I’ve toyed with the idea of open sourcing the product. I reached the conclusion that it’s not the approach for two main reasons:
- I believe in a strong, centralised product vision and execution
- The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back
I’m a strong advocate of interoperability and open data formats. The Monodraw data format is not proprietary and I do have plans for a plain text format (currently, it’s just zipped JSON which doesn’t play nice with VCS).
Interoperability is key to competition and avoiding lock-in, so I’ll push in that direction as my time permits.
I understand your concerns about open-sourcing the codebase and won’t try to convince you otherwise. It’s your code.
That said, I would like to share my perspective on the subject, having given some thought to if/how I should open source my code. I don’t feel that I have any ground to stand on if I were to choose not to open source my code. That same code would be uploaded to the internet using a web browser or other tool that is open source. That code is probably compiled or interpreted by a tool that’s open source. For me, it all runs on an operating system that’s open source. Nearly everything that I am able to do as a software developer is built on the shoulders of giants who, out of kindness and conviction in their beliefs, chose to make an entire ecosystem of software available to the world, with source code available, free of charge. I feel that I owe it to the world to pay that legacy forward.
Aye, but you're commenting on a Mac program, which is necessarily developed on a closed, anti-competitive system (and in the context of that ecosystem, accepting it as normal). GP lives in a much darker world than you.
> I believe in a strong, centralised product vision and execution
Fair point! I'm reminded of this quote from Jaron Lanier:
> Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or like Adobe’s Flash—the results of proprietary development? Why did the adored iPhone come out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth?
>An honest empiricist must conclude that while the open approach has been able to create lovely, polished copies, it hasn’t been so good at creating notable originals. Even though the open-source movement has a stinging countercultural rhetoric, it has in practice been a conservative force.
I love free software, yet most of the software I use is proprietary. (I consider my own apathy as contributing to the problem...)
As for this point,
- The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back
an interesting example is Jason Rohrer, who has open sourced all (?) his games.
The way he got around this is that he made a multiplayer game, where the $20 in effect gave you access to the main server. People indeed repackaged his game, sold it on other platforms etc. Yet last I checked, he was doing better than ever. (Probably cause he keeps pushing out updates to keep the game interesting.)
Not sure how well this works for "single-player software", although Aseprite seems to be doing all right. (Though technically not free software anymore, despite being open-source...)
Nitpick: Aseprite is source-available, not open source by the Open Source Initiative's definition. From the Aseprite EULA [1]:
> (g) Source code.
> You may only compile and modify the source code of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT for your own personal purpose or to propose a contribution to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
The OSI's definition of open source [2] permits distribution of unmodified and modified copies (with the exception of lone, unmodified copies; I read somewhere that adding a hello world program is a workaround):
> 1. Free Redistribution
> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
...
> 3. Derived Works
> The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
"free software" is ambiguous to English speakers/writers, but "open source" is ambiguous in its own way.
By the way, there is a "Fork of the last GPLv2 commit of Aseprite" called Libresprite [3].
A license wouldn't stop the unscrupulous people, they'll keep making clones of it and ignoring the license.
This means I have to start chasing any clones, engage legally and try to take them down. It's just not worth the time - I would rather spend the time on improving Monodraw instead.
If unscrupulous people are willing to ignore the license anyway, wouldn't they just hex edit to change the branding to sell clones even while it's closed source?
There's a cost to open-sourcing code. It takes effort. You must write documentation and clean up your code in many ways. It's good to "clean up code" of course but is that the most urgent thing on your task-list?
Who should pay for that effort? The original author? Yes if they think it's worth it and they can afford to spend the time on it.
There's also a risk whenever you publish source-code, someone might sue you for copyright infringement, or patent violation, etc.
(2) people are not able to do anything about that.
(Bus factor == 1, etc.)
Based on the other comments in the thread, I'm sure there are people who would love to contribute.
(Worth pointing out that making something open source isn't zero-maintenance by any means, especially since GitHub still doesn't let you disable pull requests...)
