Open Source Power

The author argues that open source licensing has failed to shift power toward ordinary people and that licensing should discriminate against large commercial users. The essay says open source has largely aided hyperscalers such as Amazon and Google, which use free software to commoditize complements, and that Amazon and Google are more powerful now than 20 years ago. It describes the author's own project, Roomy, which uses MPLv2 and FSL licenses to bar commercial uses that compete with the author's hosted services, a choice the author acknowledges departs from the Open Source Definition's no-discrimination clause.