4 ms·

Thanks for your thoughts. A coop or union model might make sense, no? When you become a member you get one vote (one vote per person). To get specific, I mean

by zrail 8y ago

Thanks for your thoughts. A coop or union model might make sense, no? When you become a member you get one vote (one vote per person). To get specific, I mean "open source" as in "I can go read the source and contribute bug fixes." Forks could be treated as derivatives, like remixes or covers of music. The originator of the IP would share in the revenue of any fork. I think ultimately where I would like to see this is Google, Apple, etc, paying for the software they use in the form of one big lump royalty fee based on a percentage of their gross revenue. That would entitle them to use any software with the license, no questions asked.

sixdimensional 8y ago
Yes, I think I agree that a co-op [1] seems like an interesting solution to this problem. I think the work around social benefit corporations (which are still for-profit) is somewhat related. I think the model definitely matters as a form of signaling intention. If the organizational form is too exotic or non-standard, it may drive people away (even if it is a better way of doing so). My viewpoint is heavily Western-world skewed, unlike other countries where co-ops are more commonplace. Apologies in advance, I'm always trying to escape such a singular world view. Your model might actually make businesses very happy, actually. Dealing with tons of different open source licenses no doubt adds legal burden/costs to commercial efforts. It would simplify both payment and legal terms. The tricky part then becomes getting enough people to contribute their work - it would be as much a marketing pitch to contributors. Probably similar in difficulty to trying to start a marketplace where you need both contributors and consumers. I suppose one thing you could do was have a "pay-what-you-can-or-nothing" tier as an option that your contributors could choose. This way, there is still a both open and "free" version in the cases where people choose to offer that for their intellectual property. I'm thinking a little bit of a variation on Patreon in the back of my head as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
- zrail 8y ago
  Scaling license fees by ability to pay is the way to go, I think. A sliding scale from “nothing” to “lots” is basically how ASCAP works. And this is still just commercial. Non-commercial and personal use wouldn’t be applicable.

by zrail 8y ago

sixdimensional 8y ago

Yes, I think I agree that a co-op [1] seems like an interesting solution to this problem. I think the work around social benefit corporations (which are still for-profit) is somewhat related. I think the model definitely matters as a form of signaling intention. If the organizational form is too exotic or non-standard, it may drive people away (even if it is a better way of doing so). My viewpoint is heavily Western-world skewed, unlike other countries where co-ops are more commonplace. Apologies in advance, I'm always trying to escape such a singular world view. Your model might actually make businesses very happy, actually. Dealing with tons of different open source licenses no doubt adds legal burden/costs to commercial efforts. It would simplify both payment and legal terms. The tricky part then becomes getting enough people to contribute their work - it would be as much a marketing pitch to contributors. Probably similar in difficulty to trying to start a marketplace where you need both contributors and consumers. I suppose one thing you could do was have a "pay-what-you-can-or-nothing" tier as an option that your contributors could choose. This way, there is still a both open and "free" version in the cases where people choose to offer that for their intellectual property. I'm thinking a little bit of a variation on Patreon in the back of my head as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative

zrail 8y ago
Scaling license fees by ability to pay is the way to go, I think. A sliding scale from “nothing” to “lots” is basically how ASCAP works. And this is still just commercial. Non-commercial and personal use wouldn’t be applicable.