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Yes, this is a big issue for many infrastructure startups. The AGPL scares potential users and customers away, but permissive license often get taken advantage

Yes, this is a big issue for many infrastructure startups. The AGPL scares potential users and customers away, but permissive license often get taken advantage of. At FOSSA, we've commissioned a new license called the Commons Clause (http://commonsclause.com/ http://commonsclause.com/) that tries to address this exact problem, so that developers can create permissive software without being exploited by providers.

ben0x539 8y ago
Hm, interesting direction once you've decided to give up on open source, but that seems a bit of a leap.
beojan 8y ago
What's the point of using a permissive license then? Why not just use a (situation appropriate -- i.e. LGPL, GPL, or AGPL depending on what precisely the software is) copyleft license?
- ilikebits 8y ago
  The point is to prevent service providers like Amazon from making money by the software you built, but still allow end users to operate and self-host and modify it.
  - beojan 8y ago
    AGPL is just fine for that.
pacala 8y ago
I've recently seen http://scip.zib.de/#license http://scip.zib.de/#license. " You are allowed to retrieve SCIP for research purposes as a member of a non-commercial and academic institution.". Could help keeping alive an academic community around it.