5 ms·

Marginally related, but something I've been curious about: With the recent news about things like the TSL (Timescale Licence), BSL (Business Source Licence) ma

by notamy 6y ago

Marginally related, but something I've been curious about: With the recent news about things like the TSL (Timescale Licence), BSL (Business Source Licence) maybe?, and other such licences, is there anything that's more general that covers the "you can use this but not sell this-as-a-service" use-case for a broader category? For a contrived example, if I were to make a geolocation-by-IP API as an open-source (source-available?) product, and I wanted to run a business around it, but didn't want a cloud provider to just snag it and offer it unmodified, what licence would I use?

karterk 6y ago
I don't have a direct answer but want to offer a different perspective. I've been working on an open source search engine for a few years (https://github.com/typesense/typesense https://github.com/typesense/typesense) that's far more easier than Elasticsearch for a number of use cases and is a great alternative to Algolia. I was faced with this same dilemma when I started out: how do I protect future commercial interests without stifling the spirit of open source? Eventually I just chose good old GPL and decided against BSL-like licenses for a number of reasons. GPL is a fine balance. When you are small, your greatest risk is not an existing or future competitor: it is death by obscurity. To that end, you don't want to slow down adoption by choosing a license that screams "$$$" or makes somebody's legal team uncomfortable. In any case, if a big company wants to copy you, they will and can with the resources they can throw at it.
- mooreds 6y ago
  That is an interesting perspective. I would be that your product has well defined interfaces that would make integration with a commercial product easy. Plus I guess you could always dual license.
- ThePhysicist 6y ago
  I think (A)GPL is great for standalone software, i.e. tools that don't get integrated into a codebase but used as an external service. Databases or your search engine are great examples for that. For anything that should be integrated into the codebase of your customers I'd recommend a weaker license like MIT or BSD, as most companies shy away from integrating GPL libraries into their codebases for fear of contamination.
  - holri 6y ago
    For this cases there is the LGPL.
    - rusticpenn 6y ago
      Is it not possible to have multiple licenses? AGPL or commercial?
      - orlandohill 6y ago
        Yes. This is sometimes called dual-licensing, but a less ambiguous term is public-private licensing. https://indieopensource.com/public-private/indies https://indieopensource.com/public-private/indies
- macklemoreshair 6y ago
  typesense looks really impressive. good stuff.
orlandohill 6y ago
The Polyform Project has a set of standardized, source-available licenses. Shield or Perimeter might suit your needs. https://polyformproject.org/licenses/ https://polyformproject.org/licenses/
mattgreg 6y ago
I love this point of view. We choose Apache2 because it's well understood and adopted, so it's not a blocker for developers to get started. I think that the '20s are going to be exceptionally exciting for license models. We have our eye on all of these.

by notamy 6y ago

karterk 6y ago

I don't have a direct answer but want to offer a different perspective. I've been working on an open source search engine for a few years (https://github.com/typesense/typesense https://github.com/typesense/typesense) that's far more easier than Elasticsearch for a number of use cases and is a great alternative to Algolia. I was faced with this same dilemma when I started out: how do I protect future commercial interests without stifling the spirit of open source? Eventually I just chose good old GPL and decided against BSL-like licenses for a number of reasons. GPL is a fine balance. When you are small, your greatest risk is not an existing or future competitor: it is death by obscurity. To that end, you don't want to slow down adoption by choosing a license that screams "$$$" or makes somebody's legal team uncomfortable. In any case, if a big company wants to copy you, they will and can with the resources they can throw at it.

mooreds 6y ago
That is an interesting perspective. I would be that your product has well defined interfaces that would make integration with a commercial product easy. Plus I guess you could always dual license.
ThePhysicist 6y ago
I think (A)GPL is great for standalone software, i.e. tools that don't get integrated into a codebase but used as an external service. Databases or your search engine are great examples for that. For anything that should be integrated into the codebase of your customers I'd recommend a weaker license like MIT or BSD, as most companies shy away from integrating GPL libraries into their codebases for fear of contamination.
- holri 6y ago
  For this cases there is the LGPL.
  - rusticpenn 6y ago
    Is it not possible to have multiple licenses? AGPL or commercial?
    - orlandohill 6y ago
      Yes. This is sometimes called dual-licensing, but a less ambiguous term is public-private licensing. https://indieopensource.com/public-private/indies https://indieopensource.com/public-private/indies
macklemoreshair 6y ago
typesense looks really impressive. good stuff.

orlandohill 6y ago

The Polyform Project has a set of standardized, source-available licenses. Shield or Perimeter might suit your needs. https://polyformproject.org/licenses/ https://polyformproject.org/licenses/

mattgreg 6y ago

I love this point of view. We choose Apache2 because it's well understood and adopted, so it's not a blocker for developers to get started. I think that the '20s are going to be exceptionally exciting for license models. We have our eye on all of these.