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Open Source businesses have no future as Open Source businesses if they aren't using Open Source licences. What I find odd in these situations, that have happe
by RobotToaster 3y ago
Open Source businesses have no future as Open Source businesses if they aren't using Open Source licences.
What I find odd in these situations, that have happened multiple times now, is the companies go straight from "weak" licenses like the MPL, straight to "source available" ones. Surely it would have been a good idea to try a strong copyleft licence like AGPL first.
- ghaff 3y agoAGPL is seen as a no-go by most companies. It's viewed as risky because the obligations associated with it are often unclear.
- notpushkin 3y agoSurely those companies can pay for an alternative license then?
- FridgeSeal 3y agoI’ve had this argument with people ad infinitum; it seems some people just see “AGPL” and any further thought process just stops. “You could ask or pay for an alternate licence” or “you’re almost certainly not using this in a way that means you need to open source your entire product” and any other rational argument you can think of are just met with “yeah but agpl” and that’s apparently just the end of it.
- ghaff 3y agoThe thing is, at that point, why not just put it under a proprietary license in the first place? Lots of companies simply don’t have AGPL on their list of legal approved open source licenses and they’re not going to change that for you. ADDED: If you want to go the dual licensing route, at least just state this up front.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y agoDepends on why you want an open-source license in the first place. If it's to bait in companies to use your product and then offer more features under a proprietary license, then something that's more attractive to companies like a permissive (corporate charity) license is a better choice. If it's to ensure that everyone who uses the software can contribute to the development, something like the GPL or AGPL is better. There can be other reasons to pick a corporate charity license, of course, but encouraging corporations to use your software is certainly one of the most common.
- satvikpendem 3y agoBecause AGPL is open source and not proprietary, that's the reason. Open source doesn't necessarily mean that anyone can use it as they please, they must abide by the terms of the license. If they don't want to, then they can find another project, or get a different license for it.
- LtWorf 3y agoI get regularly harassed for having dared to publish a library under GPL license. Developers are so entitled, they don't even ever reflect they are taking without giving back all the time.
- thinkmassive 3y agoThe entire Grafana LGTM stack is phenomenal, and it’s widely used.
- ghaff 3y agoGrafana is dual licensed however since they, relatively recently, switched to AGPL.
- RobotToaster 3y agoThen they can pay for an alternative licence for their closed source project. It's a win/win/win, open source projects will still support it, so you don't get the backlash from the community, while those who just want to take will either pay or find a different project. With BSL and similar, you end up looking like the "bad guy", and the forkers look like the "good guys". With AGPL you will still look like the open source "good guy", and if someone makes a fork they look like money grabbing assholes.
- ghaff 3y agoI don’t know how effective it is in general but dual licensing like Grafana now does seems a reasonable option. I assume there may be forks of the older code but I don’t actually know.
- yencabulator 3y agoThe problem is that as far as many corporations are concerned, AGPL doesn't count as "open source we dare to use", and thus a AGPL+commercial software vendor doesn't get the benefit of companies adopting the "non-Enterprise flavor" first/easily/via grassroots.