6 ms·

May I suggest you don't license the work in a way that allows it to be commercialized without your explicit permission and handsome compensation to you and any

May I suggest you don't license the work in a way that allows it to be commercialized without your explicit permission and handsome compensation to you and any other contributors. You'll need this to be sustainable and it'll be incredibly frustrating if a company de-facto hijacks the development and takes it in a direction you don't expect or want.

amarioguy 4y ago
I'll definitely take this into account thanks for bringing it up! Licensing is something I've thought about a bit before starting, right now since m1n1 (the hypervisor I'm iterating on) is MIT licensed for the most part, I'm inheriting that license too for my fork of m1n1 (i'll mainline the changes btw! need to work with marcan once they're done), but as the project goes further I'll definitely consider the question of licensing again.
- mekster 4y ago
  It'll just be sad to see apps like VMware or Parallels release a new version claiming they made a breakthrough after you've made some milestone release...
j1elo 4y ago
Oh but then half of HN will complain about how that's not truly open according to a dictionary definition thus automatically becomes untrustworthy and they won't touch it with a ten foot pole. (/s) Jokes aside, technically I don't disagree on the "dictionary definition" thing there... but it's interesting how the current landscape has shifted and now more control for the developer starts to become a common interest between "hackers". The original OSS licenses protected users (as in, final users) from predatory devs; nowadays, small devs and hackers talk in their forums about how to preemptively protect themselves against predatory users (as in, not final users, but other bigger devs that leech on other's work)
- colordrops 4y ago
  You're confusing closed source blobs and proprietary licenses with restrictive but truly open licenses like AGPL which would also protect the authors.
  - wmf 4y ago
    In this case I don't think AGPL does what you want; it's oriented towards SaaS but this project is a bootloader.
    - colordrops 4y ago
      Sure, hence the "like". They could create or use a license that is fully open but prevents commercial use without a license.
      - wmf 4y ago
        Such a license is not possible.
        colordrops 4y ago
        How exactly is that? There are plenty of licenses that don't allow commercial usage.
        cyphar 4y ago
        You cannot have a "fully open" license which disallows commercial usage. Both the OSI and FSF definitions of "open source" and "free software" licenses would exclude such a license. Of course you can create a proprietary license which disallows commercial usage, but it won't be "fully open".
        thescriptkiddie 4y ago
        FSF-compatible licenses absolutely can exclude commercial usage, and software can be made simultaneously available under a separate (paid) commercial license if the authors wish. It's only the OSI that doesn't allow this.
tediousdemise 4y ago
IANAL but I'd like a license that goes something like this: Companies: If you are working for a company/corporation/profit-generating entity, or otherwise intend to sell or use such code derived from this repository for profit-generating purposes, you shall not be permitted to use any of the source code herein until you email me (author email here) and we can come up with the appropriate terms and conditions for your use case. Everyone else: Have fun! Obviously it's missing some necessary edge cases and disclaimers, but yeah.
- stevage 4y ago
  I mean, that's basically what CC-BY-NC is. Any licence that prohibits commercial use does not prohibit an alternative commercial licence being negotiated.
- pbronez 4y ago
  I would love a reference to a formalized version of this.. Edit: Found Polyform! https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/
  - pbronez 4y ago
    Found one - Polyform https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ > PolyForm is a project to draft and make freely available plain-language source code licenses with limited rights. > > Source code licenses with limited rights? What does that mean? Many software developers want to make software available under source code licenses that grant some, but not all rights. Some licenses that have been released before include the Commons Clause, Elastic and Confluent licenses, and others. These licenses grant broad rights, including source code access, but reserve some rights to the licensor.
- stavros 4y ago
  Maybe the Prosperity License: https://prosperitylicense.com/versions/3.0.0 https://prosperitylicense.com/versions/3.0.0
- shawnz 4y ago
CodeSgt 4y ago
Do this, but make allowances for small businesses under a certain MRR.

amarioguy 4y ago

I'll definitely take this into account thanks for bringing it up! Licensing is something I've thought about a bit before starting, right now since m1n1 (the hypervisor I'm iterating on) is MIT licensed for the most part, I'm inheriting that license too for my fork of m1n1 (i'll mainline the changes btw! need to work with marcan once they're done), but as the project goes further I'll definitely consider the question of licensing again.

mekster 4y ago
It'll just be sad to see apps like VMware or Parallels release a new version claiming they made a breakthrough after you've made some milestone release...

j1elo 4y ago

Oh but then half of HN will complain about how that's not truly open according to a dictionary definition thus automatically becomes untrustworthy and they won't touch it with a ten foot pole. (/s) Jokes aside, technically I don't disagree on the "dictionary definition" thing there... but it's interesting how the current landscape has shifted and now more control for the developer starts to become a common interest between "hackers". The original OSS licenses protected users (as in, final users) from predatory devs; nowadays, small devs and hackers talk in their forums about how to preemptively protect themselves against predatory users (as in, not final users, but other bigger devs that leech on other's work)

colordrops 4y ago
You're confusing closed source blobs and proprietary licenses with restrictive but truly open licenses like AGPL which would also protect the authors.
- wmf 4y ago
  In this case I don't think AGPL does what you want; it's oriented towards SaaS but this project is a bootloader.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    Sure, hence the "like". They could create or use a license that is fully open but prevents commercial use without a license.
    - wmf 4y ago
      Such a license is not possible.
      - colordrops 4y ago
        How exactly is that? There are plenty of licenses that don't allow commercial usage.
        cyphar 4y ago
        You cannot have a "fully open" license which disallows commercial usage. Both the OSI and FSF definitions of "open source" and "free software" licenses would exclude such a license. Of course you can create a proprietary license which disallows commercial usage, but it won't be "fully open".
        thescriptkiddie 4y ago
        FSF-compatible licenses absolutely can exclude commercial usage, and software can be made simultaneously available under a separate (paid) commercial license if the authors wish. It's only the OSI that doesn't allow this.

tediousdemise 4y ago

IANAL but I'd like a license that goes something like this: Companies: If you are working for a company/corporation/profit-generating entity, or otherwise intend to sell or use such code derived from this repository for profit-generating purposes, you shall not be permitted to use any of the source code herein until you email me (author email here) and we can come up with the appropriate terms and conditions for your use case. Everyone else: Have fun! Obviously it's missing some necessary edge cases and disclaimers, but yeah.

stevage 4y ago
I mean, that's basically what CC-BY-NC is. Any licence that prohibits commercial use does not prohibit an alternative commercial licence being negotiated.
pbronez 4y ago
I would love a reference to a formalized version of this.. Edit: Found Polyform! https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/
- pbronez 4y ago
  Found one - Polyform https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/ > PolyForm is a project to draft and make freely available plain-language source code licenses with limited rights. > > Source code licenses with limited rights? What does that mean? Many software developers want to make software available under source code licenses that grant some, but not all rights. Some licenses that have been released before include the Commons Clause, Elastic and Confluent licenses, and others. These licenses grant broad rights, including source code access, but reserve some rights to the licensor.
stavros 4y ago
Maybe the Prosperity License: https://prosperitylicense.com/versions/3.0.0 https://prosperitylicense.com/versions/3.0.0
shawnz 4y ago

CodeSgt 4y ago

Do this, but make allowances for small businesses under a certain MRR.