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I think liberally licensed makes perfect sense: You can use it freely for open source and commercial applications with one, single, easy-to-understand catch:

I think liberally licensed makes perfect sense: You can use it freely for open source and commercial applications with one, single, easy-to-understand catch: You can't sell it or provide it as a paid service. Is it open source? No. Can I and you and almost everyone except Google Gloud, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure use it exactly as if it is open source? Yes. Is it less hassle than the AGPL? IMO, clearly yes.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
>Can I and you and almost everyone except Google Gloud, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure use it exactly as if it is open source? No, definitely not. I elaborated on why "liberal" is inappropriate here in a different comment: >There are widely accepted definitions for "liberal" among the open source community. The main differentiating factor of a liberal license is that it's not viral. Most people informed on this subject can then neatly and objectively file licenses into liberal and restrictive categories, with licenses like MIT, BSD, and Apache in the liberal camp, and the GPL family of licenses in the restrictive camp. However, the distinction has always been subjective, and nothing like the OSD exists. Additionally, the distinction is only ever applied in the comparison of open source licenses, of which yours is not a member. The realm of proprietary licenses masquarading as open source licenses is unexplored territory, and I'm drawing a line: no matter how restrictive a license like AGPL is, a license which is not even open source in the first place is far from liberal. I also wrote here about how this affects people like you and I: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17830644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17830644
porker 8y ago
> Is it open source? No. Yes it is. You can read the source code. It's not FOSS, or Open Source per the OSI definition.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > Yes it is. You can read the source code. You can read the source of Oracle Java as well. Doesn't make it open source. Open source has a defined meaning. Common Clause even points out in their FAQ that it makes the software not open source.
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  This makes is source available, which is very different from open source.
through1234 8y ago
It's liberally licensed in the sense that it's freeware, but you don't get the benefits you'd have from it being open source.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > but you don't get the benefits you'd have from it being open source. To me it seems more correct to say: but you don't get all the benefits you'd have from it being open source. Again though: - while I see where this is coming from - and it won't hurt me directly as far as I understand - I still have a sketchy feeling about what this will lead to in the future
dragonwriter 8y ago
> You can use it freely for open source and commercial applications with one, single, easy-to-understand catch: > You can't sell it or provide it as a paid service. The limitation in the license text is not that narrow; restricting the right to sell any product or service whose value derives “substantially” from the Commons Clause software. In legal context, “substantially” generally is a rough synonym of “nontrivially”. You seem to be suggesting that he license intended to only restrict sales of software/services which have no substantial source of value besides the upstream software, but that's not how it's actually written.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > You seem to be suggesting that he license intended to only restrict sales of software/services which have no substantial source of value besides the upstream software, but that's not how it's actually written As far as I understand the license clearly permits me to: -Use the licensed software internally. -Modify the licensed software. -Share my modifications. -Write software that connects direcly to the licensed software, with no restrrictions on my software (unlike AGPL) -From this it follows that I can license my software that uses the licensed software any way I want. -I'm not sure if I will be allowed to bundle the licensed software with my software, -But it should be allowed to say that the user as to install the licensed software and run it for my software to work. -Sharing the licensed software in a bundle (e.g. Linux distro) seems to be OK as long as I don't charge for it. This probably will need to be sorted out for Redhat etc. Please correct me if any of the above is incorrect. I might have misunderstood it but this was my best understanding.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

>Can I and you and almost everyone except Google Gloud, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure use it exactly as if it is open source? No, definitely not. I elaborated on why "liberal" is inappropriate here in a different comment: >There are widely accepted definitions for "liberal" among the open source community. The main differentiating factor of a liberal license is that it's not viral. Most people informed on this subject can then neatly and objectively file licenses into liberal and restrictive categories, with licenses like MIT, BSD, and Apache in the liberal camp, and the GPL family of licenses in the restrictive camp. However, the distinction has always been subjective, and nothing like the OSD exists. Additionally, the distinction is only ever applied in the comparison of open source licenses, of which yours is not a member. The realm of proprietary licenses masquarading as open source licenses is unexplored territory, and I'm drawing a line: no matter how restrictive a license like AGPL is, a license which is not even open source in the first place is far from liberal. I also wrote here about how this affects people like you and I: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17830644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17830644

porker 8y ago

> Is it open source? No. Yes it is. You can read the source code. It's not FOSS, or Open Source per the OSI definition.

reitanqild 8y ago
> Yes it is. You can read the source code. You can read the source of Oracle Java as well. Doesn't make it open source. Open source has a defined meaning. Common Clause even points out in their FAQ that it makes the software not open source.
tomnipotent 8y ago
This makes is source available, which is very different from open source.

through1234 8y ago

It's liberally licensed in the sense that it's freeware, but you don't get the benefits you'd have from it being open source.

reitanqild 8y ago
> but you don't get the benefits you'd have from it being open source. To me it seems more correct to say: but you don't get all the benefits you'd have from it being open source. Again though: - while I see where this is coming from - and it won't hurt me directly as far as I understand - I still have a sketchy feeling about what this will lead to in the future

dragonwriter 8y ago

> You can use it freely for open source and commercial applications with one, single, easy-to-understand catch: > You can't sell it or provide it as a paid service. The limitation in the license text is not that narrow; restricting the right to sell any product or service whose value derives “substantially” from the Commons Clause software. In legal context, “substantially” generally is a rough synonym of “nontrivially”. You seem to be suggesting that he license intended to only restrict sales of software/services which have no substantial source of value besides the upstream software, but that's not how it's actually written.

reitanqild 8y ago
> You seem to be suggesting that he license intended to only restrict sales of software/services which have no substantial source of value besides the upstream software, but that's not how it's actually written As far as I understand the license clearly permits me to: -Use the licensed software internally. -Modify the licensed software. -Share my modifications. -Write software that connects direcly to the licensed software, with no restrrictions on my software (unlike AGPL) -From this it follows that I can license my software that uses the licensed software any way I want. -I'm not sure if I will be allowed to bundle the licensed software with my software, -But it should be allowed to say that the user as to install the licensed software and run it for my software to work. -Sharing the licensed software in a bundle (e.g. Linux distro) seems to be OK as long as I don't charge for it. This probably will need to be sorted out for Redhat etc. Please correct me if any of the above is incorrect. I might have misunderstood it but this was my best understanding.