Week 12
Week of April 7
Monday
Updates to Linux kernel TCP
Many of these are from medium.com/@likid_geimfari/the-list-of-interesting-open-source-projects-2daaa2153f7c.
github.com/dosyago/BrowserBox,
dosyago.com
This is a kind of remote browser. It might not display the full rendered content of the page, but you can use it to make remote browser GET/POST requests, and get the results. Results by default are downloaded to the remote server, but it is straightforward to fetch them from there; security-scanning is recommended. (For a while the github page had a "WTF is this?" section, which was added a week or so after the project first went up (the readme continues to expand rapidly).)
BrowserBox appears now to be a fully commercial product, but originally there was an "open version" that was more or less a trial version. It's not time-limited, and you did get source, but it is not quite open-core.
Things to look at:
What do you think of that license?
The argument here is that these are just various "source-available" licenses. They do state outright that "Polyform is not ... Open source or free software."
Licenses to look at:
They give a list of related licenses:
commonsclause.com: an add-on license (to any "permissive" open-source license) that restricts sale, but still allows forking.
Elastic license (www.elastic.co/licensing/elastic-license): note the "Copyright" and "Limitations" sections. You do get to fork the original project, subject to the Limitations, which here are relatively substantial. Can you rewrite the portions of code covered by the license key, so the functionality is available without a license? Looks that way to me, though that might be a big project.
Also, the Elastic license is another Magical Thinking license: "By using the software, you agree to all of the terms and conditions below."
Confluent license (docs.confluent.io/platform/current/installation/license.html): Note the Developer (no time limit, but "single-broker") and Trial (30-day) licenses. No copyright rights are extended by the license.
Some open-source projects and how they communicate
A python plotting library
Has CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. Also migration-guide.py, for users
Monetization: https://plotly.com/consulting-and-oem/
Lower down, there is a "contributing to plotly" link and a "Community forum" link.
Most recent update is 5 years ago; most are 9+ years ago
Project Abandoned
An astrophysics library for Python
Has a contributions page at www.astropy.org/contribute.html
At www.astropy.org/team.html there is quite a discussion about the project organization. There is a very long list of contributors, and a list of around ~45 voting members.
Don't delete it! Even if your antivirus tells you to. See daniel.haxx.se/blog/2023/04/24/deleting-system32curl-exe.
www.infoworld.com/article/3694090/amazon-s-quiet-open-source-revolution.html.
At least they are no longer fighting open source so strongly.
As told by Lars Wirzenius, classmate of Linus.
Usenet played a role.
lwn.net/SubscriberLink/928581/841b747332791ac4
How did they manage to make so much money selling Linux? IBM bought the company for $34 billion in 2018.
See opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only-worked-red-hat.
Red Hat started when Linux was novel (March 1993; Linux didn't start until August 1991), and RH offered support. They supported all the weird "system-administration" stuff. At this point, that's easily found online and is often automated.
The OpenCoreVentures argument is that selling support collects pennies per dollar of added value (their term: "low rake"). VCs are not interested in that kind of business model.
In any event, it seems clear nobody today is going to be able to start selling Linux.