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Ask HN: Open-source license with special restriction from FAANG using it?

Ask HN: Open source license with special restriction from FAANG using it? Is it possible to use a standard license like apache 2 but adding restriction to specifically disallow FAANG companies to use it in any way, thus preventing from what happened to some recent big open source projects?

mtmail 7y ago
You can add any clause to a license. JSON's license is famous for adding "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." It probably makes it non-open source and non-free according to OSD and FSF https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research." https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license
- throwaway86534 7y ago
  Interesting, Thanks. Good and Evil is still a broad category, I assume having a named company in license to disallow them from using it would in some way cause more problem due to their name being used i guess?
  - gesman 7y ago
    What about countless service providers, consultants and contractors that [maybe] working on [SaaS] technologies potentially providing services to FAANG? Hard to trace/track.
riyakhanna1983 7y ago
How will you know who's using your FOSS project?
- throwaway86534 7y ago
  don't want to point fingers here but when they start yet another "FOSS project as service on their platform"? mainly i don't want to prevent other startups or mid size companies from using it, but the big platforms have a tendency to just change or tweak the project in small way to suit their platform which causes incompatibilities with upstream, secondly imho it is not fair for the project, since the project is trying to survive while these platforms get bigger and mint money off project contributors work without ever giving back or affecting it adversely sometimes by taking control of the project.
  - gtirloni 7y ago
    Startups and midsized companies do the same all the time. Are you drawing the line on profit? Number of employees? As others have said, if you want to make a political statement go for it and name all the companies you don't want using your software explicitly (and keep updating that when they work around you). Personally, I wouldn't bother. If this is for a business idea, rethink your revenue strategy... licensing alone is a nightmare to enforce.
Nextgrid 7y ago
You’d need to define what you mean by a FAANG company. Do you literally mean the aforementioned companies? In that case they can work around it if it’s one of their smaller companies like Instagram or WhatsApp. If you forbid usage if the _parent company_ is FAANG then they can work around it by making a totally separate company whose only job is to provide a service (using your software) to FAANG at no markup. If you mean a company of certain size, then it could have collateral damage on big but not malicious companies, and can again be worked around by sharding usage of your software to smaller companies to stay under the size threshold.
mindcrime 7y ago
You can do that, but your project would no longer be Open Source by the commonly accepted standard definition[1]. Personally, while I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind this, I don't think doing this kind of thing accomplishes very much, and I'd recommend against it. YMMV, of course. [1]: https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd
- throwaway86534 7y ago
  Yep i understand it wouldn't be opensource per se, i think the question really is, should it be done, if yes why, if no why not and has someone else here on HN done it before or have seen a project with such a license before?
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    I think we've all seen lots of examples where somebody took an existing license and tacked some extra verbiage onto it. The recent controversy around the "Commons Clause" stuff is a good example. My take is just this: if it's a deeply held ideological thing for you, then by all means, go for it. But if you want your project to be widely adopted / used, etc., then in pragmatic terms I think you'd be better served sticking with a straight-forward, conventional license. Not everybody cares about this sort of thing, but a lot of people get uneasy using projects that use "non-standard" licenses.
satvikpendem 7y ago
If you really want to, make it AGPL and most companies, especially large ones like FAANG, won't touch it due to the virality of the license.

mtmail 7y ago

You can add any clause to a license. JSON's license is famous for adding "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." It probably makes it non-open source and non-free according to OSD and FSF https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research." https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

throwaway86534 7y ago
Interesting, Thanks. Good and Evil is still a broad category, I assume having a named company in license to disallow them from using it would in some way cause more problem due to their name being used i guess?
- gesman 7y ago
  What about countless service providers, consultants and contractors that [maybe] working on [SaaS] technologies potentially providing services to FAANG? Hard to trace/track.

riyakhanna1983 7y ago

How will you know who's using your FOSS project?

throwaway86534 7y ago
don't want to point fingers here but when they start yet another "FOSS project as service on their platform"? mainly i don't want to prevent other startups or mid size companies from using it, but the big platforms have a tendency to just change or tweak the project in small way to suit their platform which causes incompatibilities with upstream, secondly imho it is not fair for the project, since the project is trying to survive while these platforms get bigger and mint money off project contributors work without ever giving back or affecting it adversely sometimes by taking control of the project.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  Startups and midsized companies do the same all the time. Are you drawing the line on profit? Number of employees? As others have said, if you want to make a political statement go for it and name all the companies you don't want using your software explicitly (and keep updating that when they work around you). Personally, I wouldn't bother. If this is for a business idea, rethink your revenue strategy... licensing alone is a nightmare to enforce.

Nextgrid 7y ago

You’d need to define what you mean by a FAANG company. Do you literally mean the aforementioned companies? In that case they can work around it if it’s one of their smaller companies like Instagram or WhatsApp. If you forbid usage if the _parent company_ is FAANG then they can work around it by making a totally separate company whose only job is to provide a service (using your software) to FAANG at no markup. If you mean a company of certain size, then it could have collateral damage on big but not malicious companies, and can again be worked around by sharding usage of your software to smaller companies to stay under the size threshold.

mindcrime 7y ago

You can do that, but your project would no longer be Open Source by the commonly accepted standard definition[1]. Personally, while I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind this, I don't think doing this kind of thing accomplishes very much, and I'd recommend against it. YMMV, of course. [1]: https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd

throwaway86534 7y ago
Yep i understand it wouldn't be opensource per se, i think the question really is, should it be done, if yes why, if no why not and has someone else here on HN done it before or have seen a project with such a license before?
- mindcrime 7y ago
  I think we've all seen lots of examples where somebody took an existing license and tacked some extra verbiage onto it. The recent controversy around the "Commons Clause" stuff is a good example. My take is just this: if it's a deeply held ideological thing for you, then by all means, go for it. But if you want your project to be widely adopted / used, etc., then in pragmatic terms I think you'd be better served sticking with a straight-forward, conventional license. Not everybody cares about this sort of thing, but a lot of people get uneasy using projects that use "non-standard" licenses.

satvikpendem 7y ago

If you really want to, make it AGPL and most companies, especially large ones like FAANG, won't touch it due to the virality of the license.