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The Redis thing underscores a key point: _open source is not enough_. We need _community built software_ -- free and open source licenses are just one aspect of that.
If a company requires you to assign copyright (or equivalent re-licensing rights) in an asymmetrical way, they will inevitably eventually decide to take that option once they want to cash in on the goodwill you've built for them (let alone the code).
Indeed, there are four levels of open:
- Open source - under an OSI license
- Open community - may accept contributions
- Open governance - adds contributors to become maintainers
- Open brand - trademark is owned by a nonprofit foundation
I'm not really fond of that list.
Particularly:
* I don't think these are "levels", but rather some (but not all) aspects of openness.
* I don't see how "may accept contributions" relates to "open community" — I mean, they seem unrelated, not just a framing I would put differently
Also: "adds contributors to become maintainers" doesn't make sense to me. Can you explain what that means and how it relates to governance?
And: a nonprofit foundation could own a brand and use and license it in a non-open way (and indeed, this is common — see Mozilla and LibreOffice). Conversely, a for-profit corporation or government entity could own a brand but have some form of open licensing or governance.
"Apache" is another prominent example of non-open trademark control by a non-profit foundation.
How so? Or rather: what are you getting at, since I'm not following.
Reference: https://apache.org/foundation/marks/responsibility
It's not *bad* — it's just not _open_.
https://apache.org/foundation/marks/faq/#products
(See also the "iceweasel" thing.)
Iceweasel has zero to do with the ASF, so not a useful example.
"Open brands" is not the perfect word, I agree, since "open" really can't apply to trademarks (well, at least not for long!). But "Open" hints at brand governance for the community itself, not for a single for-profit corporation.
Is there a bigger argument, or just terminology here?
Trademarks can't really be open the same way code is, but they can be managed for the public good, not for profit.
> Trademarks can't really be open the same way code is, but they can be managed for the public good, not for profit.
That's exactly my point. I don't think that's related to openness _per se_.
Also, I think that it is possible for entities other than non-profit to mange trademarks in this way.
Sure, but I find "four levels of open" a simple and easy way to explain to newcomers why just the license isn't enough; the word 'open' is already overloaded so 
And it's *possible* that for-profits can manage trademarks for the greater good - it's just much less likely to work well over time. There are few assurances, even with public charity governance restrictions in tax law, but they certainly help greatly.
If you find it useful, that's cool. As I've said, it doesn't really mesh for me — not just the trademark thing.
ASF Model: contributors become committers. Committers can get elected to PMC, which then gives them a vote in governance over releases and future committers on that project. I.e. a project that includes new contributors in actual governance. "Maintainers" is an overloaded word, for sure.
And yes: nonprofits can be evil just like for-profits; however it tends in some ways to be harder, since they're not exposed to as many "chase the money" ideas as for-profit usually is.
@mattdm Who gets to be a maintainer has everything to do with governance. From the C4 governance specification:
> A “Contributor” is a person who wishes to provide a patch, being a set of commits that solve some clearly identified problem.
> A “Maintainer” is a person who merges patches to the project. Maintainers are not developers; their job is to enforce process.
[ . . . ]
> A new Contributor who makes correct patches, who clearly understands the project goals, and the process SHOULD be invited to become a Maintainer.
Thanks — it makes sense using those definitions. (It isn't the definitions we use in Fedora.)
@mattdm @shanecurcuru Oh right. Yes.
Maintainer in an upstream project and package maintainer in a distro are two very different roles.
And I don't think all upstream projects use that exact definition consistently.
Anyone have a list of the many definitions of "maintainer"?
Is there any better place to start looking than here?
Explicitly using level instead of aspect to show the common progression.
Open community is a project that actually accepts contributions from the community, based on value to project. Unlike some corporate open source projects that simply don't ever merge outside PRs or the like. Hence, the community of regular contributors might grow, rather than being static.
@shanecurcuru Right! They map somewhat to levels 2, 3, 5 and 6 here:
coiled.io/blog/stages-of-openn…
/by @mrocklin
/via fosstodon.org/@tacaswell/11214… @tacaswell
Concerns about multi-institution engagement also overlap with thoughts by @webmink on the counter-"rights ratchet" checklist[0], as well as the C4[1] and the Cooperative Technology manifesto[2] (f.k.a. "Communal Software").
There is an awareness in Open Source and Free Software that the license is nothing more than a legal-technical tool and the bare minimum, and the governance around the software development matters, but there is no singular named focus point and vision yet, the way Free Software was in the 80s and 90s, and Open Source was in the 00s and 10s.
Maybe we'll have one in the 20s if the MongoDB etc pattern keeps repeating.
[0] e.g. meshedinsights.com/2021/03/02/…
[1] zguide.zeromq.org/docs/chapter…
[2] cooperativetechnology.codeberg…