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I'm a huge fan of the two-clause BSD license, but I can also understand that regret. I've always wondered how you would monetize something like this, though.

I'm a huge fan of the two-clause BSD license, but I can also understand that regret. I've always wondered how you would monetize something like this, though. It always seems difficult to me how you ensure that you're being paid without an army of lawyers (the Microsoft model) or limiting it to some sort of app store (the Apple / Google model). What would be the best way to do it, if you had it to do over again?

mholt 9y ago
Given that it's client-side JS, I'd probably just use an honor system. I'm not really a licensing law guy, but: Give it a license that businesses would not like to use (GPL?), then sell proprietary licenses to waive some of the requirements of GPL.
- X86BSD 9y ago
  But again he or she above you doesn't really want to enforce that. Enforcement of the GPL is a big problem. Who has the time and energy and money to sit around looking for violators? And then if you do find them you have to lawyer up and that costs a lot of money. You dont have any time or money to write code. The reality is you either accept people are going to use the code you OS and just let that code go (BSDL) or you keep it closed source. I like the idea I just posted above of a model of releasing the core code but letting actual users vote for and fund what bugs and new features get added to the free core code.
  - tlrobinson 9y ago
    If the options are 1) permissive open source license, zero income, or 2) dual license with minimal additional effort and get some fraction of users paying you, then do you really need to care about actively enforcing the license?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - belorn 9y ago
    Worrying about enforcement is like not opening a store because you are concerned about chasing down shoplifters. Closed source also need enforcement. What is she/he going do if companies download it from a warez site? Who has time, energy and money to spend on lawyers to hunt down those people, but do not have the same time, energy and money if the license conditions happens to be GPL?
sumedh 9y ago
> What would be the best way to do it Look at highcharts, you can use it commercially without anyone noticing it because its all client side JS but they are doing fine in terms of revenue because enough people pay for the software/support

mholt 9y ago

Given that it's client-side JS, I'd probably just use an honor system. I'm not really a licensing law guy, but: Give it a license that businesses would not like to use (GPL?), then sell proprietary licenses to waive some of the requirements of GPL.

X86BSD 9y ago
But again he or she above you doesn't really want to enforce that. Enforcement of the GPL is a big problem. Who has the time and energy and money to sit around looking for violators? And then if you do find them you have to lawyer up and that costs a lot of money. You dont have any time or money to write code. The reality is you either accept people are going to use the code you OS and just let that code go (BSDL) or you keep it closed source. I like the idea I just posted above of a model of releasing the core code but letting actual users vote for and fund what bugs and new features get added to the free core code.
- tlrobinson 9y ago
  If the options are 1) permissive open source license, zero income, or 2) dual license with minimal additional effort and get some fraction of users paying you, then do you really need to care about actively enforcing the license?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- belorn 9y ago
  Worrying about enforcement is like not opening a store because you are concerned about chasing down shoplifters. Closed source also need enforcement. What is she/he going do if companies download it from a warez site? Who has time, energy and money to spend on lawyers to hunt down those people, but do not have the same time, energy and money if the license conditions happens to be GPL?

sumedh 9y ago

> What would be the best way to do it Look at highcharts, you can use it commercially without anyone noticing it because its all client side JS but they are doing fine in terms of revenue because enough people pay for the software/support