What are people's thoughts/experiences about dual licencing? Eg: is there a clean way to dual license such that hobbyist, and exploratory work (eg: a proof of concept done in a commercial setting) are allowed, but using it in production requires a fee? If you've done this, has it been successful? Obviously there's been many projects relicense over recent years (terraform, redis, etc) - but it's less clear to me if th…
I changed my license
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Re: I changed my license
#142What are people's thoughts/experiences about dual licencing? Eg: is there a clean way to dual license such that hobbyist, and exploratory work (eg: a proof of concept done in a commercial setting) are allowed, but using it in production requires a fee? If you've done this, has it been successful? Obviously there's been many projects relicense over recent years (terraform, redis, etc) - but it's less clear to me if th…
If you are trying to monetize your software, the biggest factor is whether or not your customer trusts you. MIT and source out on GitHub is the easiest way to build trust. You will find that some people simply "steal" your work in this arrangement, but much like with movie piracy I don't think they ever intended to compensate you or anyone else. So, we wind up alienating all potential customers because we are so worr…
You've chosen the license which allows "stealing", why did you do that if you don't like that? Nobody forced you to do that, I hope.
How can I trust the person who published their code with the strict legal terms, but becomes sad when other people use their code exactly as the author said it could be used?
Every once in a while I read discussions about licenses, and puzzled every time why the author of the software chooses free license when the freedom of copying and distribution is seem to them as pirating. If the license is not suitable for you, why choose it?!
Licenses are about legal possibilities. You're looking for social/moral terms instead if I understood you correctly (something like CoC).
Re: I changed my license
#143CC BY-NC-ND is what I'm also increasingly using (for non-code), though not always, and disheartenedly. (And as commented, the non-code context is different.)
I have been releasing books under Creative Commons for 20+ years. Share alike, no modifications, no commercial reuse. I sell my books via Leanpub (my books https://leanpub.com/u/markwatson ) and they can all be read free online (recommended to see if you like them), and if purchased the price can be reset to free, zero cost. I like CC because I like my books to be read and I still make money. When people choose to pa…
As there's no publication date listed, and I'm particularly intolerant to slop, can you recommend a book of yours published before Autumn 2022?
Re: I changed my license
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you decide on a non-free license, in the FSF sense, in the DFSG sense, and in the open source sense, does the details of the license matter much? You want as many people to pay as possible, and you do not wish for others to compete with you providing this software. It's pretty much a standard non-free commercial license, which exact wording will matter only to purchasing department of your customers. It will be…
It doesn’t have to be binary. A license like this allows for 99% of the personal and commercial use that a project will ever see, while giving the author leverage over large corporations - which is the main gripe people have. It is not ideal for libraries or things that would be redistributed, but then you have other options.
If you frame the licensing space as for either personal or commercial use, perhaps your point of view makes sense, but this is not a useful framing for most people, and it is specifically not something the open source community cares about.
If you wish to keep leverage over others then you do not wish to have them compete with you on the same product. That is a valid position to have, but it is squarely on the non-free part of the licensing spectrum. You don't want to play within the open source community and they don't want to play with you. All anyone owe others is to make that clear.
Re: I changed my license
#145This article would do better if it simply enumerated the problems with the LGPL and addressed how this new license which I've never heard of addresses those problems. This hinting and alluding might make great SEO, but that's fit for neither the audience of people producing software, nor for HN.
Another article comparing LGPL and this license sounds good and I am interested in that as well. This article though is a good nudge to start thinking about licensing.
Re: I changed my license
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Philosophically I see it as forced don't-murder is no longer true don't-murder. Why does it have to be forced? Why can't murder just be legal and if you want to murder that's fine and if you don't, that's fine too... It was not forced charity from the original author. They were free to choose any license. The original author is the only one in the position to choose to be charitable or not. No one else's opinion on c…
>Philosophically I see it as forced don't-murder is no longer true don't-murder. I would suggest reading "A Clockwork Orange", as it highlights why compulsory ethics is no longer just without free will. Spoiler, even if people lobotomize a murderer to have their behavior meet an arbitrary definition of societal good it is just as unethical. >It's forced on everyone else after that, but I see no problem with that beca…
Ok buddy whatever you say.
These arguments are so ridiculously invalid I'll trade you a Clockwork Orange for a "not even wrong" suggested google.
Talk about "passionate about the subject" indeed.
Re: I changed my license
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The clean way is to use the strongest copyleft license you can find, probably AGPL. Even if corporations are technically allowed to use it, they don't want to risk touching it with a three-meter pole. Then you offer to sell them a different license. Hobbyists and OSS folks usually have no issue with AGPL.
Do you have data on that last bit, or just a guess? As a hobbyist and OSS developer I treat AGPL as a rabies infected animal. I may have uses for it, but I'll keep it EXTREMELY segregated from everything else.
Re: I changed my license
#148What are people's thoughts/experiences about dual licencing? Eg: is there a clean way to dual license such that hobbyist, and exploratory work (eg: a proof of concept done in a commercial setting) are allowed, but using it in production requires a fee? If you've done this, has it been successful? Obviously there's been many projects relicense over recent years (terraform, redis, etc) - but it's less clear to me if th…
CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International
Re: I changed my license
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn’t have to be binary. A license like this allows for 99% of the personal and commercial use that a project will ever see, while giving the author leverage over large corporations - which is the main gripe people have. It is not ideal for libraries or things that would be redistributed, but then you have other options.
Some things in life are binary. You either allow people to build new products and businesses on your work or you don't. Would you allow me to extend the product with new features? "It depends" is a form of "no". It is not a position to sustainably work from. If you frame the licensing space as for either personal or commercial use, perhaps your point of view makes sense, but this is not a useful framing for most peop…
They were attacked by OSI zealots every time because it's not real open source. Which is true, but the unsaid - or well, only sometimes mentioned - other half is that these open source enthusiasts would you rather have a bog standard all-rights-reserved commercial licence than a relatively open licence without the four freedoms!
I can't claim to read other people's thoughts, but my hunch is that this happens because it's too "close" to an open source licence so they view it as competition, while they view commercial software as either a straightforward enemy or they don't care about it whatsoever.
The history aside, this approach just makes the open source community more and more irrelevant each day, especially with the advent of "vibecode your own dependencies up". The 4 freedoms come from a place where they were about users, but gigantic corporations have shoehorned themselves into being users, and instead of the community defending against it, they think the freedom to exploit the maintainers' work while contributing nothing back is more important than keeping the commons free and shared. :P
Only siths think in absolutes.
Re: I changed my license
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn’t have to be binary. A license like this allows for 99% of the personal and commercial use that a project will ever see, while giving the author leverage over large corporations - which is the main gripe people have. It is not ideal for libraries or things that would be redistributed, but then you have other options.
Some things in life are binary. You either allow people to build new products and businesses on your work or you don't. Would you allow me to extend the product with new features? "It depends" is a form of "no". It is not a position to sustainably work from. If you frame the licensing space as for either personal or commercial use, perhaps your point of view makes sense, but this is not a useful framing for most peop…
I find this much simpler to understand than AGPL/LGPL or the linked EUPL.