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Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

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Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#61

Post by jrochkind1 »

INTPenis wrote: post #40
hannob wrote: post #37

Of course people can license their stuff in whatever weird way they want and I don't have to like it. But I don't like it when people lie to me. The title is "Trying a new open source model" - the content is "Trying not to be open source any more". If you don't want to do open source then you can of course do that. But if you don't want to do open source any more and still say you're doing open source then you're lyi…

You're confusing open source software with free software. I'm on your side in principle but the distinction is important in this case.

nope. i think you're confusing "free as in libre software" with "free as in beer" software.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#62

Post by ralmidani »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #58
ralmidani wrote: post #55

Maybe I am missing something. If you release something under a non-copyleft license, as long as I make proper attribution, what I do with it should not be your concern. If you do not want people making money from your software without paying you, use dual copyleft/proprietary licenses instead. "Faircode" seems like an attempt to have it both ways: squeezing money out of people without being labeled copyleft (because…

I don't see the relation. Copyleft licenses and what the faircode license are attempting to do are pretty different things. I don't see any relation between them, other than that they are both licensing terms. They are different licensing terms. I do think the terms of this new license are going to be confusing and make it difficult to figure out how to use it legally. As with most if not all "non-commercial use only…

I understand that "Faircode" is not trying to protect downstream users from non-free software. That's my point; It's not about principle, it's about extorting money while appearing to be principled.

Copyleft licenses force people to release their modifications as source code, or pay the copyright owner for an exception (if the owner is open to providing the exception)

Non-Copyleft licenses say "do whatever you want, just give us credit."

"Faircode" says "Even if you release your source code, if you make enough money, you still have to pay us."

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#63

Post by aseipp »

jlg23 wrote: post #34

Licenses like these are a logistical nightmare. If someone deploys software under that license, paying that person for the job is the smallest item on the bill: Now I have to connect my legal department with my techies and with the finance folks. Let's schedule meetings every 3 months to review for which software we have to pay now! Just the logistical overhead alone justifies a fork for any of the targeted users^wcu…

"Paying people for their work sucks, what a drag. Undercutting their work so we can continue to profit more is a much better strategy."

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#64

Post by jdietrich »

deepakkarki wrote: post #7
sandstrom wrote: post #3

For open-source projects driven mainly by one contributor, I think the model employed by Sidekiq[1] is better than this one. There is a base version with the MIT (or similar) license. Then there is a PRO version which adds some enterprise functionality + premium support. But still a good thing that Ungit is trying this. There is value in experimentation! [1] https://github.com/mperham/sidekiq

I've always wondered, in such cases where you have an open core and plan to monetize on extra features and plugins; what do you do if the community just goes ahead and adds those extra features? Or someone forks the project and adds the features?

The extra features are practically irrelevant. When you're spending other people's money, $995 a year for an "enterprise license" is pretty much a no-brainer, regardless of the actual benefits. It'd cost more than that for legal to check that a FOSS license isn't going to present any issues down the road. $995 a year is chump change, even if all it gets you is explicit permission to use the code in a commercial product.

It's extremely difficult for most enterprise customers to donate to FOSS projects. Small donations just aren't part of the normal corporate decision-making process. Very few people within an organisation have the authority to just give away money. Spending relatively small amounts of money on products and services is an utterly mundane part of doing business. If you maintain a FOSS project and don't offer an "enterprise license" of some description, you're leaving money on the table.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#65

Post by ajross »

waisbrot wrote: post #14

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.

Seems to me like the authors are trying to restrict the use of the software by commercial pursuits, not the distribution. The GPL does the latter, but says nothing about the former.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#66

Post by ehllo »

bobby_the_whale wrote: post #42
mindcrime wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "You can't say it is open-source" bullshit is just the first in a long line of idiots lining up to comment on it. Just because OSI don't have a USPTO registered trademark on "open source" doesn't mean that the OSD isn't the de-facto definition of what "open source" means. One may ( may ) legally be able to call their project with a crappy homegrown license "open source" but they shouldn't do so. It isn't always j…

Fine, so you have an opinion about which the author of Ungit doesn't need to care. I am sure a monkey in the zoo also has an opinion. Remind me, why did you write down anything again? The moment you start talking about what's "right", you are just showing a lack of maturity.

There is a overall accepted agreement about "open source" and just because you're not able to understand it, doesnt mean that this consent about open source is not true.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#67

Post by 59nadir »

ralmidani wrote: post #55

Maybe I am missing something. If you release something under a non-copyleft license, as long as I make proper attribution, what I do with it should not be your concern. If you do not want people making money from your software without paying you, use dual copyleft/proprietary licenses instead. "Faircode" seems like an attempt to have it both ways: squeezing money out of people without being labeled copyleft (because…

> I am trying to avoid the word "shakedown", but this strikes me as exactly that.

Yes, the $90/month cost is going to hurt all the companies that have revenue greater than $1,000,000/year. This will put them out on the streets, I'm sure.

Let's be real: This does not apply to you, and on the off chance that it does, why are you complaining about paying $90 per month for something you should probably already be donating more to?

If your business depends on a tool/library and your revenue is in excess of $1,000,000, and you haven't yet donated to that project, you're just a leech. I guess we could both hope that your revenue falls below the limit so that you can escape these unfair shakedown licenses and continue not contributing in any way to the things you use.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#69

Post by ehllo »

bobby_the_whale wrote: post #47
rectang wrote: post #11

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...

Just because something is old, it doesn't make it true.

It is true, because there is a overall consent about open source.

Re: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

#70

Post by [deleted] »

59nadir wrote: post #67
ralmidani wrote: post #55

Maybe I am missing something. If you release something under a non-copyleft license, as long as I make proper attribution, what I do with it should not be your concern. If you do not want people making money from your software without paying you, use dual copyleft/proprietary licenses instead. "Faircode" seems like an attempt to have it both ways: squeezing money out of people without being labeled copyleft (because…

> I am trying to avoid the word "shakedown", but this strikes me as exactly that. Yes, the $90/month cost is going to hurt all the companies that have revenue greater than $1,000,000/year. This will put them out on the streets, I'm sure. Let's be real: This does not apply to you, and on the off chance that it does, why are you complaining about paying $90 per month for something you should probably already be donatin…

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