Show HN: Meteor, a realtime JavaScript framework

With the current licensing it looks a lot like they are pondering a dual-licensing business: Offer a GPLed version for free and charge for commercial licenses.

Since the product seems to be very promising and since the GPL is not suited for many use-cases (web startups, freelance work for clients and even many inhouse developments), this might actually work.

Being a developer myself, I see nothing wrong with a bunch of other developers wanting to be paid for their work. If this is really how they want to play it, I wish them all the best. (If this really is the case, I find the current copy on their website a bit misleading, though).

On the other hand, if their goal is to establish a vibrant open source community around meteor, then I think they are on the wrong track.

To accomplish that you need to have a low barrier of entry for a) users of your product and b) contributors to your project.

The GPL, in the case of a web-framework that blurs the client-server divide, sets the bar quite high for both groups:

a) Other commenters seem to agree with me that every app developed with a GPL'ed meteor has to be put under GPL as well. The implications alone might drive some people away from using meteor, but even having to think about those things upfront can be discouraging. Some people do not like the GPL, some may not be able to work with it and some may simply want to be able to choose the license for their work themselves.

b) If they are offering a commercial license, it will not be easy for them to accept outside code contributions. They need to establish some legal documents (Contributor Agreements, maybe Copyright Assignments) and a process for accepting contributions. This makes it a lot harder to contribute than simply sending a pull request. They cite the MySQL business model as something they closely studied. MySQL has a particulary bad reputation for not accepting outside contributions. And this is mainly due to their dual-licensing model.

I strongly believe that Ruby on Rails became popular so quickly and still has an active community because of its liberal license (MIT).

Personally I am very excited about meteor and I wish that they reconsider using another license. It does not have to be MIT, even though that is what I would choose, but even LGPL would be better IMHO.

The tech looks great but I think the community is key for this to be adopted rather than anything else.

Rails nailed the community aspect and that's a big reason to its success.