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Using nicer language doesn't change the argument. You're still suggesting that corporations be required to pay for the software, which is a reversal of the term
by 0xbadcafebee 10d ago
Using nicer language doesn't change the argument. You're still suggesting that corporations be required to pay for the software, which is a reversal of the terms of the license.
Let's ignore for the moment that this is manipulative behavior (switching from free to paid after the fact, the same thing users complain about corporations doing). This is likely also illegal. The software license is a contract. Permissive FOSS licenses grant the use of the software in current and future forms without payment. To withhold the source code until receiving payment would be a violation of the contract terms. All of the copyright holders would have to agree to change the license to no longer be Open Source, and even then a judge may well find it illegal.
It's also a bad idea because it would split the community. I find this action so unethical that I would no longer contribute to or use any FOSS that required payment. I didn't get into this community to shake companies down for cash. If you want to make money off software, go do that somewhere else, or do it with services and support.
- JacobKfromIRC 10d agoYou don't need to change the license at all in order to do this. Withholding source code while providing an executable would violate some free licenses, but all free licenses allow withholding both an executable and corresponding source code simultaneously. An action like this could split the community, but I don't think it would be very visible to people contributing to the software, since I imagine the source code would still be available on a public git repository with the same license, for the purpose of development. Do people complain about Krita being on Steam [1]? It's not exactly the same situation, since Krita never was on Steam before, but do you think the situation would be so different if Krita had been free-to-download on Steam and then they changed it? [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/280680/Krita/