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> One question, though: towards the end, it suggests that GPL/AGPL products, which are more defensible against commercial competitors who simply resell the open

> One question, though: towards the end, it suggests that GPL/AGPL products, which are more defensible against commercial competitors who simply resell the open source project, are "legally murky" and might be rejected by customer legal teams. But does that matter? Can't you just do what Sleepycat did, and offer commercial customers a clean commercial license? It isn't an issue of "clean"; GPL/AGPL aren't "legally murky". (Though if a customer is willing to pay you because they think otherwise, by all means.) But if they're "rejected by customer legal teams", that's an opportunity to sell an alternative license or exception. I've collaborated with the legal teams at various companies that review both inbound and outbound FOSS. Inbound, there's no open legal question with GPL-family licenses; they're only "rejected" in cases where they're functioning as intended and that isn't desired. (That includes companies that systematically reject AGPL; they're concerned about the license working as intended.) Outbound, the pressure to not use GPL-family licenses when a choice is available doesn't come from the legal department; it comes from product teams who don't seriously consider copyleft and what benefit they might gain from using it, because all the other teams they see are using Apache or MIT or BSD. And then those same teams become shocked when their own code is used to compete with them. There's a strong tendency towards "do what other people are doing", and there are a lot of companies releasing permissively licensed code. This seems self-defeating.

Sebb767 6y ago
> It isn't an issue of "clean"; GPL/AGPL aren't "legally murky". Yes and no. I'd agree that, in general, they're legally safe and clear, but when you're talking to the legal department of a company, it is not about whether they're clearly defined. The actual worry is whether a patent troll or a more litigious competitor can sue the s out of your company and extract millions upon millions of either legal costs or settlements. Yes, you _might_ win, but it will still cost you and courts are known to not always be deterministic in their decisions. So once your out of the "thrown out without a second thought"-cleanliness, corporate legal will not be happy.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  > The actual worry is whether a patent troll or a more litigious competito Is there a reason that is more of a risk with GPL/AGPL than with other ("permissive") open source licenses though?
ThePhysicist 6y ago
It really depends on what you're selling. All of the Linux core tools and the kernel are released under GPL and obviously companies have no issues using them. For libraries that are statically compiled or used as part of your own software it's a different story though.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > For libraries that are statically compiled or used as part of your own software it's a different story though. That's still not "legally murky"; that's the GPL working as designed. If the component has enough value, that's an opportunity to sell an alternate license. Of course, if your primary value proposition is something other than the library (such as a paid service that the library helps programs integrate with), by all means use a permissive license.

Sebb767 6y ago

> It isn't an issue of "clean"; GPL/AGPL aren't "legally murky". Yes and no. I'd agree that, in general, they're legally safe and clear, but when you're talking to the legal department of a company, it is not about whether they're clearly defined. The actual worry is whether a patent troll or a more litigious competitor can sue the s out of your company and extract millions upon millions of either legal costs or settlements. Yes, you _might_ win, but it will still cost you and courts are known to not always be deterministic in their decisions. So once your out of the "thrown out without a second thought"-cleanliness, corporate legal will not be happy.

jrochkind1 6y ago
> The actual worry is whether a patent troll or a more litigious competito Is there a reason that is more of a risk with GPL/AGPL than with other ("permissive") open source licenses though?

ThePhysicist 6y ago

It really depends on what you're selling. All of the Linux core tools and the kernel are released under GPL and obviously companies have no issues using them. For libraries that are statically compiled or used as part of your own software it's a different story though.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
> For libraries that are statically compiled or used as part of your own software it's a different story though. That's still not "legally murky"; that's the GPL working as designed. If the component has enough value, that's an opportunity to sell an alternate license. Of course, if your primary value proposition is something other than the library (such as a paid service that the library helps programs integrate with), by all means use a permissive license.