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by computronus
1611 days ago
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One suggestion I have is to update the "How to Request" section, which lays out a procedure for asking for a commercial license. It'd be simpler if the license terms require the licensor to provide contact information for commercial licenses in a defined location. That would help "guarantee[] ... paid licenses for big business are available on fair terms"; there's some consideration in this license for the rights of the big business here. If the licensor can't be bothered to provide contact information, then they aren't upholding their side of the deal, considering the purpose of the license. The licensor could always use a different license, then. ETA: It also makes the process for getting the license cut and dry. It's easy to determine if enough work was done by the big business to contact the licensor: did they use the contact information required to be present or not? |
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Certainly for 2022, we could look around at how software gets made and distributed and try to spell out something more specific. In package metadata. In README. In a COMMERCIAL file. In the repo on lines with a magic string stated in the license. But for better and worse, we've learned to stay humble making assumptions about how those things will continue to happen in software development and distribution. Everything's subject to unexpected change.
In the end, we had to be conservative with this, since "breakage" in the contact method could effectively make the software permissive. Once you put software out there with license terms attached, you can't go back five years later and hunt down all the copies people have made, on the Internet and privately.