The Future of Open Source

When the co-founder of GitHub tried to launch a new 'open source' company, the community revolted. Here's what he learned about the future of software.

#1about 3 minutes

The German jam regulation analogy for open source definitions

An analogy about German jam labeling laws illustrates how strict, historical definitions like those from the Open Source Initiative can conflict with common usage.

#2about 3 minutes

The challenge of licensing source-available software

Releasing a project like GitButler with a non-OSI compliant license, such as the Functional Source License, can lead to community backlash over the use of the term "open source".

#3about 4 minutes

A brief history of the free software movement

The free software movement, led by figures like Richard Stallman with the GPL, emerged in the 1980s as a reaction to companies closing the source code that was previously shipped with hardware.

#4about 3 minutes

The birth of the term "open source"

The term "open source" was coined in the late 90s to provide a pragmatic, business-friendly alternative to the politically charged "free software" movement, spurred by Netscape open sourcing its browser.

#5about 4 minutes

How Git and GitHub created corporate open source

Git and GitHub revolutionized open source by unifying the workflows for proprietary and public code, making it easy for companies to release and contribute to projects, leading to the era of corporate-driven open source.

#6about 4 minutes

The crisis of open source developer sustainability

Modern open source faces a sustainability crisis, highlighted by the XZ vulnerability, where critical projects rely on thankless, underfunded maintainers who are prone to burnout.

#7about 2 minutes

The rise of commercial open source and non-compete licenses

Companies like HashiCorp and Redis are adopting non-OSI, source-available licenses with non-compete clauses to protect their investment from large cloud providers who might otherwise offer their work as a competing service.

#8about 3 minutes

Proposing "Fair Source" and a call to action

The term "Fair Source" is proposed for projects with source-available, non-compete licenses, encouraging companies to adopt this model and support maintainers through initiatives like the OSS Pledge.