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Why don't more open source projects simply state that if you are a business using their software you are required to purchase a license for X amount of money.

Why don't more open source projects simply state that if you are a business using their software you are required to purchase a license for X amount of money. The source code is still available for anyone to freely download and use. Businesses are free to install and evaluate the software for as long as they like (there are no onerous checks to verify you have purchased a license). While some businesses won't pay, many will. In fact, a self-hosted solution would probably appeal to many businesses over a SaaS-style per-employee pricing model. What's stopping open source projects from trying this approach?

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Why don't more open source projects simply state that if you are a business using their software you are required to purchase a license for X amount of money. Because a license which requires that is not an open source license. It might be a source-available, free-for-non-commercial use license, but that's not the same thing. Further, if using a copyleft upstream license, this would be prohibited by the upstream license.
Bogdanp 9y ago
This is roughly the approach (AGPL + commercial license) I'm taking with Dramatiq[0]. Some interest but no purchases so far, though. [0]: https://dramatiq.io https://dramatiq.io
alien_ 9y ago
This already exists, check out LicenseZero and Faircode. The problem is this is against one of the criteria for a license to be approved by the Open Source Initiative, which states that the users are all treated equal regardless of the purpose for which they use the software, so you can't claim to be Open Source if you discriminate against businesses like this. I was actually contemplating to use LicenseZero for AutoSpotting, my largest and most successful project that can save companies a lot of money, but I'm afraid this will discourage users and would slow down contributions. So far I am playing with a dual license model somewhat similar to the way Redhat handles RHEL and Fedora. The software is open source under the MIT license, and anyone can use it from source if they are willing to compile it themselves. In addition I am now offering evaluation nightly builds that expire after two months, and I am selling for a relatively small fee stable and well tested builds that I verified to be working well. I am also only actively offering support and trying to fix issues for these stable builds, the other builds are supported by the community on a best effort basis. So far very few people were interested in the official builds, but the first evaluation builds will start to expire within a few days so I expect the number to grow.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Why don't more open source projects simply state that if you are a business using their software you are required to purchase a license for X amount of money. Because a license which requires that is not an open source license. It might be a source-available, free-for-non-commercial use license, but that's not the same thing. Further, if using a copyleft upstream license, this would be prohibited by the upstream license.

Bogdanp 9y ago

This is roughly the approach (AGPL + commercial license) I'm taking with Dramatiq[0]. Some interest but no purchases so far, though. [0]: https://dramatiq.io https://dramatiq.io

alien_ 9y ago

This already exists, check out LicenseZero and Faircode. The problem is this is against one of the criteria for a license to be approved by the Open Source Initiative, which states that the users are all treated equal regardless of the purpose for which they use the software, so you can't claim to be Open Source if you discriminate against businesses like this. I was actually contemplating to use LicenseZero for AutoSpotting, my largest and most successful project that can save companies a lot of money, but I'm afraid this will discourage users and would slow down contributions. So far I am playing with a dual license model somewhat similar to the way Redhat handles RHEL and Fedora. The software is open source under the MIT license, and anyone can use it from source if they are willing to compile it themselves. In addition I am now offering evaluation nightly builds that expire after two months, and I am selling for a relatively small fee stable and well tested builds that I verified to be working well. I am also only actively offering support and trying to fix issues for these stable builds, the other builds are supported by the community on a best effort basis. So far very few people were interested in the official builds, but the first evaluation builds will start to expire within a few days so I expect the number to grow.