6 ms·

What are people’s thoughts on dual licensing in this manner? Is it compatible with foss or no?

icelancer 4y ago
It's not compatible with FOSS from a dogmatic point of view, but I think it's a pragmatic way forward given how AWS and other actors act. I dual license my company's products in this manner.
- sam_bristow 4y ago
  Even Stallman isn't completely opposed to selling exceptions to copyleft licences. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions
  - icelancer 4y ago
    Oh wow, I retract my statement then. I wasn't aware of this. I thought for sure RMS wouldn't approve.
sparkie 4y ago
It is compatible. The people who have a say are the people who write the code. If you are not comfortable with dual licensing, don't contribute upstream. You can fork such dual licensed project, add your own contributions and then Signal cannot use your code in anything they license to third-parties under non-AGPL. The fork becomes AGPL-only. Example of where this has happened: MySQL was forked to MariaDB, so developments to MariaDB cannot be used by Oracle in their proprietary licensing of MySQL.
threeseed 4y ago
I don't think it's compatible with the sprit of FOSS. You're giving the company (in this case Signal) an open-ended license for your contributions whilst they don't return the favour. And so whilst they can offer a proprietary version e.g. Signal Pro with a friendlier license e.g. BSD you can't. And what kind of underpins all of this is that many companies especially in the enterprise will not touch anything that is GPL or AGPL.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Huh? This is like saying that the AGPL isn't compatible with FOSS. I've heard stories that there was a window of time where RMS was advocating for the AGPL terms to be incorporated into GPL3. If your definition of FOSS excludes the GPL --- as your last sentence suggests --- your definition is... unusual.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    FOSS is a very big umbrella that incorporates a wide variety of licenses. But for me AGPL is not in the spirit of FOSS. It's like you're an unpaid employee of some company who is happy to take your work as long as you don't compete with them. I understand why AGPL was invented i.e. to prevent AWS ripping your project off but I don't think it's a particularly fair license for individual contributors.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      At the point where you've defined the FSF out of FOSS, you've departed the ordinary definition of the term.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - adament 4y ago
        Interestingly the FSF also requires copyright assignment for contributions to GCC, Emacs and some other GNU software.
        ediblelint 4y ago
        The FSF does appear to prefer copyright assignment over DCOs[1], but as of last year GCC contributions only require a DCO[2]. [1] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/FSF-copyright-handling https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/FSF-copyright-handling [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/857791/ https://lwn.net/Articles/857791/
jrochkind1 4y ago
It is compatible if one of the licenses offered is actually a real open source license that is available to all. The AGPL is really an open source license. Licenses which restrict based on type of use or characteristics of user are not.

It's not compatible with FOSS from a dogmatic point of view, but I think it's a pragmatic way forward given how AWS and other actors act. I dual license my company's products in this manner.

sam_bristow 4y ago
Even Stallman isn't completely opposed to selling exceptions to copyleft licences. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions
- icelancer 4y ago
  Oh wow, I retract my statement then. I wasn't aware of this. I thought for sure RMS wouldn't approve.

sparkie 4y ago

It is compatible. The people who have a say are the people who write the code. If you are not comfortable with dual licensing, don't contribute upstream. You can fork such dual licensed project, add your own contributions and then Signal cannot use your code in anything they license to third-parties under non-AGPL. The fork becomes AGPL-only. Example of where this has happened: MySQL was forked to MariaDB, so developments to MariaDB cannot be used by Oracle in their proprietary licensing of MySQL.

threeseed 4y ago

I don't think it's compatible with the sprit of FOSS. You're giving the company (in this case Signal) an open-ended license for your contributions whilst they don't return the favour. And so whilst they can offer a proprietary version e.g. Signal Pro with a friendlier license e.g. BSD you can't. And what kind of underpins all of this is that many companies especially in the enterprise will not touch anything that is GPL or AGPL.

tptacek 4y ago
Huh? This is like saying that the AGPL isn't compatible with FOSS. I've heard stories that there was a window of time where RMS was advocating for the AGPL terms to be incorporated into GPL3. If your definition of FOSS excludes the GPL --- as your last sentence suggests --- your definition is... unusual.
- threeseed 4y ago
  FOSS is a very big umbrella that incorporates a wide variety of licenses. But for me AGPL is not in the spirit of FOSS. It's like you're an unpaid employee of some company who is happy to take your work as long as you don't compete with them. I understand why AGPL was invented i.e. to prevent AWS ripping your project off but I don't think it's a particularly fair license for individual contributors.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    At the point where you've defined the FSF out of FOSS, you've departed the ordinary definition of the term.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - adament 4y ago
      Interestingly the FSF also requires copyright assignment for contributions to GCC, Emacs and some other GNU software.
      - ediblelint 4y ago
        The FSF does appear to prefer copyright assignment over DCOs[1], but as of last year GCC contributions only require a DCO[2]. [1] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/FSF-copyright-handling https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/FSF-copyright-handling [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/857791/ https://lwn.net/Articles/857791/

jrochkind1 4y ago

It is compatible if one of the licenses offered is actually a real open source license that is available to all. The AGPL is really an open source license. Licenses which restrict based on type of use or characteristics of user are not.