[npr11]

This post seemed aggressive and vague to me. I'm not even sure what problem the author has with these licenses. I _think_ the issue is confusing naming - which seems pretty solvable - and not a fundamental problem with "dual licensing" / "source available" / "commons clause" software?

People can develop software out in the open and say "use it as it is, for free!", "use it as part of a new product, for free!", but also say "please do not sell this software as it is" and "please do not make and sell an almost-identical product using this software". That seems good to me, if the other option is closed-source.

E.g. I could make a product, you can use it for free, I will try to make money selling consulting services around the product (you can compete with me on that!) just don't sell the software.

I am happy to be corrected if there is a problem with these licenses being misused (or misrepresented as free and open source), but the post didn't give any examples.

[hatsunearu]

https://commonsclause.com/

>People can develop software out in the open and say "use it as it is, for free!", "use it as part of a new product, for free!", but also say "please do not sell this software as it is" and "please do not make and sell an almost-identical product using this software".

The Common Clause isn't about preventing shovelware, it's specifically about restricting the user's freedom to sell any derivative work--it straight up says in the 1st FAQ that it's to transition existing actually FOSS projects to non-libre software.

Also that's just the way SirCmpwn writes!

[emersion]

There are two issues. First, naming is confusing, as you said, and wording implies "<open source license> + something more" instead of "<open source license> but with more restrictions". Second, some open-source projects choosing the Commons Clause still say they are FOSS. Choosing Commons Clause is your choice, lying to your users is different.

[Bartweiss]

> I could make a product, you can use it for free, I will try to make money selling consulting services around the product (you can compete with me on that!) just don't sell the software.

I agree that even if it's not FOSS, this is a healthy and reasonable way to profit from software. Unfortunately, the Commons Clause explicitly forbids this healthy use.

“Sell” means...to provide to third parties, for a fee or other consideration (including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software), a product or service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software

Imagine that you create new a new project greatly improving Commons Clause software, offer it for free, and offer paid consulting exclusively on your project, while refusing any work that involves consulting about the code you didn't write. That would still violate the license, which says that only the original license holder can do consulting on anything that's substantially derived from the core code. As written, there's no way at all to make money downstream from Commons Clause code, no matter how much value you add.