7 ms·

>this big co strategy of "mine. I profit now. everyone who built up this useful thing can suck eggs" really sucks and sucks for the humans and sucks for Open So

>this big co strategy of "mine. I profit now. everyone who built up this useful thing can suck eggs" really sucks and sucks for the humans and sucks for Open Source. Then use a different license. Hoping that a company like Amazon finds it in their hearts to always do what _you_ consider "the right thing" is just a loser of a strategy. You seem to want all of the good of open source, with none of the downsides. Good luck with that.

divbzero 6y ago
Which alternative license(s) would you recommend?
Ar-Curunir 6y ago
How would using GPL help here? Having the source code doesn't mean you have access to hardware like Amazon
backtoyoujim 6y ago
This reads like big co marketspeak of "go suck eggs twice"
- EpicEng 6y ago
  More along the lines of "I live in the real world". I can be empathetic to the situation and think the author essentially set themselves up for something like this all at the same time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
unethical_ban 6y ago
"Don't like how shitty people can be? I don't care" - that is how this kind of comment reads. But let's move on. Interesting idea for a license. Everyone can use and modify it, but if a large company with a market cap above $100m or a company wholly funded or owned by such company decides to utilize this project as a for-profit service, then said large company must hire me at for no less than $175,000 in 2020 value.
- elwell 6y ago
  > or a company wholly funded or owned by such company ^^ Written as if you've been burnt before...
  - garrettgrimsley 6y ago
    It would include that so that the BigCo couldn’t create a shell company or subsidiary to own the product and skirt the $100MM language
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    wholly funded nah we get $1 from Joe down the street he also owns it technically...
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Like CC-BY-NC (Creative Combine, Attribution, Non-commercial). If you want to use the work commercially (ie for business purposes, commercial doesn't require selling) then you must negotiate licensing terms (or infringe copyright [Fair Use / Fair Dealing aside].
  - greensoap 6y ago
    Please don't encourage or suggest the use of CC anything for code. It just wasn't designed for code and creates huge ambiguities on the rights you intended. https://creativecommons.org/faq/#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F https://creativecommons.org/faq/#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Common... As stated on the Creative Commons website (licensed under CC-BY): Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software? We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses listed as free by the Free Software Foundation and listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative. Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Many software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works. Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed work with other free software. Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the Creative Commons licenses. Version 4.0 of CC’s Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) license is one-way compatible with the GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3). This compatibility mechanism is designed for situations in which content is integrated into software code in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish the two. There are special considerations required before using this compatibility mechanism. Read more about it here.
funkaster 6y ago
This is what people don't get when arguing against GPL: "oh, it's such a restrictive license! so viral, blah blah blah". In this case, it would've probable not changed the outcome, but could give the author some leverage for either compensation or mention. IANAL, but my understanding is that GPL would require you to keep the same terms and mention explicitly the original source.
- suyash 6y ago
  I would bet AWS wouldn’t even touch it if it was under GPL, most companies have made it forbidden to use because of reasons you stated.
  - toyg 6y ago
    And would that be a bad thing? If the tool is good, FOSS users will get a competitive advantage over AWS.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      I had several discussions with fellow students in Uni about GPL vs. BSD licensing and BSD licensed code is, IMO, more free and more accessible - it really depends on what you want out of your code. Is your goal to provide a useful tool as a one-off that anyone can pick up and use? Then BSD is for you - otherwise, if you have expectations around self-maintenance of the code by consumers then you want to lean more toward GPL. The thing you get out of GPL that you lack with BSD is the ability to pull back changes and bug fixes from users - usually by explicitly excluding those parties which for legal/whatever reasons aren't comfortable re-sharing bug fixes.
      - toyg 6y ago
        Of course it’s more free - corporations are free to take your code and do as they please, as we’ve just seen.
      - arminiusreturns 6y ago
cycloptic 6y ago
>Hoping that a company like Amazon finds it in their hearts to always do what _you_ consider "the right thing" is just a loser of a strategy. Sure the author can't require payment after the fact, but there are no open source licenses that prevent the author from soliciting payment from a downstream user. This is all fair game. >You seem to want all of the good of open source, with none of the downsides. If you do it right there aren't downsides. As far as business is concerned, the point with choosing any license is to create a win-win situation for all parties involved.
munk-a 6y ago
I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting - then you could individually re-license the code for different users to privately consume (and, optionally, free them from the burdens of the GPL3's copy-left infection). There'd be some issues, any commits you pulled in from the community wouldn't be eligible for re-licensing unless your PR acceptance flow included securing re-licencing rights from them - standard GPL3 copy-left code can't be converted to a private license without the agreement of the original authors.
- purpleidea 6y ago
  > I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting That's not how GPLv3 works. Both in terms of selling [1] and in terms of additional permissions under section 7. GPLv3 without a CLA essentially requires you make the modified code available, but not when it's behind a cloud/webservice. For that you need AGPLv3. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
  - munk-a 6y ago
    To clarify - that's why I specifically mentioned a modification, the CC-Attribution-Non-commerical license accomplished this in a non-software setting so I assume a sufficiently practiced lawyer could make the modifications to the GPL3 to specifically disallow usage in commercial settings - this would, after the modification, not be GPL3 anymore of course. This does go against some philosophical decisions underlying the GPL license but IMO GPL itself is less free than BSD/MIT licensing and to each their own.

divbzero 6y ago

Which alternative license(s) would you recommend?

Ar-Curunir 6y ago

How would using GPL help here? Having the source code doesn't mean you have access to hardware like Amazon

backtoyoujim 6y ago

This reads like big co marketspeak of "go suck eggs twice"

EpicEng 6y ago
More along the lines of "I live in the real world". I can be empathetic to the situation and think the author essentially set themselves up for something like this all at the same time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

unethical_ban 6y ago

"Don't like how shitty people can be? I don't care" - that is how this kind of comment reads. But let's move on. Interesting idea for a license. Everyone can use and modify it, but if a large company with a market cap above $100m or a company wholly funded or owned by such company decides to utilize this project as a for-profit service, then said large company must hire me at for no less than $175,000 in 2020 value.

elwell 6y ago
> or a company wholly funded or owned by such company ^^ Written as if you've been burnt before...
- garrettgrimsley 6y ago
  It would include that so that the BigCo couldn’t create a shell company or subsidiary to own the product and skirt the $100MM language
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  wholly funded nah we get $1 from Joe down the street he also owns it technically...
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Like CC-BY-NC (Creative Combine, Attribution, Non-commercial). If you want to use the work commercially (ie for business purposes, commercial doesn't require selling) then you must negotiate licensing terms (or infringe copyright [Fair Use / Fair Dealing aside].
- greensoap 6y ago
  Please don't encourage or suggest the use of CC anything for code. It just wasn't designed for code and creates huge ambiguities on the rights you intended. https://creativecommons.org/faq/#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F https://creativecommons.org/faq/#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Common... As stated on the Creative Commons website (licensed under CC-BY): Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software? We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses listed as free by the Free Software Foundation and listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative. Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Many software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works. Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed work with other free software. Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the Creative Commons licenses. Version 4.0 of CC’s Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) license is one-way compatible with the GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3). This compatibility mechanism is designed for situations in which content is integrated into software code in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish the two. There are special considerations required before using this compatibility mechanism. Read more about it here.

funkaster 6y ago

This is what people don't get when arguing against GPL: "oh, it's such a restrictive license! so viral, blah blah blah". In this case, it would've probable not changed the outcome, but could give the author some leverage for either compensation or mention. IANAL, but my understanding is that GPL would require you to keep the same terms and mention explicitly the original source.

suyash 6y ago
I would bet AWS wouldn’t even touch it if it was under GPL, most companies have made it forbidden to use because of reasons you stated.
- toyg 6y ago
  And would that be a bad thing? If the tool is good, FOSS users will get a competitive advantage over AWS.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I had several discussions with fellow students in Uni about GPL vs. BSD licensing and BSD licensed code is, IMO, more free and more accessible - it really depends on what you want out of your code. Is your goal to provide a useful tool as a one-off that anyone can pick up and use? Then BSD is for you - otherwise, if you have expectations around self-maintenance of the code by consumers then you want to lean more toward GPL. The thing you get out of GPL that you lack with BSD is the ability to pull back changes and bug fixes from users - usually by explicitly excluding those parties which for legal/whatever reasons aren't comfortable re-sharing bug fixes.
    - toyg 6y ago
      Of course it’s more free - corporations are free to take your code and do as they please, as we’ve just seen.
    - arminiusreturns 6y ago

cycloptic 6y ago

>Hoping that a company like Amazon finds it in their hearts to always do what _you_ consider "the right thing" is just a loser of a strategy. Sure the author can't require payment after the fact, but there are no open source licenses that prevent the author from soliciting payment from a downstream user. This is all fair game. >You seem to want all of the good of open source, with none of the downsides. If you do it right there aren't downsides. As far as business is concerned, the point with choosing any license is to create a win-win situation for all parties involved.

munk-a 6y ago

I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting - then you could individually re-license the code for different users to privately consume (and, optionally, free them from the burdens of the GPL3's copy-left infection). There'd be some issues, any commits you pulled in from the community wouldn't be eligible for re-licensing unless your PR acceptance flow included securing re-licencing rights from them - standard GPL3 copy-left code can't be converted to a private license without the agreement of the original authors.

purpleidea 6y ago
> I think it should be possible to modify the GPL3 to disallow any usage in a for-profit setting That's not how GPLv3 works. Both in terms of selling [1] and in terms of additional permissions under section 7. GPLv3 without a CLA essentially requires you make the modified code available, but not when it's behind a cloud/webservice. For that you need AGPLv3. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
- munk-a 6y ago
  To clarify - that's why I specifically mentioned a modification, the CC-Attribution-Non-commerical license accomplished this in a non-software setting so I assume a sufficiently practiced lawyer could make the modifications to the GPL3 to specifically disallow usage in commercial settings - this would, after the modification, not be GPL3 anymore of course. This does go against some philosophical decisions underlying the GPL license but IMO GPL itself is less free than BSD/MIT licensing and to each their own.