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Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

github.com

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Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#11

Post by rectang »

This is not an "open source business model", as claimed by the Ungit maintainer, because the new license is not open source under the long standard definition maintained by OSI.

Good commentary from Grant Bakker in the discussion: https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit/issues/974#issuecommen...

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#14

Post by waisbrot »

Reinventing GPL with less care. I can copy the code, re-license as plain-MIT, and now commercial companies can use it for free.

A dual GPL-commercial license is the correct way to handle this. A more useful contribution to the license landscape would be to define a commercial sibling-license to the GPL that described how license payments would be disbursed.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#15

Post by hackbinary »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #10

Has the LYC license been tested in court ? I know GPL has. I agree with the maintainer that they should be compensated for their time. An open core model works but depending on a project who has the time to set that up? Patreon or Kickstarter has the same issue.

I don't think the opencore model works very well. The model that does work well is the Redhat/Fedora model of fast moving, and changing cutting edge of full features, with a premium being charged for the fully tested and integrated product.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#16

Post by vortico »

This is a perfectly moral choice, assuming he has not taken significant contributions from others (or they have allowed this relicense, or granted copyright ownership of their contribution to him). Later in the Issue discussion, they attempt to put a name to the type of license. I propose "Freeware with source". Thoughts?

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#17

Post by icebraining »

nine_k wrote: post #12

I'd add that 1M in revenue is barely enough to support 4-5 reasonably paid develops + some opex like aws and a small office in a big city. The license change would probably touch most of its commercial users.

Maybe in the US. Many, if not most of the world can support way more developers with that revenue, and open source projects are used worldwide.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#18

Post by pjungwir »

If this becomes a trend I'm afraid it will hurt business use of all open source software, since companies will never know if their dependencies are going to suddenly start charging money. Even though you can use the old versions, getting stuck on outdated libraries is a big problem for a lot of projects, where you try to stay up-to-date. It feels like we are only recently at a point where managers and lawyers will permit building on open source software and not force you to use Microsoft and Oracle. But if every repo could be free today and $90/mo tomorrow, will that change?

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#19

Post by arekkas »

hackbinary wrote: post #13

While I can understand where he is coming from, his stuff is itself largely built on the free licensed software of others. In the end, this seems to me like pulling up the ladder after himself, and ultimately quite selfish.

How is making a living from your work selfish?

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#20

Post by fragsworth »

I truncated some of the text to highlight a possible issue with the change written by the Ungit maintainer:

> Permission is hereby granted (...) to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies ("Use") of the Software (...)

And then:

> If you are a commercial entity with a revenue in excess of $1,000,000 (...) you must acquire a commercial license grant (...) to Use this Software (...)

The problem is that according to the license, you can now pay $90 to "copy", "sell", and most importantly "sublicense" the software. Legally, does this work the way the Ungit maintainer intended?

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