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I'm confused about the license[1]. It seems to not be actually open source. The Open Source Definition says[2]: > The license must not restrict anyone from mak

I'm confused about the license[1]. It seems to not be actually open source. The Open Source Definition says[2]: > 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. But this seems to be doing that exact restriction. Additionally the license seems like it contains a loophole: >If you are creating an open source application under a license compatible with the GNU GPL license v3, you may use browserless under the terms of the GPLv3. If I make an open source application, I can use browserless under the terms of the GPLv3. That means I can redistribute browserless under the GPLv3. That means people can take the browserless code I redistribute and use that for commercial products (as long as they don't distribute a non-GPLv3 binary form of the commercial products containing browserless, because that would break the GPLv3). [1] https://github.com/browserless/chrome#licensing https://github.com/browserless/chrome#licensing [2] https://opensource.org/osd#fields-of-endeavor https://opensource.org/osd#fields-of-endeavor

Reelin 7y ago
Just checked the GitHub license page (https://github.com/browserless/chrome/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/browserless/chrome/blob/master/LICENSE.md). > This work is dual-licensed under GPL-3.0 OR the browserless commercial license. You can choose between one of them if you use this work. So it's clearly GPLv3 (no loophole required), which AFAIK does allow closed source proprietary use within a company so long as the program isn't redistributed externally (perhaps the developer didn't understand that?). It seems that the licensing section in the readme should have it's wording adjusted somewhat. In fact, I think you're even in the clear to run a proprietary cloud service using GPLv3 code which is why the AGPL (among others) exists. Some recent drama (https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open-source-results-in-source-available-licenses/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open...) for reference. (Oddly, the header underneath that states "GPL-3.0-or-later" which is a bit inconsistent.)

Reelin 7y ago

Just checked the GitHub license page (https://github.com/browserless/chrome/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/browserless/chrome/blob/master/LICENSE.md). > This work is dual-licensed under GPL-3.0 OR the browserless commercial license. You can choose between one of them if you use this work. So it's clearly GPLv3 (no loophole required), which AFAIK does allow closed source proprietary use within a company so long as the program isn't redistributed externally (perhaps the developer didn't understand that?). It seems that the licensing section in the readme should have it's wording adjusted somewhat. In fact, I think you're even in the clear to run a proprietary cloud service using GPLv3 code which is why the AGPL (among others) exists. Some recent drama (https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open-source-results-in-source-available-licenses/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open...) for reference. (Oddly, the header underneath that states "GPL-3.0-or-later" which is a bit inconsistent.)