n8n is not open source and your project is gaslighting its users #40
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To clarify @ddevault's pretty aggressive post: the website at https://n8n.io/ describes n8n.io as Open Source Alternative for Zapier/tray.io. Based on the commonly understood definitions of "open source" - the open source definition from OSI or the free software definition from FSF - n8n.io is not "open source", as Commons Clause-licensed software does not meet their criteria. |
This project is not open source. I could not find the source for the website, but it will have to be updated as well. Fixes n8n-io#40
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I have filed a pull request which fixes this for the docs and README: The website will need to be updated as well. |
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Why is the issue (especially the note that he would be a coward) so emotionally charged and accusing? Though valid in its point about the license, I want to flag the first version of the original post as not adhering to the project's Code of Conduct nor good etiquette. |
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Because it threatens a fragile community which is near to our hearts, and does it out of blatant financial self-interest. And it seems that, since we're still talking about it here, the author has proven themselves not to be a coward. |
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And for the record, there is a way the author can get out of this while saving face: redact what they've said and be honest in their marketing material. I will be harsh on malicious attempts at subverting open source, but I'm not beyond forgiveness when the behavior is corrected. |
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I can see no reason to use this code in my projects if only YOU get to monetize it. You are blatantly lying to get attention and trying to lawyer yourself out of it. Why profit from the contributions of others only for yourself? Would have been great for my needs, but I have to eat. Thank you for wasting my and my client's time evaluating your product only to realize you lie on the front page and contradict yourself in the same breath. I urge all developers to boycott this project for its shady misleading practices. |
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It appears the language of the FAQ doesn't jive with the definition of the Commons Clause. A bit confusing. "May I create, distribute, offer as SaaS, and/or “sell” my products using Commons Clause licensed components? Yes! Commons Clause only forbids you from “selling” the Commons Clause software itself. You may develop on top of Commons Clause licensed software (adding applications, tools, utilities or plug-ins) and you may embed and redistribute Commons Clause software in a larger product, and you may distribute and even “sell” (which includes offering as a commercial SaaS service) your product. You may even provide consulting services (see clarifying discussion here). You just can’t sell a product that consists in substance of the Commons Clause software and does not add value. This is not a new concept. It’s similar to “value-add” requirements in many licenses. For example let’s say you use a library containing numerical algorithms from Rogue Wave Software. Can you create an application with the library and sell the application? Yes. Can you offer that application as SaaS and charge for it? Yes. Can you change the name of the library and change some function names and sell the library or offer it as SaaS? No. Let’s apply the example to Commons Clause licensed software. Commons Clause-licensed Redis Graph is a graph database module for BSD-licensed Redis. Can you create applications with Redis Graph and distribute and/or sell them? Yes. Can you redistribute Redis Graph along with your application? Yes. Can you offer that application as SaaS and charge for it? Yes. Can you take Redis Graph itself, call it ElastiGraph and offer it as SaaS and charge for it. No." |
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Honestly did not expect that people care THAT much about that. I simply fear that it confuses way more people than it helps. I myself have no idea at all what the term "source-available" really means and I assume that is the case for most people. But sure understand also your position. But I also think debating right now further about it would not help. I will think about it at least a night (maybe more) to make a decision. I advise also the other side to do the same to see and understand my side. If the decision is that I change it. Everything is solved anyway. If I decide to keep it we can proceed here. |
"Source available" is only a vaugely established term, unlike "open source" which has a very clear definition. Proponents of open source have been pushing "source available" to give an out to people who are trying to dillute our terminology with software that doesn't supply the freedoms at the core of the (non-negotiable, entirely clear) definition of open source software. Though the term "source available" is less well-known, that doesn't give you an excuse to misuse established terminology. If you think that using "open source" will get you a bigger market, then you'd be correct - but you can only access the open source market by being open source, and if you're not you don't get to use the term. |
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Hi, @janober. There's some history here that you're probably not aware of: For many years -- literally decades -- companies have tried to dilute the term "open source" by applying it to software licenses that don't offer the full set of freedoms that true open source offers. In fact, one of the main functions of https://opensource.org/ is to push back on these companies swiftly and thus preserve the recognizeable meaning of the term "open source". See https://opensource.org/faq#avoid-unapproved-licenses for more information. People depend on that meaning. When they know software is actually open source, then they can use it in a number of contexts without having to ask their lawyers to re-review the license terms (because the lawyers already reviewed all the open source licenses, years ago, and we have no need to dance that dance again). This really is selling lemonade and labelling it "milk". When people point out that you are doing that, you can sleep on it if you want, but there is no point trying to change the definition of the word "milk" so that it covers lemonade too. Everyone already agreed years ago what "milk" means. Please don't create your own private language and then try to persuade everyone that the terms we are accustomed to using actually mean something different from what we all mean by them. It's no different than if you claimed your software "reads email" when it doesn't actually have that feature. You wouldn't try to get out of that by saying that your definition of "read email" is different from everyone else's. Instead, you'd acknowledge that you'd used the words wrong and fix the wording -- at least, that's what I hope you'd do. I realize that @ddevault's reaction may seems strong, but that's because what you are doing innocently is a tactic that many others have done maliciously. Even if your intent was not malicious, the effect is the same: you are confusing the marketplace needlessly. A bunch of people will get home, open up the bottle, and be surprised to discover lemonade when they very clearly bought "milk". Don't do this to software developers. Please use words with the meanings they already have. Your software is not open source. Stop claiming it is. |
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@kfogel Thanks a lot for explaining that to me. Is very appreciated and really helpful and important for me to know to get some context. |
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Why open an issue with such aggressiveness, @ddevault? Why assume ill-intentions from the get go? EDIT: This is why -> https://docs.n8n.io/#/faq?id=is-n8n-really-open-source |
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I was initially upset by @ddevault 's aggressive tone but on reflection its probably a good thing - its generating even more strong feelings for the project. |
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There's absolutely no way this aggression is warranted @ddevault ! At least let the person turn out to be an evil villain before you treat them as one. Getting some seriously strong vibes that you just learned the term gaslighting recently too - if we're on misuse of words and phrases it might be worth brushing up on that term.. Even by your definition this is "lying" at best (source available), not "gaslighting" (open source) |
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It's correct that it recently occured to me that the term gaslighting was appropriate for this kind of misbehavior. However, my use of it is correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
Targetting the open source community, sowing seeds of doubt, questioning our memories of some kind of long-standing debate on the nature of the term "open source", trying to change our perception of the phrase... it fits pretty damn well. |
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I think @janober did it through inattention and ignorance, however, not with a consciously thought-out goal of destabilizing the term "open source" (unlike some others who have done it over the years). After this thread, if @janober doesn't fix it, well, then I would agree that inattention and ignorance can no longer be claimed, so it would be knowingly destructive behavior at that point. I don't know what time zone @janober is in, so I'm not assuming the commits to fix this would come in instantaneously, but still, they're pretty trivial, so it should be an easy fix assuming he wants to make it... |
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I came out with guns blazing because @janober has already demonstrated an awareness of the problem and declared they are unwilling to fix it: |
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Like written above I want to first properly think about it and then make a decision. I can totally understand your side but I think my original reasoning is still true. That why properly thinking about it seems like the right thing to do. And like written in the FAQ was my goal simply to communicate to the majority of the people what they are allowed to do with n8n. Did never cross my mind to destabilize the term "open source". Have way to much other stuff on my plate to also add that ;-) Btw. are in Berlin so is getting quite late here and have to get up early tomorrow. So will not be around much longer. |
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@ddevault: I see. I didn't know this existed. You may want to add that to the original post for context. I still think you'd get a bit further if you dropped the language. I started questioning whether I knew what the term gaslighting meant, which, in effect, would be gaslighting on your part. :) P.S. Is |
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@mjhea0 its 30k |
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Oh, I hadn't seen that. @ddevault has a point here. @janober, your "0.01%" in that FAQ item is, to put it mildly, wrong. A lot of devs, and a lot of companies, care very strongly about the actual definition. I myself only clicked on the link from Hacker News because it said open source -- so you already wasted my time, though I suppose I can't blame you entirely for all the followup time I've spent since then :-). Look, a lot of people who have a lot of experience with this issue are piling on and saying that your personal and idiosyncratic interpretation of the word "open source" is not shared by the professional software industry at large. All you have to do is search the Net to find out that this issue has come up before and been resolved -- in favor of the definition we are claiming -- every time. Fix the license, fix the home page, fix the FAQ, and then you won't be damaging the term "open source" anymore. |
The original reasoning describes a valid mode of thought about software development. These are reasonable problems to consider and you've come to reasonable conclusions. Taking these into account while developing software is a good thing, and source-available software is definitely better than entirely proprietary software. However, as just as your rationale may be for informing your software development philosophy, it doesn't change the fact that your software is not open source. If your conclusion from these (valid) points of view is that your software can lie about being open source, then that's where it stops being okay. |
Done. |
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// It reminded me of all these 'master-slave' renaming madness... |
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@janober This project will be valuable even if it isn't Open Source so don't feel too discouraged, but please change the wording or the license, it is misleading, and more importantly in this case, might encourage others to think it is OK. In this case it doesn't mean much to me as I was only looking to use it at home but there are a number of companies doing this in various ways and it is extremely annoying when it happens. It is also not so much that I'm are planning to sell support or hosting but that while other open source licenses are vetted by a number of parties and are well understood the commons clause will (rightly in my opinion) raise concerns in any serious company of any size. Also ddevault is worth listening to, he is also publishing open source software and has been doing so for a while and lives by his own rules as far as I can see. |
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@ddevault I think you are being intellectually dishonest. If you go on the repo it says "Open Source" in quotes and in the FAQ it's addressed as not being OSI-compatible. The developer is just trying to make a bit of money in a world where selling software has become obsolete and I see very little wrong with this. If he wants to use Open Source as a marketing term, who cares? Why are you so upset about something that has very little effect on you? Nowhere does n8n claim to be FOSS so I see very little wrong with this. |
I understand that @ddevault already outlined it in his posts - care comes from the people who have been coining and using the term to mean strictly what it meant so far, as defined by OSI and FSF.
He claims so right in the name, where he says his software is Open Source, and therefore it is FOSS, since FOSS means Free and Open Source Software. |
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Not a developer here: I find zapier and ifttt way too big and expensive and when i saw n8n it reminded me of the android app "Automate" and felt like a breeze of fresh air :) anyone here planning on creating anything like it that would be fully "open source"? I will be using n8n till then |
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The quoted sections of the SSPL should be enough to make anyone question whether running Windows servers to host a searchable database-as-a-service (via Elasticsearch) would require the company hosting that service to acquire Windows copyrights and release Windows source code as a free download for everyone using the service, given the requirements of the SSPL related to "management software, user interfaces, application programming interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software". I was going to only list the specific items from that list that applied to the specific case I described, but then I realized they could all be used as excuses to sue for not releasing Windows source code. The same applies to the GPL, the license for the Linux kernel, so what @andrewshadura said about Linux source is true just as with Windows source; you need to release all that source, too, under the terms of the SSPL, which is illegal according to the GPL. The GPL largely forbids license restrictions that do not exist in the GPL itself, and requires that any covered work be republished under GPL terms, which means not the SSPL. It has basically become illegal to host an Elasticsearch service on a technology stack that isn't copyfree licensed or already SSPL software, at least unless (and until) someone fights Elasticsearch on this at a probable cost of millions of dollars to establish the unenforceability of Elasticsearch. The one major exception to this situation is that Elastic itself can host it on anything at all, because the SSPL's terms do not limit the copyright owner for the work, only the recipients of the work who do not own its copyrights. This isn't an escalation of the war against corporations, as many seem to think. It's an escalation of the tactics used by corporate legal departments in trying to exploit the open source community to thelp kill commercial competition. It's anti-competitive behavior targeting competitors, and carving a subset of the open source community away to turn it into a source of free labor and marketing in the process. To a company like Elastic, the term "open source" is clearly just loss-leader marketing, getting market penetration and mindshare it can use to build its corporate market capture, and the SSPL looks like a great way to double down on that strategy because it seems to offer an excuse to get the same benefits without even being really open source any longer. |
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(Update: I'm no longer sure the above post accurately represents what happened in court; this interesting post explains why. I'm not a lawyer, and also have not taken the time to dive deeply enough into this more-complicated-than-I-originally-realized matter to feel I really understand it. I'd just delete my comment here if @blizz hadn't already responded to it, but since he has, I guess the responsible thing to do is to add this amendment.) |
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Thats good to know.
On Thursday, March 17, 2022, 12:46:36 PM MDT, Karl Fogel ***@***.***> wrote:
https://opensource.org/court-affirms-its-false-advertising-to-claim-software-is-open-source-when-its-not
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I actually also just came here to post this link which interprets that decision differently: Saw then, that you already added it also to your post, thanks a lot for that @kfogel! I now just post here anyway, as users do not get notified when posts get updated and it so probably got lost. |
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OSI public posts become evidence about their own bad activism and distance from the truth. Their post not only isn't accurate, it's misleading. They have the audacity to distort a court decision to make their point of view count, and I don't trust organizations with such behavior. From now on, the explanation from Kyle E. Mitchell is a must read for everyone that wants to say any opinion about open source, licenses, OSI, etc. |
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It looks like the court decided it couldn't be free and open source software because it violated copyright law, and whatever violates copyright law is not legally distributable -- which means it's not legally distributable even if you stick an open source license on it. There's a weird bit of dancing around, saying the AGPL is open source and, therefore, the software itself is open source with the AGPL applying, regardless of whether other terms restricted those open source terms. An interesting side effect of all this appears to be a deep undermining of a mainstay of GNU licensing policy (which doesn't entirely bother me, but it's interesting). what a mess |
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Make it MIT. |
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@briannezhad With all due respect, you are free to create a big and complex project inspired on n8n, invest your time and money, and later on give it the MIT license, if you want. It is very easy to want to dictate rules in the work of others (effort, sweat, time, money). But it's very, very difficult to have the same discipline to do work that's as good as others work which achieved success because of their excellence. |
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@paulocoghi You are telling me n8n has fully funded its developers since the project started? |
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@briannezhad The license was always crystal clear and any external contributor only provides a contribution if he agrees with the license. If you do not want to contribute to a software because you don't agree with its license, you are completely free to do so. Simple as that. |
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That is true. I feel n8n could have been something bigger; MIT was a little joke; too much freedom if what you are describing is accurate. Maybe a GNU Public License would be better because the community could have made it to something very big since RPA is becoming a thing in the Tech field. I wish everyone good luck on n8n team. I have found an alternative (not naming here, as that is not ethical to n8n developers) to this with an MIT license. |
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I appreciate the polite response, something that were lost on this thread many times. I wish you lucky with the other project, and success to any good and ethical project, including n8n. |
@briannezhad could you please mention the alternative you redacted? I am looking for an open-source alternative to n8n. I think it's okay to mention it here, in the spirit of free speech. Some FOSS (or partially FOSS) alternatives:
Hope this list is helpful to anyone looking for FOSS in this space! |
Free speech is meaningless unless you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like. Otherwise it's irrelevant. In this thread, free speech died a long time ago. The author of this library tried to label his software open source when the source is open and completely free to use, even in business environment, only asking to not sell it. Perfectly understandable (for me)... and if someone doesn't like his concept of "open source", he is free to disagree and present his arguments, but no one can force the author to agree. Period. If someone think its breaking the law, notify the authorities and just go mind your own business. That's it. But instead... those who have a different opinion used everything to silence him (and everyone that supported him), such as name calling, labeling, and even censoring, without the slightest shame, because they think only their interpretation is the correct and its above the law 😑 |
Thanks for the laugh! |
@coopbri When I used the word "you", I was referring to the people who acted unilaterally, not you. Sorry if it seemed like that. |
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My point is: I hope free speech to be available not only for you, but for the author of this library. But here, in this thread and in this project, the author has already given in (changing the license and its description) and freedom of expression has been lost. |
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Next time I redefine red to mean blue I'll be happy to discuss how that relates to the freedom of speech.
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If the concepts and profound discussion around open source licenses, and what can and cannot be done, were so simple like red and blue... this discussion would never have happened in the first place |
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The thread I didn't sign up for that never ends. Actually am glad people are passionate about such subjects. :-)
Brett
On Friday, November 24, 2023 at 04:42:18 AM MST, Paulo Coghi ***@***.***> wrote:
If the concepts of open source licenses, and what can and cannot be done, were so simple like read and blue...
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Let's see what many here have to say. Bruce Perens, author of the Open Source definition and manifesto, said yesterday in an interview that "our licenses aren't working anymore", and I fully agree. He is elaborating on the “Post-Open Source” movement and it sounds interesting. Let the second round of this discussion begin. https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/27/bruce_perens_post_open/ |
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@janober, you might like the article. |
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Very interesting and thanks a lot for sharing @paulocoghi ! |
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They just got greedy along the way. |
It's easier said than done. Nothing is stopping you to create a similar software and giving it a "proper" open source license. It's a great opportunity to show your altruism. I sincerely encourage you. |
Yeah , that would be easy right? That will teach them to lure me into using N8N is a dependency in my own projects, then extorting me by stripping away functionality. Its so simple, I'll just set about putting in the tens of thousands of man hours it would take build a comparable product. |
and others
This behavior is not acceptable. Even the Commons Clause itself tells you not to describe your software as open source, see the FAQ: https://commonsclause.com/
The Apache license is a well known and respected license, and the "Commons Clause" leverages the language of the also well known "Creative Commons", together creating a false impression that this software is distributed by a respectable group of developers. You cannot rely on putting its name there to correct your lies.
Your software is rightly called "source available". Do not gaslight us. In the words of Randall Monroe:
Note: If you lock this issue you are a liar and a coward. Hear the anger of those you've wronged.
Edit: this link is useful for onlookers wondering I'm angry out of the gate.
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