[patcon]

Couldn't there theoretically be a license that allows open source projects to use it and remix it, but business usage must be sub-licensed? There are some downsides, but I'd be willing to consider that if it meant more sustainable funding sources for those contributing the most to maintenance.

[neuland]

I don't think that's possible in the spirit of open source or free software.

If I under stand you correctly, projects that use a commercial-paid/non-commerial-free project as a dependency would also be required to use a compatible business-paid/personal-free license.

This is what people complain about re: the GPL.

It says that the most important thing is getting paid, and we'll throw the non-commercial people (non-profits, personal projects, etc) a bone, because maybe they'll contribute something back to us.

That's fine to do if someone wants to. But, it's certainly not free software. And, it's not open source either, except that the source is visible.

Like others have said, visible source it's all that helpful if you can't do anything with it.

Business should donate more to free software.

[JoshTriplett]

> Couldn't there theoretically be a license that allows open source projects to use it and remix it, but business usage must be sub-licensed?

No, those two requirements are incompatible.

I'm in favor of the goal here, just not this particular method.

[nickpsecurity]

"Couldn't there theoretically be a license that allows open source projects to use it and remix it, but business usage must be sub-licensed? "

Yes. I think it's possible. I've proposed one here before that had all the advantages of FOSS, including remixes, so long as originator or owner of copyright continued getting paid. The main, remaining risk was rates getting jacked up due to inability to move off the product. An upper limit can be put into the license itself or terms fixed per version w/ perpetual license for that version. BSD or Apache licensed code could be integrated into such projects with contributions going to them under their license if commercial one merely interfaced with OSS subsystem. Finally, there's potential for time limits on how long a release stays proprietary with it going OSS after a period of time.

So, quite a few models can work. It should be noted that FOSS largely didn't work in terms of making good money or long-term maintenance of the software. Those that do are uncommon or rare. Easy with proprietary, shared-source software since you get paid if they really want it. :)

[serge2k]

> Yes. I think it's possible

I think the point is that it would break license compatibility. You can't have other projects use it without either giving it away (in which case your own commercial use is broken) or having them switch to your license (their desires are broken).

[nickpsecurity]

You mean FOSS projects desire to use it under their terms. That's a subset of potential users and contributors. Commercial users can license it. FOSS might also use it as an optional, paid component (eg plugin). They sort of do already with Open Core, Paid Extras model. These options won't be popular among FOSS-only types but commercial users might be fine with extensible, source-included software. Even Microsoft had huge community of developers supplying code for stuff depending on their proprietary software.