4 ms·

Are there FOSS licenses which can mandate some kind of "non-commercial" open source use or ethical-use clauses of some type? Seem to recall this being something

Are there FOSS licenses which can mandate some kind of "non-commercial" open source use or ethical-use clauses of some type? Seem to recall this being something that some folks were either trying to make happen after the Palantir / ICE boycots. (cue someone getting upset about "politicizing" licensing or cancel culture or whatever, as if the entire concept of intellectual property isnt political at its core)

marc_abonce 3y ago
The pedantic answer you'll probably get here is that there's no such thing because that wouldn't be trve FOSS, but that would be missing the point of the question, so: There's the Business Source License[1] used by MariaDB, which allows for any "non-production" usage and automatically converts to fully open source 4 years after publication. There's also the Commons Clause[2] which is supposed to be appended to any other open source license to add a restriction against the "right to Sell the Software". And there's also Creative Commons NonCommercial license[3], but that one's not specifically meant for software. All of these are interesting licenses, but honestly I haven't fully read them yet and I don't know if they have any issues or ambiguities or loopholes. [1] https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ [2] https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/ [3] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
samatman 3y ago
Contrary the sibling comment, the answer is no, and it isn't pedantry at all. The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. We use words to communicate things, and having a clear definition of what is and isn't open source is important. There are certainly licenses which meet those goals, and in my opinion at least, there's nothing wrong with using them. I'm not opposed to proprietary software, or source-available licenses which come with certain restrictions. But by definition, it isn't open source or free software.
- eru 3y ago
  > The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. You know that the term 'open source' was coined because someone disagreed with the vision of the 'free software' people? It's fine to have a different vision. Thought you might want to come up with a different term, of course.

marc_abonce 3y ago

The pedantic answer you'll probably get here is that there's no such thing because that wouldn't be trve FOSS, but that would be missing the point of the question, so: There's the Business Source License[1] used by MariaDB, which allows for any "non-production" usage and automatically converts to fully open source 4 years after publication. There's also the Commons Clause[2] which is supposed to be appended to any other open source license to add a restriction against the "right to Sell the Software". And there's also Creative Commons NonCommercial license[3], but that one's not specifically meant for software. All of these are interesting licenses, but honestly I haven't fully read them yet and I don't know if they have any issues or ambiguities or loopholes. [1] https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ [2] https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/ [3] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

samatman 3y ago

Contrary the sibling comment, the answer is no, and it isn't pedantry at all. The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. We use words to communicate things, and having a clear definition of what is and isn't open source is important. There are certainly licenses which meet those goals, and in my opinion at least, there's nothing wrong with using them. I'm not opposed to proprietary software, or source-available licenses which come with certain restrictions. But by definition, it isn't open source or free software.

eru 3y ago
> The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. You know that the term 'open source' was coined because someone disagreed with the vision of the 'free software' people? It's fine to have a different vision. Thought you might want to come up with a different term, of course.