Shaving is a Good Way to Improve an API
Open Source Doesn’t Need More Support. It Needs Better Business Models
Jamie Allen, Typesafe's Director of Global Services published an interesting point of view on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamie_allen/status/557400131541020673 And he's right of course. We are constantly reminded of the fact that we should support FOSS projects on which we depend. Just recently, Wikipedia had this huge banner on top of it, asking for money, and we probably … Continue reading Open Source Doesn’t Need More Support. It Needs Better Business Models
Suis-je Groovy? No! What Pivotal’s Decision Means for Open Source Software
Today there was great news in the JVM ecosystem. Pivotal, the company who is committed to OSS has become a bit less committed: The reaction in the community were largely summarised by the hashtag #jesuisgroovy: https://twitter.com/jbaruch/status/557129532931469314 The interesting part in Pivotal's announcement is this one: The decision to conclude its sponsorship of Groovy and Grails … Continue reading Suis-je Groovy? No! What Pivotal’s Decision Means for Open Source Software
The Caveats of Dual-Licensing
We've been in business for more than one year now with our dual-licensing strategy for jOOQ. While this strategy has worked very well for us, it has also been a bit of a challenge for some of our customers. Today, we're going to show you what caveats of dual-licensing we've run into. Our dual-licensing strategy … Continue reading The Caveats of Dual-Licensing
The “Free”, “Standard”, “Open” Software Heresy
There are those people that have a strong, dogmatic belief in what they call "Free" or "Standard" or "Open" software. One of those individuals is Jimmie (let's call him Jimmie in this article) who has responded to an article about Java persistence by Marco Behler on TheServerSide. Let me cite Jimmie's response here: JPA is … Continue reading The “Free”, “Standard”, “Open” Software Heresy
Free as in Beer has caused Heartbleed (and Much More)
Heartbleed is a bit over one month old now. A bug significant enough to have its own Wikipedia page. Today, we're going to look into how wrong we have been in assuming that Open Source software is more secure than commercial software, because of our thinking that source code is open and that many developers … Continue reading Free as in Beer has caused Heartbleed (and Much More)
Open Source Completely Underestimates Contributor License Agreements
Reddit's /r/ProgrammerHumor has recently treated us to this politically incorrect and quite childish little Open Source rant Obviously, like most "discussions" on reddit and specifically those discussions about Open Source, things got quickly very serious with people referring to Richard Stallman and how these critiques are childish and immature and what's-wrong-with-our-industry™ etc. Let's not delve … Continue reading Open Source Completely Underestimates Contributor License Agreements