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> The reasons why licenses like the AGPL haven't yet caught on are complex. They are not complex. Permissive licenses encourage adoption but hinder monetizatio
by stickfigure 6y ago
> The reasons why licenses like the AGPL haven't yet caught on are complex.
They are not complex. Permissive licenses encourage adoption but hinder monetization; restrictive licenses do the opposite. Pick your poison.
- wahern 6y agoThat was the argument against the GPL, and yet Linux beat BSD. The tension exists, but it's not such a simple trade-off, and the dynamic is highly context dependent. The complexity is in identifying and achieving the best business model. Like with the GPL 20 years ago, the intuition today seems to be that licenses like the AGPL are simply anathema to adoption (because "viral", etc) and therefore market capture, and if you can't capture the market you can't monetize your investment. It's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but eventually more people (authors, users, etc) will begin to explore the space commercially and, hopefully, disprove the conventional wisdom.