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  3. Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?

Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?

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  • jdaviescoatesJ jdaviescoates

    @mehdi said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

    No, I mean the app store part (what's installed on the Cloudron.io infrastructure) has never been open-source.

    But all the app packages themselves are open source, no?

    I think I'm missing something. Like @Lonk said, be good to get some greater clarity on the status quo.

    avatar1024A Offline
    avatar1024A Offline
    avatar1024
    wrote on last edited by
    #55

    @jdaviescoates Most but not all I don't think (TeamSpeak isn't, right?). Sorry I don't have a lot of time at the moment to contribute much but I think this is a very important conversion. At least in my circle, it's difficult to promote cloudron due to its licensing choice and I would need more info to explain / justify such a choice (and everyone of course wants the dev to get reliable income, people just think a free software license would not endanger the business model).
    Anyway, thanks for starting this thread. I will write more on the topic soon

    ruihildtR jdaviescoatesJ 2 Replies Last reply
    2
    • avatar1024A avatar1024

      @jdaviescoates Most but not all I don't think (TeamSpeak isn't, right?). Sorry I don't have a lot of time at the moment to contribute much but I think this is a very important conversion. At least in my circle, it's difficult to promote cloudron due to its licensing choice and I would need more info to explain / justify such a choice (and everyone of course wants the dev to get reliable income, people just think a free software license would not endanger the business model).
      Anyway, thanks for starting this thread. I will write more on the topic soon

      ruihildtR Offline
      ruihildtR Offline
      ruihildt
      wrote on last edited by ruihildt
      #56

      @avatar1024 Correct, not all apps are free software. It never was a requirement for apps to have a specific license to be packaged.

      It just happens that most apps available for packaging -and thus on which you can freely base a businees model on- are free software. šŸ˜

      murgeroM 1 Reply Last reply
      1
      • ruihildtR ruihildt

        @avatar1024 Correct, not all apps are free software. It never was a requirement for apps to have a specific license to be packaged.

        It just happens that most apps available for packaging -and thus on which you can freely base a businees model on- are free software. šŸ˜

        murgeroM Offline
        murgeroM Offline
        murgero
        App Dev
        wrote on last edited by
        #57

        @ruihildt said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

        It never was a requirement for apps to have a specific license to be packaged.

        Not to say that all licenses types can be packaged - the license for the app needs to allow free distribution of the software in order for us to package it.

        --
        https://urgero.org
        ~ Professional Nerd. Freelance Programmer. ~

        1 Reply Last reply
        1
        • avatar1024A avatar1024

          @jdaviescoates Most but not all I don't think (TeamSpeak isn't, right?). Sorry I don't have a lot of time at the moment to contribute much but I think this is a very important conversion. At least in my circle, it's difficult to promote cloudron due to its licensing choice and I would need more info to explain / justify such a choice (and everyone of course wants the dev to get reliable income, people just think a free software license would not endanger the business model).
          Anyway, thanks for starting this thread. I will write more on the topic soon

          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
          jdaviescoates
          wrote on last edited by jdaviescoates
          #58

          @avatar1024 said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

          @jdaviescoates Most but not all I don't think (TeamSpeak isn't, right?).

          Confluence and Emby too. Possibly others (I would still really like a filter in the app store for licences and LDAP support)

          But, I think the additional Cloudron code in the Cloudron packages for those apps is still MIT even for these non-open-source apps too.

          @avatar1024 said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

          At least in my circle, it's difficult to promote cloudron due to its licensing choice and I would need more info to explain / justify such a choice

          Same.

          @avatar1024 said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

          and everyone of course wants the dev to get reliable income, people just think a free software license would not endanger the business model

          Exactly.

          Although I'm still open to being convinced otherwise if there is some genuine risk I've not fully considered as a non-developer.

          @avatar1024 said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

          I will write more on the topic soon

          Thanks šŸ™‚

          I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

          1 Reply Last reply
          1
          • N Offline
            N Offline
            nilesh
            wrote on last edited by
            #59

            IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream. The access to code has stopped being the bottleneck. The problem is now centralization. We've seen this happen again and again with Redis, Elastic etc.

            The question is whether this risk is worth the developer contributions and user adoption that Cloudron is missing out by NOT being open-source.

            LonkleL scookeS jdaviescoatesJ 3 Replies Last reply
            0
            • N nilesh

              IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream. The access to code has stopped being the bottleneck. The problem is now centralization. We've seen this happen again and again with Redis, Elastic etc.

              The question is whether this risk is worth the developer contributions and user adoption that Cloudron is missing out by NOT being open-source.

              LonkleL Offline
              LonkleL Offline
              Lonkle
              wrote on last edited by
              #60

              @nilesh The devs seem to imply they don’t want code contributions but will allow them if it allows a new app in the store that couldn’t exist without them.

              That’s the vibe I’ve gotten anyway. I’ve written code contributions to box for my VPN Client app and plan to add contributions to dashboard. But I’ll let you guys know what happens.

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • N nilesh

                IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream. The access to code has stopped being the bottleneck. The problem is now centralization. We've seen this happen again and again with Redis, Elastic etc.

                The question is whether this risk is worth the developer contributions and user adoption that Cloudron is missing out by NOT being open-source.

                scookeS Offline
                scookeS Offline
                scooke
                wrote on last edited by scooke
                #61

                @nilesh I signed up way before there were the amount of developer contributions we can see now because what the Cloudron team could offer was already awesome. I've seen the forums get really busy with lots of dev suggestions; I've tried non-Cloudron submitted apps that didn't work out for this or that reason - even though some are still on offer, I'm not sure to what degree the Cloudron team has taken "full" responsibility for these dev-contributed apps, but it has all made me wonder just how much busier these contributions have made the Cloudron team, and to what detriment to existing users or road plans. Obviously the Cloudron team has a better picture of who the paying users are, but I suspect there are many like me. Don't get me wrong, I super appreciate the time outside devs and users have freely given to helping make the overall Cloudron platform broader, but the people I'm looking at getting to sign up and pay for Cloudron are more like me , though they have less awareness or interest in open-source in general, they do like things that work, and they like having ownership and control over their data (meaning we won't ever sign up with an AWS, GC or Azure-branded cloudron). My main concern is that Cloudron remains functioning to be able to offer their service.

                A life lived in fear is a life half-lived

                LonkleL 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • scookeS scooke

                  @nilesh I signed up way before there were the amount of developer contributions we can see now because what the Cloudron team could offer was already awesome. I've seen the forums get really busy with lots of dev suggestions; I've tried non-Cloudron submitted apps that didn't work out for this or that reason - even though some are still on offer, I'm not sure to what degree the Cloudron team has taken "full" responsibility for these dev-contributed apps, but it has all made me wonder just how much busier these contributions have made the Cloudron team, and to what detriment to existing users or road plans. Obviously the Cloudron team has a better picture of who the paying users are, but I suspect there are many like me. Don't get me wrong, I super appreciate the time outside devs and users have freely given to helping make the overall Cloudron platform broader, but the people I'm looking at getting to sign up and pay for Cloudron are more like me , though they have less awareness or interest in open-source in general, they do like things that work, and they like having ownership and control over their data (meaning we won't ever sign up with an AWS, GC or Azure-branded cloudron). My main concern is that Cloudron remains functioning to be able to offer their service.

                  LonkleL Offline
                  LonkleL Offline
                  Lonkle
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #62

                  @scooke That sounds spot on and the best demographic to go after. Since I’m just a dev that finds this stuff fun (not the target market); they still do go out of the way to help me which I think shows how much character both of them have. Which is another reason I’ve backed Cloudron so much.

                  I did want to ask what you meant by installing apps outside of the official AppStore and what was your experience with that?

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • N nilesh

                    IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream. The access to code has stopped being the bottleneck. The problem is now centralization. We've seen this happen again and again with Redis, Elastic etc.

                    The question is whether this risk is worth the developer contributions and user adoption that Cloudron is missing out by NOT being open-source.

                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                    jdaviescoates
                    wrote on last edited by jdaviescoates
                    #63

                    @nilesh said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

                    IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream.

                    Two things.

                    1. The scenario you describe is actually exactly what AGPL was designed to protect against, no? See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html and lots of relevant quotes from that and other write-ups in posts above.

                    Perhaps you're thinking of a different license?

                    But, also,

                    1. as I said above, I think the risk of someone cloning Clouron is MUCH higher from a small tech agency than the Tech Giants taking the code. The Tech Giants have unfathomable resources. If they wanted to reverse engineer Cloudron it would take an unimaginably tiny fraction of their immense budgets.

                    I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                    ianhyzyI 1 Reply Last reply
                    1
                    • jdaviescoatesJ jdaviescoates

                      @nilesh said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

                      IMHO, there are serious problems with AGPL-licensed software that is hosted on servers - namely, it allows Amazon AWS , Google GCP, Microsoft Azure etc to take the code and start charging for it without contributing anything back to upstream.

                      Two things.

                      1. The scenario you describe is actually exactly what AGPL was designed to protect against, no? See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html and lots of relevant quotes from that and other write-ups in posts above.

                      Perhaps you're thinking of a different license?

                      But, also,

                      1. as I said above, I think the risk of someone cloning Clouron is MUCH higher from a small tech agency than the Tech Giants taking the code. The Tech Giants have unfathomable resources. If they wanted to reverse engineer Cloudron it would take an unimaginably tiny fraction of their immense budgets.
                      ianhyzyI Offline
                      ianhyzyI Offline
                      ianhyzy
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #64

                      @jdaviescoates The Fair Code license makes this explicit - I think it might work well here if they choose to go open-source. https://faircode.io/

                      ruihildtR 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • ianhyzyI ianhyzy

                        @jdaviescoates The Fair Code license makes this explicit - I think it might work well here if they choose to go open-source. https://faircode.io/

                        ruihildtR Offline
                        ruihildtR Offline
                        ruihildt
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #65

                        @ianhyzy Fair code is not a license, and it's not open source (OSI compliant).

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        2
                        • avatar1024A Offline
                          avatar1024A Offline
                          avatar1024
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #66
                          This post is deleted!
                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • marcusquinnM Offline
                            marcusquinnM Offline
                            marcusquinn
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #67

                            Just dropping this link here for inspiration while I remember: https://ghost.org/about/

                            Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
                            Development https://brandlight.org
                            Life https://marcusquinn.com

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            3
                            • marcusquinnM Offline
                              marcusquinnM Offline
                              marcusquinn
                              wrote on last edited by marcusquinn
                              #68

                              Reference the above and thinking out loud; I'm thinking to turn our efforts on the whole Brandlight WP/Woo stack, and probably wider peripheral development & maintenance business, into a Foundation.

                              Mostly for simplicity and arguments' sake, team, users & contributors become beneficiaries. Better trust for what happens with income & expenses.

                              I'm sure there's other advantages I need to research too but mostly a deceleration to the world that the work is for the quality of the products and no-one's looking for a quick-flip or windfall, just sustainable satisfaction and protection to keep on evolving.

                              Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
                              Development https://brandlight.org
                              Life https://marcusquinn.com

                              robiR 1 Reply Last reply
                              3
                              • marcusquinnM marcusquinn

                                Reference the above and thinking out loud; I'm thinking to turn our efforts on the whole Brandlight WP/Woo stack, and probably wider peripheral development & maintenance business, into a Foundation.

                                Mostly for simplicity and arguments' sake, team, users & contributors become beneficiaries. Better trust for what happens with income & expenses.

                                I'm sure there's other advantages I need to research too but mostly a deceleration to the world that the work is for the quality of the products and no-one's looking for a quick-flip or windfall, just sustainable satisfaction and protection to keep on evolving.

                                robiR Offline
                                robiR Offline
                                robi
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #69

                                @marcusquinn Like a .coop too.

                                Conscious tech

                                marcusquinnM 1 Reply Last reply
                                2
                                • robiR robi

                                  @marcusquinn Like a .coop too.

                                  marcusquinnM Offline
                                  marcusquinnM Offline
                                  marcusquinn
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #70

                                  @robi Maybe, I don't know much about either - but living in Jersey, I know Trusts and Foundations are in many ways big business as much as Companies.

                                  Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
                                  Development https://brandlight.org
                                  Life https://marcusquinn.com

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • nebulonN nebulon

                                    Thanks for your elaborate post, we will answer in more detail, but till that, maybe the reversed question could also be asked to add more context your question: What are the hoped for benefits for users to have Cloudron under some open source license?
                                    Please note that the code as such is source available, so there is no benefit from an introspection and code verification point of view at least.

                                    ruihildtR Offline
                                    ruihildtR Offline
                                    ruihildt
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #71

                                    The meeting with Cloudron enthusisats we had on Workadventure and reading the following article by ERP Next developers made me remember about this thread.

                                    When this discussion started back in July 2020, nebulon said "we will answer in more details", but since then, we haven't heard from him and girish directly on whether Cloudron could become fully open source again.

                                    @nebulon @girish With the time passed and the discussions, is it a question you feel ready to answer?

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    5
                                    • marcusquinnM Offline
                                      marcusquinnM Offline
                                      marcusquinn
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #72

                                      I can't answer for Cloudron but if it were me, to go FOSS I'd want to split the functionality to a core FOSS package and commercial license for add-ons and support to protect the business IP.

                                      Similar to Freescout & EspoCRM, plus the standard CLA that's now common with FOSS.

                                      With that in mind, I don't know that gains would be quite what people would be hoping for since it's already source-available and any would-be contributor can already get involved with a free install.

                                      I can understand the ideology, but in practice, for me, the experience, enthusiasm and renumeration of the creators is more important to me for security of continuity.

                                      I'm sure the feature requests will eventually plateau, and the community supplement many more apps, at which time I guess that would afford more headspace for this.

                                      In the meantime, it's the coming features and apps that have most value to me, so I guess anything distracting from that is going to be an intermittent long range conversation.

                                      Sorry, I know you addressed the comment directly but I guess there's also other interests here that don't have this at the top of the wishlist still.

                                      Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
                                      Development https://brandlight.org
                                      Life https://marcusquinn.com

                                      LonkleL 1 Reply Last reply
                                      3
                                      • marcusquinnM marcusquinn

                                        I can't answer for Cloudron but if it were me, to go FOSS I'd want to split the functionality to a core FOSS package and commercial license for add-ons and support to protect the business IP.

                                        Similar to Freescout & EspoCRM, plus the standard CLA that's now common with FOSS.

                                        With that in mind, I don't know that gains would be quite what people would be hoping for since it's already source-available and any would-be contributor can already get involved with a free install.

                                        I can understand the ideology, but in practice, for me, the experience, enthusiasm and renumeration of the creators is more important to me for security of continuity.

                                        I'm sure the feature requests will eventually plateau, and the community supplement many more apps, at which time I guess that would afford more headspace for this.

                                        In the meantime, it's the coming features and apps that have most value to me, so I guess anything distracting from that is going to be an intermittent long range conversation.

                                        Sorry, I know you addressed the comment directly but I guess there's also other interests here that don't have this at the top of the wishlist still.

                                        LonkleL Offline
                                        LonkleL Offline
                                        Lonkle
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #73

                                        @marcusquinn said in Why not make Cloudron fully open source again?:

                                        I can understand the ideology, but in practice, for me, the experience, enthusiasm and renumeration of the creators is more important to me for security of continuity.

                                        I live and breathe open-source, but this right here is the most important for me in all projects I contribute to (longevity).

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        2
                                        • necrevistonnezrN Offline
                                          necrevistonnezrN Offline
                                          necrevistonnezr
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #74

                                          @nebulon @girish
                                          Just thinking out loud here but have you considered the consequences of MongoDBā€˜s license (SSPL = Server Side Public License) for apps on a Cloudron yet? I came across it at my work recently and it’s a quite drastic ā€žviralā€œ copyleft license:

                                          1. Offering the Program as a Service.

                                          If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Program or modified version.

                                          ā€œService Source Codeā€ means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.

                                          So I think it does not affect the Cloudron source code but potentially the source code on all apps using MongoDB.

                                          Overview: https://www.percona.com/blog/2020/06/16/why-is-mongodbs-sspl-bad-for-you/

                                          mehdiM marcusquinnM 2 Replies Last reply
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