3 ms·

These kinds of lists are fairly common; we have a similar list at Pivotal. There's nothing sinister about it and the lawyers are not ignorant of opensource or h

These kinds of lists are fairly common; we have a similar list at Pivotal. There's nothing sinister about it and the lawyers are not ignorant of opensource or how it works. Big companies simply have a very different legal threat profile from individual contributors. If you want your code to be used by a major company, my impression is that the Apache 2 license is the winner.

moron4hire 9y ago
To my fellow programmers, consider for yourself why should gigantic, massively wealthy corporations get to use our code for free. Use the most restrictive version of the GPL to keep your code free for other individuals like us, and provide a paid license option for gigantocorps.
- derekp7 9y ago
  This really depends on what your goals are. For example if you want a standard that is defined by your software to become an accepted and widely used world wide standard, then Apache or MIT may be a good license. If your application could use a lot more contributions, and most companies won't lose anything if they contribute back their modifications, then AGPL may be better. If you want to make some money off your software, then maybe a Free license isn't appropriate at all. Or maybe it is, if your software lends itself to making money off of side services (support, bespoke enhancements, paid plugin modules, etc).
- _ph_ 9y ago
  If your open source project is significant enough that a company would license it, yes, dual licensing GPL and closed source is a good business model. The success of QT was based on this business model. This however means, you cannot accept contributions by the communite to the code basis without a licensing agreement with every single contributor. For most projects, it is the goal to share the code and get back contributions by the user community. That includes any company using the code. But for that, the license needs to be permissive enough for commercial usage.
- virgilp 9y ago
  There's a very legitimate answer to your question: some people believe that having your code be actually used, at scale/ in the real world, is a benefit in and unto itself; you get a "portfolio", a "brand" - things that are intangible but still valuable. If your code makes it into some mission-critical system, you have a fair shot at consulting for that "massively wealthy corporation". I guess it all boils down to: "do you get more value out of people using your code, or out of keeping the code to a restricted set of people?". Similar to how there are two ways to approach your billion-dollar-startup-idea: either guard it with NDA & limit sharing; or talk to everyone about it. Both are legitimate approaches, but really, in a lot of cases the "billion-dollar-idea" is not really worth that billion dollars. Same with code - in a lot of cases, the code is not as valuable as we'd like to think, until it's actually used (& gets a chance to be refined by many users, and to evolve in the right direction(s)).
- geofft 9y ago
  My employment contract prohibits me from accepting outside money for software engineering work. I can't offer a paid license option, and moving to a company that has no such restriction im the contract would be a huge pay cut, beyond anything I could hope to make from license sales (unless, perhaps, I do that full-time). We cannot solve capitalism with capitalism. If we want to stop gigantic, massively-wealthy corporations, let's do that with legislation, not by monetizing our free-time projects.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
  Turns out that WTFPL has the effect of being ultra-permissive, while effectively preventing use by gigantocorps with teams of paranoid lawyers. Win! (Edit: this also happened with a project that I started and licensed as WTFPL. Maintainership quickly passed onto someone else, but the licence remained and was a problem for precisely no-one until Intel decided that they wanted to use the software... except their lawyers wouldn't accept WTFPL. The maintainer decided to relicense as ISC and that's cool, but it's further proof that WTFPL effectively immunises against gigantocorps.)
- jacques_chester 9y ago
  > To my fellow programmers, consider for yourself why should gigantic, massively wealthy corporations get to use our code for free. Use the most restrictive version of the GPL to keep your code free for other individuals like us, and provide a paid license option for gigantocorps. If it can't be used by anyone without restriction, it is neither opensource nor free software. You don't get to pick and choose who uses your software. That's the entire point. The fleas come with the dog.

moron4hire 9y ago

To my fellow programmers, consider for yourself why should gigantic, massively wealthy corporations get to use our code for free. Use the most restrictive version of the GPL to keep your code free for other individuals like us, and provide a paid license option for gigantocorps.

derekp7 9y ago
This really depends on what your goals are. For example if you want a standard that is defined by your software to become an accepted and widely used world wide standard, then Apache or MIT may be a good license. If your application could use a lot more contributions, and most companies won't lose anything if they contribute back their modifications, then AGPL may be better. If you want to make some money off your software, then maybe a Free license isn't appropriate at all. Or maybe it is, if your software lends itself to making money off of side services (support, bespoke enhancements, paid plugin modules, etc).
_ph_ 9y ago
If your open source project is significant enough that a company would license it, yes, dual licensing GPL and closed source is a good business model. The success of QT was based on this business model. This however means, you cannot accept contributions by the communite to the code basis without a licensing agreement with every single contributor. For most projects, it is the goal to share the code and get back contributions by the user community. That includes any company using the code. But for that, the license needs to be permissive enough for commercial usage.
virgilp 9y ago
There's a very legitimate answer to your question: some people believe that having your code be actually used, at scale/ in the real world, is a benefit in and unto itself; you get a "portfolio", a "brand" - things that are intangible but still valuable. If your code makes it into some mission-critical system, you have a fair shot at consulting for that "massively wealthy corporation". I guess it all boils down to: "do you get more value out of people using your code, or out of keeping the code to a restricted set of people?". Similar to how there are two ways to approach your billion-dollar-startup-idea: either guard it with NDA & limit sharing; or talk to everyone about it. Both are legitimate approaches, but really, in a lot of cases the "billion-dollar-idea" is not really worth that billion dollars. Same with code - in a lot of cases, the code is not as valuable as we'd like to think, until it's actually used (& gets a chance to be refined by many users, and to evolve in the right direction(s)).
geofft 9y ago
My employment contract prohibits me from accepting outside money for software engineering work. I can't offer a paid license option, and moving to a company that has no such restriction im the contract would be a huge pay cut, beyond anything I could hope to make from license sales (unless, perhaps, I do that full-time). We cannot solve capitalism with capitalism. If we want to stop gigantic, massively-wealthy corporations, let's do that with legislation, not by monetizing our free-time projects.
Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
Turns out that WTFPL has the effect of being ultra-permissive, while effectively preventing use by gigantocorps with teams of paranoid lawyers. Win! (Edit: this also happened with a project that I started and licensed as WTFPL. Maintainership quickly passed onto someone else, but the licence remained and was a problem for precisely no-one until Intel decided that they wanted to use the software... except their lawyers wouldn't accept WTFPL. The maintainer decided to relicense as ISC and that's cool, but it's further proof that WTFPL effectively immunises against gigantocorps.)
jacques_chester 9y ago
> To my fellow programmers, consider for yourself why should gigantic, massively wealthy corporations get to use our code for free. Use the most restrictive version of the GPL to keep your code free for other individuals like us, and provide a paid license option for gigantocorps. If it can't be used by anyone without restriction, it is neither opensource nor free software. You don't get to pick and choose who uses your software. That's the entire point. The fleas come with the dog.