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by emteycz
1486 days ago
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Don't talk about open source if you don't understand it. Paid binaries are the oldest form of OSS monetization. Is the source open and with a OSS-compatible licence? Then it's open source, not freeware nor shareware. Red Hat has nagging too. |
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The _goal_ of open source is to provide free software. Software that is free to _use_ now, and in the future, not _just_ free to get the source, free to use. If you don't provide free software (and free build processes) it's not compliant with Open Source licences.
Paid binaries are permitted but you must be _willing_ to to give away your software free of cost.
Aguably nagware is a deliberate annoyance and time cost to the user that makes it not "free to use". Adding crippleware (making it not work after a period of time) is certainly forbidden.
If your are writing nagware with oss license no-one will take you to court, because they can fix it, but it's certainly deceptive. It imies you don't want your software to be free to use.
OS licenses were not designed as a marketing tool for individual developers to get you a foot in the door. You can do that, but don't be surprised if you get called out for it. That is not the _purpose_ of OS.
That's the purpose of a free tier.
As a RedHat customer I don't find any of the software use daily to be suffering from nagware.
If grep had nagware in it, I'd bitch about it on HN.