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Gumroad’s source is available

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Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#121

Post by graypegg »

udev4096 wrote: post #78

What a joke of a license. This is not open source. Why the fuck is everyone in VC land trying to change the true definition of open source?

    The licensor grants you a copyright license for the software to do everything you might do with the software that would otherwise infringe the licensor's copyright, but only as long as you meet all the conditions below.
Am I going insane, or is there a reading of this that seems to imply you can use the software, to infringe on ANY work Gumroad has created? "...grants you a copyright license for the software" seems to imply it's talking about this software license only, but the second part mentions "licensor's copyright" which seems to not be defined, nor bounded. There's no mention of a copyright *for the software*... just the copyright license to use the software that allows you to infringe all copyrights from Gumroad.

I think they probably meant

    The licensor grants you a copyright license for the software to do everything you might do with the software that would otherwise infringe the licensor's copyright [to the software], but only as long as you meet all the conditions below.
I wonder if you can just reuse text or images from their corporate website as long as you personally make less than 1M$ a year, use their software and don't infringe their trademarks.

Awful license on multiple levels.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#122

Post by Aurornis »

rmason wrote: post #3

It launched right here on HN 14 years ago. https://x.com/shl/status/1908090697984426227/photo/1

Gumroad became my cautionary tale for startup equity for early engineers.

I remember excitedly following the story from start. It was fun to follow along. Then around 2015 things weren’t working well, so they laid off most of the team. Investors sold the company back to the founder at a steep discount. As I recall, a major investor sold their ownership for $1.

Just like that, the founding engineers who worked so hard lost their jobs and saw their equity valued down to nothing.

It happens! However, the strange thing in this case was that the company kept going. They had laid (almost) everyone off and declared their equity worthless, yet the company was still making money and growing. My younger self struggled to understand how the founding engineers could have gone from working so hard on something to being laid off and seeing their equity wiped out while the business itself continued right on working and generating revenue.

A lot has been written to put positive spin on those events. The founder claims to have helped out some of the early engineers in vague ways. However, I’ll never forget being a young, aspiring startup engineer and watching an entire startup team get wiped out of the business they helped create and then the business just kept on trucking for the founder who walked away with ownership of the company.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#124

Post by azemetre »

whalesalad wrote: post #123
clcaev wrote: post #24

Could we please change the title to say : "Gumroad is source available"? This license is clearly fails OSD and is not open source by the industry standard; perpetuating a false statement is unhelpful. https://opensource.org/osd

[flagged]

This is not pedantry, this is adhering to the actual definition of open source that is generally accepted in our community:

https://opensource.org/osd

> Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#125

Post by whalesalad »

azemetre wrote: post #124
whalesalad wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is not pedantry, this is adhering to the actual definition of open source that is generally accepted in our community: https://opensource.org/osd > Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code

No good deed goes unpunished around here.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#126

Post by reisse »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #39
clcaev wrote: post #24

Could we please change the title to say : "Gumroad is source available"? This license is clearly fails OSD and is not open source by the industry standard; perpetuating a false statement is unhelpful. https://opensource.org/osd

The license is actually pretty restrictive: you can only use this if you own a small company or work for government / non-profit. Most average human's (including myself) can't use the source code in any way: > You may use the software under this license only if (1) your company has less than 1 million USD (2024) total revenue in the prior tax year, and less than 10 million USD (2024) GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), or…

> The license is actually pretty restrictive: you can only use this if you own a small company or work for government / non-profit.

I wonder if this can be worked around by setting up an OpenAI-style non-profit arm to use Gumroad.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#127

Post by frainfreeze »

rustc wrote: post #47
noirscape wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way it's been phrased, it seems like if you want to use the code to run a small webshop for some goods, you can use it, but if you're actively trying to run a resale platform, that's when you get in trouble. I don't think not being open source is that big of a deal in this situation, they aren't the only player in this space anyway. (Woocommerce to my knowledge still dominates the "small business webshop" market…

It's risky if you have any chance of ever crossing $1M in company revenue because the license will terminate as soon as you reach that and you'll have to rewrite everything. > The licensor grants you a copyright license for the software to do everything you might do with the software that would otherwise infringe the licensor's copyright, but only as long as you meet all the conditions below. > You may use the softwa…

To be fair, getting a platform for free that can potentially bring you to $1M is a very good deal, I'm quite sure you ll figure out a strategy before you get to $1M, and perhaps even get a good deal on the license from them. However I do think they should've been more upfront about the licensing.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#128

Post by fnordlord »

whalesalad wrote: post #125
azemetre wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not pedantry, this is adhering to the actual definition of open source that is generally accepted in our community: https://opensource.org/osd > Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code

No good deed goes unpunished around here.

I think it's more that bullshit is called when bullshit is seen.

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#129

Post by whalesalad »

fnordlord wrote: post #128
whalesalad wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No good deed goes unpunished around here.

I think it's more that bullshit is called when bullshit is seen.

This is just so hyperbolic? It's code for a project you can explore and learn from. License is not permissive? It's a friggin rails app - just look at the model or mechanism you are interested in copying, figure out the approach taken, and recreate that approach. Why is everyone in here with pitchforks?

Re: Gumroad’s source is available

#130

Post by tyzoid »

frainfreeze wrote: post #127
rustc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's risky if you have any chance of ever crossing $1M in company revenue because the license will terminate as soon as you reach that and you'll have to rewrite everything. > The licensor grants you a copyright license for the software to do everything you might do with the software that would otherwise infringe the licensor's copyright, but only as long as you meet all the conditions below. > You may use the softwa…

To be fair, getting a platform for free that can potentially bring you to $1M is a very good deal, I'm quite sure you ll figure out a strategy before you get to $1M, and perhaps even get a good deal on the license from them. However I do think they should've been more upfront about the licensing.

1M revenue isn't that high a bar to clear in retail, just takes one popular/meme product. After all the COGS/fixed costs are tallied up, that could leave you with significantly less with which to contemplate custom development or platform changes.
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