Regrettable Announcement

[shibatch]

We have been negotiating with a certain company, but as of today, the negotiations have broken down. Features that have been removed so far will not be restored. Furthermore, we will continue to remove additional features starting today.

[shibatch]

The negotiations regarding maintenance funding broke down between myself and a major tech company that has heavily relied on the SLEEF project for MANY years. And they never once provided financial support for this project during that period.

This experience starkly illuminated why the relationship between corporations and FOSS is currently broken, and why true sustainability remains elusive despite the industry buzz.

1. What They Tried to Buy with "Pocket Money" The amount they offered was, for a corporation of their size, literally "pocket change." Yet, in exchange for this trivial sum, they demanded I sign their standard Purchase Order Terms & Conditions, which included:

   • Unlimited Liability
   • Complete transfer of Intellectual Property rights

They attempted to treat FOSS maintainers like children receiving an allowance, offering a nominal sum while demanding we sign away our future and assume enterprise-grade legal risks that could ruin us. They wanted to buy a billion-dollar insurance policy for the price of a used car.

2. Asymmetric Risk FOSS licenses (like BSL-1.0) are built on the "AS-IS" (no warranty) principle to protect developers from catastrophic liability. Corporations generate massive profits using FOSS, yet when "supporting" it, they attempted to offload all legal risks back onto the individual developer.

When I requested a fair "Limitation of Liability" capped at the contract amount, their response was simple: "Our terms are non-negotiable." Essentially, their message was: "Here is some pocket money; now you bear all the risk."

3. A Message to Corporations Stop treating FOSS maintainers like cheap subcontractors or teenagers doing chores for an allowance.

If companies truly want to make the FOSS ecosystem sustainable, that is the ecosystem their products depend on, simply providing funding is not enough. They must share risks and treat developers as equal partners.

[shibatch]

I also want to emphasize one critical fact regarding this negotiation. During the discussions, I made it clear to them: with the amount they offered, there is absolutely no benefit for me. The reason I continued negotiating was for the benefit of the FOSS ecosystem and society as a whole.

I was willing to set aside my own financial gain to help establish a viable pathway for corporations to support FOSS projects without exploiting them. I believed that fixing their procurement process was essential not just for developers, but for the sustainability of the digital infrastructure that society, and they themselves, depend on.

However, they completely refused to listen. They chose to prioritize short-term legal convenience and rigid internal rules over the long-term health of the ecosystem and their own future stability.

For a corporation that generates massive profits from FOSS to refuse even the slightest effort to fulfill its social responsibility, while attempting to exploit the goodwill of developers, is socially unacceptable. It is a choice that harms the very foundation they stand on.

[shibatch]

Going forward, the following conditions will be required for approving PRs from contributors who are deemed to represent companies profiting from the use of this project's deliverables:

1. The Contributor assigns to the Project Maintainer all right, title, and interest in and to the Contribution, including all Intellectual Property Rights therein. The Contributor agrees that the Project Maintainer shall be the sole and exclusive owner of the Contribution.

2. The Contributor represents and warrants that the Contribution is free from any defects, fit for the particular purpose of the Project, and does not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any third party.

3. The Contributor agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Project Maintainer from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including legal fees) arising out of or resulting from the Contribution or any breach of the warranties above. Limitation of Liability: The Contributor's liability under this agreement shall be unlimited.

[shibatch]

These are the terms you've forced upon us. You understand that, right?

[shibatch]

What you have done bounces back on yourselves.
As for the project and its related parties that led to this policy decision, we will never rescind this policy, so be prepared for that.

[shibatch]

Let me be clear: this is not a penalty against a certain company. A penalty is the imposition of undesirable or unpleasant consequences on an individual or group. If this were a penalty, then what that company demanded of us would also be a penalty.

Rejoice, corporate users. PR approval is now free. You still need to agree to the CCLA, though. Of course you can agree to that, right?

[shibatch]

Frankly, I'm quite angry about this matter.

Corporate representatives should realize that demanding developers of FOSS they rely on to agree to terms their own company wouldn't accept is utterly abnormal, arrogant, and disrespectful. Companies that engage in such behavior should naturally be excluded from being considered decent community members.

If they can't understand that they are in a position where they are permitted to use FOSS, then they are utterly incompetent. If a company continues to employ representatives who think their position is superior to FOSS developers simply because they belong to a large corporation, that company has no place as a first-tier member of this project.

[shibatch]

Regardless of how these negotiations ultimately conclude, I believe this will be a significant case.
I plan to write a more concise summary of what the issues were.

[shibatch]

At first glance, this case might seem like just one negotiation that ended in failure. However, it carries potentially significant implications. First, it demonstrates that it is possible to effectively prohibit commercial use while remaining entirely within an open-source framework. Second, it demonstrates that this can be done after the software has already been made available under a FOSS license. Once this “risk” becomes recognized by companies using FOSS, their view of FOSS developers will shift from seeing them as beggars to viewing them as more equal business partners. We are no longer just sheep to be eaten by wolves.

[shibatch]

I have expanded the README of our Code of Conduct. Please take a moment to read it.

https://github.com/shibatch/nofreelunch/blob/main/README.md

[shibatch]

The current framework is as described in the README above, which is identical to the existing one.
However, if this still fails to achieve sufficient results, it is possible to introduce a scheme that would cause even greater pain for the user companies.

Even as it stands, the PR template scheme is extremely powerful.

[shibatch]

A new introductory video for the Code of Conduct is out. Please take a look.

https://youtu.be/wsh2yKGwK4s

[shibatch]

Some may wonder why I'm making a video at all, but there's a clear reason: to shut down the excuse that “there's too much documentation to read through.”
Watching this video will let you grasp the project's purpose in just 30 minutes.