The easiest and safest approach is to choose the most restrictive license possible, like AGPL, and not accept contributions without signing an agreement, like G

The easiest and safest approach is to choose the most restrictive license possible, like AGPL, and not accept contributions without signing an agreement, like Google does [1]. You can always switch to a less restrictive license later or sell under a different license, etc. People will still be able to use your product freely, try it out, read code, contribute, but you will be protected from large corporations taking advantage of your work without paying you (like Amazon unable to use open source Mongo and Mongo unwilling to sell to Amazon). [1] https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual