Re: [libreplanet-discuss] support me

[Aaron Wolf]

FWIW, recognizing the world as being not all black and white, I will
readily admit that comments like this and bothering to show up on this
list at all certainly distinguishes GitLab and Sytse from the GitHub
folks (although they were already quite distinct).

There's certainly a bit of loss aversion bias here where we had a
platform that was AGPL and 100% libre and that's going down in favor of
an "open-core" or other alternatives that are less robust or otherwise
permissively licensed.

Had Gitorious never existed, we might see GitLab as imperfect but
generally welcome for going in the right direction. The concern is that
we're going now in the wrong direction.

Sytse: for some great perspective, check out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ItFjEG3LaA (for the purists here, sorry
for linking to YouTube). You can see why software-freedom folks feel on
the defensive. And while you are right that actions speak louder than
words, there are both actions and words that you can take that at least
distance GitLab even further from those who are actively working to
undermine software freedom. I encourage you to keep being present in
these conversations and figure out how to build trust as an ally more,
even if you make compromises that some folks may disagree with.

Best,
Aaron


On 03/06/2015 10:09 AM, Sytse Sijbrandij wrote:
> Hi hk,
> 
> Hope you don't mind the reply to all. Dmitriy and me (founders of
> GitLab B.V.) strongly believe that global cooperation is a much
> stronger business model than competition without collaboration. We may
> disagree on tactics such as what license is best for GitLab and our
> use of an open core business model. But I think that we both want to
> see more freedom and collaboration in software development. We admire
> greatly what Mr. Stallman and the FSF have done and continue to do for
> the world.
> 
> Best regards,
> Sytse Sijbrandij
> CEO GitLab B.V.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 9:35 AM, hellekin <hellekin@gnu.org> wrote:
> On 03/06/15 12:45, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>>>>
>>>> AGPL is a must for stuff like web services
>>>>
> *** +1
> 
> I would expect Gitlab to stand for software freedom and shutdown this
> controversy.  Gitlab is a great step away from Github, as it offers
> self-hosting.  But if Sytse Sijbrandij won't distinguish himself from
> Tom Preston-Werner, the march towards software freedom stops there.
> 
> The comment highlighted earlier [0] by the Libreboot team, saying that
> "MIT [...] has the least amount of restrictions for everyone" makes it
> clear who "everyone" is (not us).  The arguments supporting the license
> switch away from "MIT" to a proprietary license for Gitlab EE [1] build
> on the same bullshit arguments that the open-source people use(d)
> against free software: *confusion with price*.
> 
> Then the FSF should take extra care to provide a working narrative that
> can convince business-oriented people that in the 21st Century, global
> cooperation is a much stronger business model than competition.
> 
> With the honorable end of Gitorious enabled by Gitlab Inc., the free
> software community has an opportunity to gather around the AGPL banner
> and build long term trust in a cooperative platform for sharing code.
> Or to divide again and split the effort to duplicate once more the same
> functionality.
> 
> When Gitlab appeared as a Github clone, I was very happy, because Github
> was way way better than the existing Web-based code repositories (and
> still is for the most part).  Gitlab was a big surprise as they caught
> up on Github.  The Gitlab EE license switch was a terrible decision, but
> since the Gitlab CE moved on, providing much better functionality than
> SF.net (eaten by some corporation), GNU Savannah (stalling in the
> distant past), or Gitorious (ranging from clunky to unusable), it was
> still better than nothing.
> 
> Can we think like we're in the 21st Century, and make software freedom
> work (and earn) for itself, or are we going to waste more time and
> energy believing in the superiority of proprietary software for
> sustainable business?  Where is the FSF narrative for GNU Business?  Why
> is it so difficult for Fortune 100 companies to accept the idea that
> (A)GPL is good for their business?
> 
> ==
> hk
> 
> [0]:
> https://about.gitlab.com/2015/03/03/gitlab-acquires-gitorious/#comment-1885545097
> [1]: https://about.gitlab.com/2014/02/11/gitlab-ee-license-change/
> 
>