54 votes

Bitwarden switches password manager and SDK to GPL3 after FOSS-iness drama

14 comments

  1. [13]
    ebonGavia
    Link
    This is really good news imo. Bitwarden has gained quite a bit of goodwill from me over the years; I'm a paying customer since they issued the paid plans. Glad to have this (minor) tempest in a...

    This is really good news imo. Bitwarden has gained quite a bit of goodwill from me over the years; I'm a paying customer since they issued the paid plans. Glad to have this (minor) tempest in a teapot come out Earl Grey (cold, natch).

    28 votes
    1. [4]
      teaearlgraycold
      Link Parent
      I have been summoned

      I have been summoned

      31 votes
      1. [3]
        adutchman
        Link Parent
        So a question right, why cold earl grey? I love me a good hot cuppa but never tried it cold.

        So a question right, why cold earl grey? I love me a good hot cuppa but never tried it cold.

        5 votes
        1. [2]
          teaearlgraycold
          Link Parent
          The username started with Minecraft. I was around 14, didn't know how to spell Earl Grey, and found out teaearlgrayhot was taken. So I just went with the next best thing.

          The username started with Minecraft. I was around 14, didn't know how to spell Earl Grey, and found out teaearlgrayhot was taken. So I just went with the next best thing.

          10 votes
          1. adutchman
            Link Parent
            That's a great reason lol

            That's a great reason lol

            1 vote
    2. [8]
      Wafik
      Link Parent
      I don't follow Bitwarden development but I have been happy with it since I switched away from my previous password manager. I didn't realize they had paid tiers not. Looking at them I don't see...

      I don't follow Bitwarden development but I have been happy with it since I switched away from my previous password manager. I didn't realize they had paid tiers not.

      Looking at them I don't see anything too appealing.

      May I ask what you like about the added features that led you to pay for them?

      7 votes
      1. [2]
        ebonGavia
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Absolutely. They were the first pw manager that was fully cloud-native, open-source, and e2e-encrypted platform that I knew of. I wanted to support their dev team and still do. This will be...

        May I ask what you like about the added features that led you to pay for them?

        Absolutely. They were the first pw manager that was fully cloud-native, open-source, and e2e-encrypted platform that I knew of. I wanted to support their dev team and still do.

        This will be controversial, but I don't want to host my own server for secrets management. I want someone else to handle the details, without being able to know my passwords.

        I can and have hosted servers but I just want this shit to get out of the way. I'm willing to pay for that.

        Would be delighted to learn from anyone willing to teach me if I'm missing anything.

        25 votes
        1. adutchman
          Link Parent
          I think that's very reasonable. Passwords management is important and a professional team will be probably have better and more reliable infrastructure than you can ever do yourself.

          I think that's very reasonable. Passwords management is important and a professional team will be probably have better and more reliable infrastructure than you can ever do yourself.

          7 votes
      2. [2]
        creesch
        Link Parent
        Just want to chip in as another person who pays for the service. Mostly, for all the reasons @ebonGavia laid out. But also for another one: there is no such thing as free lunch. There are free...

        Just want to chip in as another person who pays for the service. Mostly, for all the reasons @ebonGavia laid out. But also for another one: there is no such thing as free lunch. There are free services, but they subsidize your free usage from somewhere else. If they don't benefit from people paying as well then they will attempt to find revenue from other sources.
        So if possible, with good and reasonable services I try to pay for them in the hopes that if enough people do we can avoid or at least delay the enshittification we see with so many other services.

        7 votes
        1. underdog
          Link Parent
          I had cancelled my subscription after the license issues drama, but will happily put it back in place now.

          I had cancelled my subscription after the license issues drama, but will happily put it back in place now.

          2 votes
      3. [2]
        waaffsora
        Link Parent
        I pay for Bitwarden to support them, which was an easy enough decision given how cheap it is. I don't think I've actually ever used any of the paid features.

        I pay for Bitwarden to support them, which was an easy enough decision given how cheap it is. I don't think I've actually ever used any of the paid features.

        6 votes
        1. Wafik
          Link Parent
          Yeah, that makes sense. $10 a year is probably the right amount to entice that.

          Yeah, that makes sense. $10 a year is probably the right amount to entice that.

          1 vote
      4. TheFireTheft
        Link Parent
        They have a business subscription, which includes a way to create shared folders of passwords for different groups of people. That, plus a bit of peace of mind because employees aren't reusing...

        They have a business subscription, which includes a way to create shared folders of passwords for different groups of people. That, plus a bit of peace of mind because employees aren't reusing "password1!" everywhere makes it worth it to me.

        4 votes
  2. Macil
    (edited )
    Link
    It's weirdly common for projects to decide they want to be open source and then make their own license that isn't compatible with anything, causing everyone to steer clear of the source code. I...

    It's weirdly common for projects to decide they want to be open source and then make their own license that isn't compatible with anything, causing everyone to steer clear of the source code. I think there's a lot of business leaders that have heard from their employees/news/etc that open source is good, but then don't know that the correct way to do it is to pick an existing popular license that fits what they want instead of telling some lawyers to write something up on their own.

    Pretty much everyone wanting to make something open source should just pick between MIT (maybe dual-licensed with Apache 2.0), GPL, AGPL, or maybe BUSL if your main concern is just guaranteeing customers an exit path if you go out of business. Doing anything other than that is just putting in more effort only for a worse result for yourself and everyone.

    3 votes