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I think dual-licensing is a good solution. Customers who want to profit from your software will purchase a "shared source" license. Customers who care for Open

I think dual-licensing is a good solution. Customers who want to profit from your software will purchase a "shared source" license. Customers who care for Open Source will use and detect bugs in the copyleft licensed version. "Software Repair" is a feature, not a God-given right. And isn't it always better if the maintainers of the software do it for you so you don't have to do it yourself? If they do it it will benefit others besides the single do-it-yourself software repairer. In practice I think only the maintainers of an open sourced software will actually fix bugs in it, although many users may report bugs. Therefore there needs to be some mechanism which promotes the flow of financial incentives to the maintainers of open source software. Dual-licensing would seem to be a solution. Give the bug-fixes and improved features, usability and performance improvements to paying customers first. If there are security problems those should of course be expeditiously shared with everyone.

pabs3 5y ago
"Software Repair" is a GPL and copyleft given right though, which is what the Software Freedom Conservancy lawsuit is attempting to prove. It isn't always better for the maintainers to repair software, since they could refuse to do it, take years to do it, require more money than you have to do it, or require signing unacceptable agreements to do it and also since maintainers are overworked already, so preparing a good patch and sending it back to them helps reduce their workload. I personally have fixed many bugs in open source software I am not maintainer for, including a couple in the Linux kernel. There are many software developers and other technical people who are in this position. Dual licensing can lead to the downstream customers of the customers taking out the non open source license being stripped of their right to repair the software. Personally I think it would be better to keep all copies of open source software under an open source license. There are many different ways to fund open source other than dual licensing, many of them benefit the maintainers too: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
jabl 5y ago
> I think dual-licensing is a good solution. sfconservancy lays out why they don't agree with that in https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality...
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  That’s all cool and dandy, but I highly doubt SF Conservancy would pay my bills while riding their high horse. For every Red Hat out there there are thousands of consultancies that have tried to be true to the copyleft ideals and failed.
unionpivo 5y ago
It is "god given right". If no "human" law would exist, you could repair and sell that. Copyright iteslf is fairly new (I belive from 1710 "Statute of Anne" for firs limited kind of copyright). For much of human civilization, and some of greatest works of art were done before idea of copyright existed.

pabs3 5y ago

"Software Repair" is a GPL and copyleft given right though, which is what the Software Freedom Conservancy lawsuit is attempting to prove. It isn't always better for the maintainers to repair software, since they could refuse to do it, take years to do it, require more money than you have to do it, or require signing unacceptable agreements to do it and also since maintainers are overworked already, so preparing a good patch and sending it back to them helps reduce their workload. I personally have fixed many bugs in open source software I am not maintainer for, including a couple in the Linux kernel. There are many software developers and other technical people who are in this position. Dual licensing can lead to the downstream customers of the customers taking out the non open source license being stripped of their right to repair the software. Personally I think it would be better to keep all copies of open source software under an open source license. There are many different ways to fund open source other than dual licensing, many of them benefit the maintainers too: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

jabl 5y ago

> I think dual-licensing is a good solution. sfconservancy lays out why they don't agree with that in https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality...

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
That’s all cool and dandy, but I highly doubt SF Conservancy would pay my bills while riding their high horse. For every Red Hat out there there are thousands of consultancies that have tried to be true to the copyleft ideals and failed.

unionpivo 5y ago

It is "god given right". If no "human" law would exist, you could repair and sell that. Copyright iteslf is fairly new (I belive from 1710 "Statute of Anne" for firs limited kind of copyright). For much of human civilization, and some of greatest works of art were done before idea of copyright existed.