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I'm actually not a fan of this restrictive license and the even more restrictive contributor license that is in place here which is what enables them to sell cl

I'm actually not a fan of this restrictive license and the even more restrictive contributor license that is in place here which is what enables them to sell closed source versions of the software and potentially close source entirely (as other companies have done). AGPL without this is not very practical for companies as it makes selling commercial licenses impractical and is a bit of a turnoff for commercial users. > Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Company and to recipients of software distributed by the Company a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works. If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. But most external contributors probably wouldn't like this. Usually the effect that this has is that the OSS contributor community is pretty much exclusively employees of the company involved. I can't imagine third party companies agreeing on working on this or paying their people to work on this. Why would they?

ebiester 2y ago
If you need something else, you pay for it. Open source does not necessarily mean open contribution. It may turn you off, but the tradeoff is that you can make the changes you need and run for your purposes. If your purposes is to make closed source software with it, you will need to pay for that privilege. win-win!
sangnoir 2y ago
> If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. Isn't this a core feature of the "unrestrictive" licenses you're a fan of? If you don't like freeloaders, BSD-/MIT-style licenses are even worse because they allow anyone, not just the maintainers, to sell your contributions in a closed-source product.
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  Yes. I think what makes some people unhappy is the perceived inequality: you can do whatever you want with my contributions, but I can't do whatever I want with the software. But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case).
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case). True. But not all software has to be commercially viable, arguably the most useful/critical and yet valuable isn't - currently my list is Linux, git, Postgres, Python, dozens of Python libs (perhaps thousands, if I go down the dependency trees). Declaring my biases: I'm partial to GPL licenses and believe providing value to users is more important than making life easier/profitable to developers. IMO, the difference between GPL-style and BSD-style licenses is not being "restrictive" or not, but who gets restrictions (end users and developers being on opposing ends).
    - philippemnoel 2y ago
      While I agree with you that these are non-commercial, by now many of them have very big commercial backings. Many Postgres core contributors work at Microsoft, AWS, etc. who make billions of dollars selling Postgres-as-a-Service today. Those projects aren't inherently commercial, and great software can be built by passionate hobbyists, but often times the two go hand-in-hand
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
    If you want a closed source license, use a closed source license. Nothing wrong with that; many companies do that. This particular license combination just creates the illusion of openness without most of the benefits for would be contributors. > But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case). That's the view of a single company that wants exclusive control, not the view of a company that wants to create a healthy OSS community. Healthy OSS communities tend to have more than one company involved and a diverse group of contributors. That's why OSS licenses exist that protect their mutual rights. It's a necessary compromise to prevent any contributor having that kind of power and allow them to collaborate and share code. This is the opposite; and it cannot create a healthy OSS community. Which raises the question of what the point is of using this kind of licensing? I don't think it's about soliciting outside contributions as this kind of actively discourages that. And why else would you open source something?
kragen 2y ago
you can also just not accept code contributions from other people > If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. But most external contributors probably wouldn't like this. bsd and mit licenses also allow this without a cla (that's the whole reason for using them instead of a strong copyleft like the gpl) and they seem to be very popular

ebiester 2y ago

If you need something else, you pay for it. Open source does not necessarily mean open contribution. It may turn you off, but the tradeoff is that you can make the changes you need and run for your purposes. If your purposes is to make closed source software with it, you will need to pay for that privilege. win-win!

sangnoir 2y ago

> If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. Isn't this a core feature of the "unrestrictive" licenses you're a fan of? If you don't like freeloaders, BSD-/MIT-style licenses are even worse because they allow anyone, not just the maintainers, to sell your contributions in a closed-source product.

Vegenoid 2y ago
Yes. I think what makes some people unhappy is the perceived inequality: you can do whatever you want with my contributions, but I can't do whatever I want with the software. But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case).
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case). True. But not all software has to be commercially viable, arguably the most useful/critical and yet valuable isn't - currently my list is Linux, git, Postgres, Python, dozens of Python libs (perhaps thousands, if I go down the dependency trees). Declaring my biases: I'm partial to GPL licenses and believe providing value to users is more important than making life easier/profitable to developers. IMO, the difference between GPL-style and BSD-style licenses is not being "restrictive" or not, but who gets restrictions (end users and developers being on opposing ends).
  - philippemnoel 2y ago
    While I agree with you that these are non-commercial, by now many of them have very big commercial backings. Many Postgres core contributors work at Microsoft, AWS, etc. who make billions of dollars selling Postgres-as-a-Service today. Those projects aren't inherently commercial, and great software can be built by passionate hobbyists, but often times the two go hand-in-hand
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  If you want a closed source license, use a closed source license. Nothing wrong with that; many companies do that. This particular license combination just creates the illusion of openness without most of the benefits for would be contributors. > But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case). That's the view of a single company that wants exclusive control, not the view of a company that wants to create a healthy OSS community. Healthy OSS communities tend to have more than one company involved and a diverse group of contributors. That's why OSS licenses exist that protect their mutual rights. It's a necessary compromise to prevent any contributor having that kind of power and allow them to collaborate and share code. This is the opposite; and it cannot create a healthy OSS community. Which raises the question of what the point is of using this kind of licensing? I don't think it's about soliciting outside contributions as this kind of actively discourages that. And why else would you open source something?

kragen 2y ago

you can also just not accept code contributions from other people > If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. But most external contributors probably wouldn't like this. bsd and mit licenses also allow this without a cla (that's the whole reason for using them instead of a strong copyleft like the gpl) and they seem to be very popular