this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Rust
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I don't see a problem. If someone forks it and changes the license to some proprietary, then their fork is proprietary. The original software is still Open Source. People act like as if the original license changed.
And it the fork gets adapted the user base doesn't use an open source project anymore. Changes which aren't synced get shipped and you can't substitute anymore.
Permissive licenses are bad: Someone can take your entire code, build upon it, get hand of the userbase and then make weird changes. They don't protect the users in any form.
Just imagine someone changed the tools you use daily in such a way that none of your workflows are executed in the same way prior.
You just learn this once you are truly affected. And trust me - This sucks hard.
So, you had to choose between the code that was still Open Source and the code that was now proprietary.
If you stick with the Open Source, what you describe does not happen.
If you moved to the proprietary, well, there you are. You clearly decided that the new features were more important than it being Open Source.
Remember, it is only the new features. All the old code remains as open as it ever was.
You are skipping ahead. The code the userbase follows may become the proprietary one.
And this isn't guaranteed with a permissive license.
If this change happens without the knowledge on the userbase now the Open Source solution needs to advocade for it. And its competition supports all of its features and more. And will clearly upstream any features it adds as well.
Don't get me wrong - I don't mean to abandon all projects done by corporations. But a better license gives safety to all users.
You are not considering vendor lock-in, upstreaming open source changes, less transparency in regards of security, attributions, changes to contributer license agreements, conflicts of interest and probably more things.