[j1elo]

Oh but then half of HN will complain about how that's not truly open according to a dictionary definition thus automatically becomes untrustworthy and they won't touch it with a ten foot pole. (/s)

Jokes aside, technically I don't disagree on the "dictionary definition" thing there... but it's interesting how the current landscape has shifted and now more control for the developer starts to become a common interest between "hackers".

The original OSS licenses protected users (as in, final users) from predatory devs; nowadays, small devs and hackers talk in their forums about how to preemptively protect themselves against predatory users (as in, not final users, but other bigger devs that leech on other's work)

[colordrops]

You're confusing closed source blobs and proprietary licenses with restrictive but truly open licenses like AGPL which would also protect the authors.

[j1elo]

It doesn't look like we can say "licenses like AGPL". It's more that AGPL is basically the only one in that vein. Remove the A, if you please, but that's pretty much it in terms of variety.

On the other hand, reading HN over time I also got the idea that *GPL has been tried with the intention of avoiding abuse, and it failed several of those intentions. I now regret not having taken note each time I saw comments in that regard, for quick references.

But there are big cases, not only small comments spread over HN; I guess the stereotypical one is MongoDB, which tried the AGPL path and in the end was not satisfactory enough for them.

[colordrops]

The problem is not with the GPL. The GPL is just as enforceable as any other proprietary license. The difference is that these amateur projects often don't have the resources to fight infringement.

[Thorrez]

If the problem is that there are no resources to fight infringement, then how would changing the license help at all?

[colordrops]

I was addressing what seems to be an unfair criticism of the GPL, and not claiming that the license would help. In fact your comment reinforces the point - even a proprietary license wouldn't help with no legal backing.

[donkeybeer]

You have a legal leg to stand on that some lawyer might potentially fight for you, that's still better than just giving up and surrendering your weapons.

[wmf]

In this case I don't think AGPL does what you want; it's oriented towards SaaS but this project is a bootloader.

[colordrops]

Sure, hence the "like". They could create or use a license that is fully open but prevents commercial use without a license.

[wmf]

Such a license is not possible.

[colordrops]

How exactly is that? There are plenty of licenses that don't allow commercial usage.

[cyphar]

You cannot have a "fully open" license which disallows commercial usage. Both the OSI and FSF definitions of "open source" and "free software" licenses would exclude such a license. Of course you can create a proprietary license which disallows commercial usage, but it won't be "fully open".

[pabs3]

Discriminating against commercial usage is not allowed under the Open Source Definition:

https://opensource.org/osd

[driverdan]

I don't generally like restrictive licenses but in this case we're taking about running closed, commercial software on closed, commercial hardware. It makes sense to use a GPL to prevent one of those companies from taking all of that hard work and incorporating it back into their platforms for free.

[j1elo]

Mine was just a lighthearted reflection on the issue, but in general I'm supportive of the copyleft ethos. And yes, in this case it would make a lot of sense.

Actually my first reaction was to think, "Why are Microsoft themselves not doing this job?"