4 ms·

And his assertion about license proliferation is certainly not correct ref http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20 http://www.blackducksoftware.com/

by macmac 17y ago

And his assertion about license proliferation is certainly not correct ref http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20 http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20

nothingHappens 17y ago
Except, is that chart of how many projects use each license, or how much much use software with those licenses sees? Those could be very different. But ups for commenting on the substance rather than the style.
- callahad 17y ago
  Both Blackduck and Gartner Group are pushing a doomsday scenario of GPLv3 and the AGPL seeing surging use, respectively. The patent / IP language in the GPLv3 still scares a lot of larger companies, my employer included. It's in Blackduck's commercial interest to present information in a way that exaggerates the prominence of that family of licenses. Thus, the chart is of the number of projects released under that license, and does not take into account the maturity or market penetration of a project. For instance, a new entry on Sourceforge with nothing but a README in its repo would be included in Blackduck's count. That's not to say Blackduck itself is all bad, mind you. I've sat through a few Continuing Legal Education webinars that they've hosted, and they've all been quite objective and accurate. In each case, they brought in fairly prominent figures from the Open Source law space (Karen Copenhaver, Mark Radcliffe, etc) for the sessions.
mark_l_watson 17y ago
That is interesting, thanks. I did not realize how few projects use the AGPL. One problem with the AGPL is that it seems to work for projects that are totally owned by one individual or company because there is a clear stratgey for supporting alternative commercial use licenses with no software distribution requirements. If alternative use licenses are low cost for received value and if the commercial license passes corporate lawyer scrutiny, all is good. The big problem with the AGPL is projects with multiple contributers - makes a paid for commercial license difficult.

by macmac 17y ago

And his assertion about license proliferation is certainly not correct ref http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20 http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20

nothingHappens 17y ago

Except, is that chart of how many projects use each license, or how much much use software with those licenses sees? Those could be very different. But ups for commenting on the substance rather than the style.

callahad 17y ago
Both Blackduck and Gartner Group are pushing a doomsday scenario of GPLv3 and the AGPL seeing surging use, respectively. The patent / IP language in the GPLv3 still scares a lot of larger companies, my employer included. It's in Blackduck's commercial interest to present information in a way that exaggerates the prominence of that family of licenses. Thus, the chart is of the number of projects released under that license, and does not take into account the maturity or market penetration of a project. For instance, a new entry on Sourceforge with nothing but a README in its repo would be included in Blackduck's count. That's not to say Blackduck itself is all bad, mind you. I've sat through a few Continuing Legal Education webinars that they've hosted, and they've all been quite objective and accurate. In each case, they brought in fairly prominent figures from the Open Source law space (Karen Copenhaver, Mark Radcliffe, etc) for the sessions.

mark_l_watson 17y ago

That is interesting, thanks. I did not realize how few projects use the AGPL. One problem with the AGPL is that it seems to work for projects that are totally owned by one individual or company because there is a clear stratgey for supporting alternative commercial use licenses with no software distribution requirements. If alternative use licenses are low cost for received value and if the commercial license passes corporate lawyer scrutiny, all is good. The big problem with the AGPL is projects with multiple contributers - makes a paid for commercial license difficult.