A Plea for Fairness for Non-profit Developers of Open Source Software

You misunderstand me, here. I picked a few specific examples, but this practice in general is what's at stake. Right now, a company can give their software's source away for free without warranty, so many of them do. Many companies specifically want to give back to the commons, and arrange their business so that they can make money while doing what they see as a good thing. Even if the company's goals are less altruistic, we still benefit when they do this. If the EU decides that by doing this these companies are now beholden to every single free user of their software equal to how they are beholden to their paid clients, then this will stop. No more maintenance of open source projects by for-profit companies. No more sharing of technology openly between firms. No more high-quality open-source packages with corporate support. Software like React, Angular, LitHTML SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Java, Clojure, Ubuntu (et al), Red Hat, Go, Android OSP, Chromium, and on and on and on and on and on will either be unavailable, or packages like them will stop being released. At least, for the EU. If this happens as you are describing, I foresee EU citizens and firms being charged for licenses to software that their counterparts in other parts of the world are able to use for free, to provide the budget required for proper support. Or else simply prohibited from using the software.

None of the people who currently use open source software have an inherent right to be given open source software or to expect other people to make it for them. All of their tools are provided because the rule of law allows for it, and are only available as long as governments are willing to let it happen. If the obligations demanded by society for doing something get to be too high then that thing will not be done.

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