4 ms·

I like it, but I wonder: In a case like this, what is the point of offering a source-available license on GitHub at all?

rglynn 3y ago
Documentation is far from perfect for anything remotely sophisticated. One often runs into issues with a third-party library that comes down to not understanding what's going on under the hood. In cases like this, it's really helpful to be able to look at the source and see what the issue is, you can also (in some cases) track PRs that address issues you are encountering. I've found this numerous times with paid third party deps.
notpushkin 3y ago
Transparency and maybe an occasional PR from your users.
- auggierose 3y ago
  But if they have the source code, they could just switch off the license key check, right? It seems to me he could just keep the license GPL then, wouldn't change a thing. The (small) businesses don't care about the license, but walk the path of least resistance.
  - andris9 3y ago
    This was my initial business model and it did not really work. As soon as there was the license key requirement, previously free users opted to the paid subscription to get the license key and get the upgrades. In fact all the old and free releases are still available under AGPL license from Github.
    - bachmeier 3y ago
      I suspect the reason this model works is because it's easy to say "We need X to do our work. It costs Y euros." and the company pays for it without thinking. It's probably a much tougher sell to say "We need to pay for this even though we can get it for free." Even harder is "We use this product so we should make a donation." It was never a matter of them wanting to avoid paying. I see this all the time in universities. Underfunded open source projects won't get a $100 donation from a university using thousands of copies, but a company like Matlab can get massive payments just because that's the only way to get it. You have to figure out how to make it easy to justify paying for your software.
      - notpushkin 3y ago
        Yeah, it's a bummer. I'm trying to run an open source product, too [1] and that's one of my major concerns with this model. One trick I want to try is, make everything open source but still paywall some features behind a license check. Easy to circumvent (and legal, too), but maybe businesses wouldn't be bothered with it, and for personal use – well, why not allow it – maybe some of them would convince their employers to use it as well :-) (And of course, providing it as a service is a much more straightforward business model, at least in my case.) [1]: https://lunni.dev/ https://lunni.dev/
  - brap 3y ago
    >But if they have the source code, they could just switch off the license key check, right? That's basically piracy. Unlike individuals who pirate stuff all the time, for businesses there's a much greater risk for lawsuit which is usually not worth it, even for many smaller businesses. For a 1-2 person business that's not making any money, maybe they can get away with it. But they probably don't make a great customer anyway.
slashdev 3y ago
It can help your user's answer questions about the software, debug issues involving the software, have transparency into security, etc.
MangoCoffee 3y ago
>what is the point of offering a source-available license Long ago, I worked for a company that sold mortgage software. This is back when SOAP is all the rage. The software is not open source, but it is source-available, or rather, a law firm has the source code. My employer's customers are mostly banks or home builders that offer mortgage services. My employer is a very small one. Customers like banks want to know if you will stick around, if they buy into your software, and if you can't stick around. They need the source code.

rglynn 3y ago

Documentation is far from perfect for anything remotely sophisticated. One often runs into issues with a third-party library that comes down to not understanding what's going on under the hood. In cases like this, it's really helpful to be able to look at the source and see what the issue is, you can also (in some cases) track PRs that address issues you are encountering. I've found this numerous times with paid third party deps.

notpushkin 3y ago

Transparency and maybe an occasional PR from your users.

auggierose 3y ago
But if they have the source code, they could just switch off the license key check, right? It seems to me he could just keep the license GPL then, wouldn't change a thing. The (small) businesses don't care about the license, but walk the path of least resistance.
- andris9 3y ago
  This was my initial business model and it did not really work. As soon as there was the license key requirement, previously free users opted to the paid subscription to get the license key and get the upgrades. In fact all the old and free releases are still available under AGPL license from Github.
  - bachmeier 3y ago
    I suspect the reason this model works is because it's easy to say "We need X to do our work. It costs Y euros." and the company pays for it without thinking. It's probably a much tougher sell to say "We need to pay for this even though we can get it for free." Even harder is "We use this product so we should make a donation." It was never a matter of them wanting to avoid paying. I see this all the time in universities. Underfunded open source projects won't get a $100 donation from a university using thousands of copies, but a company like Matlab can get massive payments just because that's the only way to get it. You have to figure out how to make it easy to justify paying for your software.
    - notpushkin 3y ago
      Yeah, it's a bummer. I'm trying to run an open source product, too [1] and that's one of my major concerns with this model. One trick I want to try is, make everything open source but still paywall some features behind a license check. Easy to circumvent (and legal, too), but maybe businesses wouldn't be bothered with it, and for personal use – well, why not allow it – maybe some of them would convince their employers to use it as well :-) (And of course, providing it as a service is a much more straightforward business model, at least in my case.) [1]: https://lunni.dev/ https://lunni.dev/
- brap 3y ago
  >But if they have the source code, they could just switch off the license key check, right? That's basically piracy. Unlike individuals who pirate stuff all the time, for businesses there's a much greater risk for lawsuit which is usually not worth it, even for many smaller businesses. For a 1-2 person business that's not making any money, maybe they can get away with it. But they probably don't make a great customer anyway.

slashdev 3y ago

It can help your user's answer questions about the software, debug issues involving the software, have transparency into security, etc.

MangoCoffee 3y ago

>what is the point of offering a source-available license Long ago, I worked for a company that sold mortgage software. This is back when SOAP is all the rage. The software is not open source, but it is source-available, or rather, a law firm has the source code. My employer's customers are mostly banks or home builders that offer mortgage services. My employer is a very small one. Customers like banks want to know if you will stick around, if they buy into your software, and if you can't stick around. They need the source code.