In Defense of FOSS

Dev Community Dev/API Corner
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So lately i’ve been starting to see more than a few posts around here (usually threadjackers) requesting that plex go paid/closed source, and while im sure they are meant in the best of intentions and they only reflect the the writers’ limited exposure to the world outside microsoft and apple, they do espouse a quite antiquated worldview that can have a bit of a toxic effect on the community, so i thought i’d share some answers on why free open source is good for plex and good for You.



(i’ll spare you the obvious points on transparency and accountability and whatnot and the hippie/commie sounding richard stallman stuff about ‘value != price’ and speech vs beer.)



1.


Congratulations! You CAN pay for it! There is a big yellow donate button on the main page where *if you so choose* you can pay for plex however much you value it. the important thing is that plex is available to everyone regardless of wether or not you choose to (or are able to) contribute.

(tangentially at issue in the sentiment of quotes like that is also the US centric worldview that in this age of the internet can only be seen as slightly ignorant. plex is localized in several dozen languages and its userbase demographics are the most broadly international i've ever seen, made possible largely because its open and free.)

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Being free and open source allows the project to continue to exist and evolve *regardless of wether or not its something you can build a successful business model around*. The livelihood of the project is not dependent on its profit potential.

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Open source does not *preclude* commercial success and certainly doesnt prevent anyone from making a living at it (linux is BIG business these days, and mozilla while non-profit makes most of its operating budget from search deals with google, there are many ways to bring in money while still keeping it free and open)

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It's good for the long term growth of the project and the intrests of the community, every user is a potential developer/contributer, and every developer is working on plex because they use it every day themselves. the open nature of plex creates a very vibrant community around the project, and a project that is literally built by the community of users is far more likely to be developed around the needs and long term satisfaction of said users than a commercial venture where users are just a revenue stream.


So in conclusion, Open Source stops wars, creates jobs, saves lives, and most of all is good for users. Plex in all its awesomeness couldn't exist without it, if you want to see what Plex would look like as a closed/paid/profit driven app, try windows media center.

its 2010 bitches, GPL is sexy, and the world is realizing that Linus was right all along.
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All good points maybe you should all try and get elan to implement it for Plex Media Server. Because the other advantage of Open Source is for example, If elan gets hit by a bus and killed tomorrow that pretty much stops other people working on plex because the source is all closed up

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lol :lol:

I'm sure elan would be touched to hear you say that. :P
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I’m not sure if touched is the right word :slight_smile:

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Maybe I just don’t visit the right (wrong?) threads, but why would someone EVER propose taking an open source project and closing off the source? Heck, not even companies like Red Hat - which make serious money off their work - do something that dumb. Now I certainly understand the advantages of keeping source closed on projects, and the vast majority of closed source programs will never open source, but I find it even less likely that open source would go closed. What’s the point? So you can have even fewer people helping out? Even if you did, people would just fork the last release and leave you to rot (witness what happened to XFree86, and that was just a minor licensing dispute).



I just can’t fathom why anyone would propose such a thing.

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Not only is closing GPL’d source a dumb idea, it violates the license :slight_smile:

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I don't want to start a flame war, but while open source is sexy, this is why I don't terribly like the GPL, as I find it far too limiting. If you want real freedom, go BSD licensed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses). You'll ensure your work sees the widest use possible, the code is still open as can be, those who would have given back under GPL will continue to, and those that would have avoided your code due to licensing incompatibility will still get to use your code. I feel it keeps software moving forward, as good code can now be used as widely as possible, whereas GPL code can only be used in other GPL projects. There's very little I dislike more than wasted effort, so if I put a lot of work into something, I want to see it used - and I don't care much by whom and for what.

But of course, just my view, and I can't say I've contributed much of anything under any license, so take it for what it's worth (i.e., not much :) ).
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I tend to agree with you, diamondsw. Much of the open source code in the Apple community is usually BSD/APSL licensed, which is, as you say, more free than GPL.

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It doesn't really matter anyway because in the end its not elans choice plex uses XBMC as its base code and XBMC and dozens of other projects it uses for many things like playback are all gpl so until he does a complete re-write of everything from scratch he has no choice but to remain GPL. that is why he is moving lots of the stuff out to plex media server to gain better control (among other things I guess)
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My gut says it's because things are in flux. I know there are myriad times I've written code with comments along the lines of "// FIXME: This is really ugly and a hack, but it works for now" or "// FIXME: I know this isn't the best way to structure this, but dependency x and bug y are forcing the issue". Sometimes you don't want people to see it because you know full well that it needs to be cleaned up, and you also don't want people basing new code on things that are very likely to change rapidly.

Given how tied in Plex Media Server is with the changes going on in Plex 0.9, I'd certainly believe that PMS is also in a state of heavy, heavy flux.
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yeah, without putting words in anyone’s mouth, i do believe pms is closed because the api and even the underlying design and scope are in such daily flux still. if i had to guess (and i’m not speaking for anyone but myself here) i’d say it probalby will get released under some sort of open source license eventually, maybe after version 1.0.



and yeah, gpl vs bsd is pretty personal choice, and both have different merits depending on the project. myself personally, i slap a gpl notice on every little scrap of code i write (which isnt all that much), because i think gpl gives significant legal protections beyond what bsd does, not the least of which is requiring that derivative products remain open. plus with something with as large as plex, using a bsd type license really cripples you in terms of what upstream dependencies you can use.

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People usually want open source app to go closed source so they can demand fixes and features. as it is now all one can do is hope developer has same use for XYZ feature you want/need otherwise its not gonna get fixed/implemented.



This is also true for plugins. Sometimes plugins are broken/limited for weeks/months and if it were paid app or plugin it wouldnt make paying customers happy which in turn would A ) be fixed ASAP or B ) app/plugin wouldnt get returning customers.



All in all i dont care either way. I just hope Plex can find a way to to make money for developers… plugin subscriptions, XYZ paid extra feature, hardware or whatever to keep existing developers happy coding and bring in some new ones.

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