Live data from Hacker News

I changed my license

bergie.iki.fi

201–202 of 202 posts

Re: I changed my license

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or entirely BUSL-styled licenses Let's not get everything mixed up here - I singled out BUSL exactly because it does not prevent competing services , especially at small scale. In fact it would encourage small business and individual usage vs big cloud providers. It also has a conversion clause, so worst case scenario you have a slightly outdated MIT-licensed release to pick up from. The EUPL the author mentions, t…

> The EUPL the author mentions, the AGPL and others are the ones that directly prevent competing services. To support sibling comment: no it doesn't? But your point about the revenue cut off in the BUSL is worthwhile (assuming we're talking about a licensor that is leveraging the additional use grant). I just disagree that it's a remedy because it basically punishes a business for being successful, by changing the ru…

It is expected that you use the license with an Additional Use Grant. For example, Hashicorp says:

> You may make production use of the Licensed Work, provided Your use does not include offering the Licensed Work to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in order to compete with HashiCorp’s paid version(s) of the Licensed Work.

Or, for a revenue threshold:

> You may make production use of the Licensed Work, provided that your use is solely for an application or system developed or operated by an entity (including its affiliates) with total annual gross revenues of less than $10,000,000 USD.

That is the whole point - you can define your own limits for commercial usage, while keeping the rest of the license text unchanged.

The AGPL's "viral" property inhibits competition without prohibiting it - companies are just scared of accidentally becoming liable to publish private software sources. As far as I know, that's the reason it is banned at Google, Apple and other major companies [1].

That didn't stop AWS though, which is why we now have SSPL and the BSL.

[1] https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl...

Re: I changed my license

#202
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be issues with public domain in Europe (moral rights you can't disclaim yada-yada in some non-common law countries). And, as I distantly recall, there were some issues with CC0 related to patents. MIT-0 would probably be my choice absent deep legal research into the topic (though I have discussed public domain as related to software with IP lawyers as related to a book I wrote).

Trademarks are still a possible liability, which is why film sets use gaffers tape or stickers to cover equipment logos and branding. The photo can be CC0, but the coca-cola logo is still owned by a company. Patent claim sections are the only legal part at the end of the document, and may only cover functional or process facets of an innovation. Software patents are also only valid in certain jurisdictions. Generally…

Yes, especially in an actual commercial context (e.g. an ad on a billboard) companies are or should be very careful. I've had panicked last minute emails from organizations where some CC photo of mine was being slated to be used. I've said yes of course as they were usually some form of worthwhile charitable organization.

I did even get a check once from a magazine but it was Canadian so that was very cute. (Sorry to any Canadians in the audience.)

But there are a lot of, often unclear, rules related to publicity and model rights that are by no means clear across geographies. Even leaving aside Eiffel Tower light displays, I'm sure a lot of the photos I've taken in Europe and put up on Flickr or Facebook could be an issue if someone really wanted to pursue it. Organizations do often have disclaimers as part of event registrations as well but they're pretty pro-forma and a lawyer could probably argue that there was no meeting of the minds in any contract.

Post reply on HN