4 ms·

So, a question that immediately arose for me out of reading that license: what's the definition of a user? If I wanted to use this to self-host my own projects,

by durin42 11y ago

So, a question that immediately arose for me out of reading that license: what's the definition of a user? If I wanted to use this to self-host my own projects, is everyone on the internet a user? Am I limited to 15 collaborators on my project unless I pony up? Is that 15 collaborators over all of time, or within some time interval?

ultramancool 11y ago
I really do not like this license, it prevents usage with other licensing models near completely. Say I want to integrate their code intelligence into gitlab community (MIT licensed), I'm shit out of luck, even if I were to create a relicensed version of gitlab under the Sourcegraph license, it seems as though it'd be unclear who gets what fees and who counts as a "user" in this case. Would it force me as a devleoper who just wants to make something cool to deal with licensing costs? Would I have to be a middleman between Sourcegraph and enterprise customers? Could I say no enterprise customers, too bad, I don't want to deal with it? What if I, as an individual, fork the project to add some breaking features that not all users may want? Who gets the money from those corporate licensors? Am I even allowed to do so? The fair.io site doesn't make it clear and based on what they do say, I'd be extremely hesitant to make anything more than casual use of software under this license. It seems to me, based on the information on fair.io that I can simply fork the project, offer enterprise licenses for $0.01, or heck, make a fork for my company which is identical to the original but has my logo on it and charge my company $0 for licensing... is there any prevention of this that I'm missing? IANAL but this legal portion here looks flimsy and lacks important definitions, especially with regards to protections from stuff like that.
- durin42 11y ago
  I was excited by this project until I saw the license, and then I decided to not touch it at all until lawyers look at the license.
- sqs 11y ago
  Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is intended to allow companies to distribute both the product and source code, and still charge for the product. Fair Source is not an open-source license. Just as with GPL, there are restrictions around your usage of the code that are intended to produce longer-term benefits (in our case, making sure we can build the best product and have a sustainable business). We have had it reviewed thoroughly by multiple lawyers in several countries, and it was drafted by Heather Meeker, who is extremely well respected. I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. That would not circumvent any license or copyright situation.
  - ultramancool 11y ago
    > I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the open source community there. But I understand what you're saying, I'm just used to forks being a common practice in the FOSS community, so I expected them to be better accounted for. You still haven't made it clear what would happen in the case of a fork. Even if they kept it under your license, who gets the money? How do they get paid? How are terms agreed to? Can it not be forked at all? EDIT: This really applies to any modifications, essentially, say I make some modifications to your code, under what terms am I allowed to distribute them? Is the only way I can go to license them back to you without seeing any of this "fair" profit myself? What if you don't like them and decide not to use them can I redistribute them for free or fee on my own? Is there any way to make the forking and distribution of modifications as casual as it is with so many open source projects under other licenses today?
    - sqs 11y ago
      Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original author.

by durin42 11y ago

ultramancool 11y ago

I really do not like this license, it prevents usage with other licensing models near completely. Say I want to integrate their code intelligence into gitlab community (MIT licensed), I'm shit out of luck, even if I were to create a relicensed version of gitlab under the Sourcegraph license, it seems as though it'd be unclear who gets what fees and who counts as a "user" in this case. Would it force me as a devleoper who just wants to make something cool to deal with licensing costs? Would I have to be a middleman between Sourcegraph and enterprise customers? Could I say no enterprise customers, too bad, I don't want to deal with it? What if I, as an individual, fork the project to add some breaking features that not all users may want? Who gets the money from those corporate licensors? Am I even allowed to do so? The fair.io site doesn't make it clear and based on what they do say, I'd be extremely hesitant to make anything more than casual use of software under this license. It seems to me, based on the information on fair.io that I can simply fork the project, offer enterprise licenses for $0.01, or heck, make a fork for my company which is identical to the original but has my logo on it and charge my company $0 for licensing... is there any prevention of this that I'm missing? IANAL but this legal portion here looks flimsy and lacks important definitions, especially with regards to protections from stuff like that.

durin42 11y ago
I was excited by this project until I saw the license, and then I decided to not touch it at all until lawyers look at the license.
sqs 11y ago
Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is intended to allow companies to distribute both the product and source code, and still charge for the product. Fair Source is not an open-source license. Just as with GPL, there are restrictions around your usage of the code that are intended to produce longer-term benefits (in our case, making sure we can build the best product and have a sustainable business). We have had it reviewed thoroughly by multiple lawyers in several countries, and it was drafted by Heather Meeker, who is extremely well respected. I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. That would not circumvent any license or copyright situation.
- ultramancool 11y ago
  > I am not a lawyer myself, but the "hypothetical loophole" scenario you described would involve you making a derivative work of our code—kind of like photocopying Harry Potter and adding some doodles in the margins, and reselling that. So you're comparing someone who forked your project to add what could be major features, to someone doodling in the margins of Harry Potter? That's a really optimistic view of the open source community there. But I understand what you're saying, I'm just used to forks being a common practice in the FOSS community, so I expected them to be better accounted for. You still haven't made it clear what would happen in the case of a fork. Even if they kept it under your license, who gets the money? How do they get paid? How are terms agreed to? Can it not be forked at all? EDIT: This really applies to any modifications, essentially, say I make some modifications to your code, under what terms am I allowed to distribute them? Is the only way I can go to license them back to you without seeing any of this "fair" profit myself? What if you don't like them and decide not to use them can I redistribute them for free or fee on my own? Is there any way to make the forking and distribution of modifications as casual as it is with so many open source projects under other licenses today?
  - sqs 11y ago
    Sourcegraph CEO here. Fair Source is not an open-source license. It is intended to be an improvement over closed source (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) and open core (where many important bits are closed source). Fair Source is not intended to support forking and independent redistribution. If you fork a Fair Source-licensed project and try to distribute it, users would have to also acquire a license from the original author.