[Abishek_Muthian]

Thanks for the clarification.

So, It's best to use permissible license for the open-source version of the application in case of dual-license if we want to take back the contributions to our non open-source version.

I see this is what dual-licensed projects seem to do, I use open-source version of Aseprite[1] under MIT but I paid for the license on their website under EULA.

If anyone has seen a dual-licensed project where the open-source version is under AGPL or similar restrictive license then please mention.

[1] https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/

[dllthomas]

> So, It's best to use permissible license for the open-source version of the application in case of dual-license if we want to take back the contributions to our non open-source version.

That's one option; the other is to require that contributors assign you copyright of their contributions (perhaps with compensation) so you can release it in the same manner as your own code.

Narrowly focused on the effectiveness of the dual license scheme itself, permissive licenses "don't work as well" because there is less incentive for anyone to pay you for the other license; typically all they'd be avoiding is the attribution requirements.

[Abishek_Muthian]

> That's one option; the other is to require that contributors assign you copyright of their contributions (perhaps with compensation)

I thought about it before I made my previous comment, Good to know this is a thing.

> permissive licenses "don't work as well" because there is less incentive for anyone to pay you for the other license; typically all they'd be avoiding is the attribution requirements.

As far consumers are concerned, I think it largely depends upon the project; If it's complex to setup and run then I guess people would use the hosted version. I use open-source Aseprite because it's available on AUR, But I did pay for the license on their website which I presume most wouldn't.

Perhaps the real concern with permissible license are the competitors, Who get to use your code to reduce their barrier for entry. Then again, Software code at current times aren't that big of a barrier to entry.

One thing which all these discussions prove to me is that open-source application funding is very complex, Depending upon it for livelihood with just good will of the consumers is very risky as consumers are on average poor and corporations are on average greedy.

[dllthomas]

As you say, it depends a lot on the project, but you're thinking too narrowly when it comes to types of projects. IME, dual license is most applicable to libraries that might wind up in native applications. With, say, "GPL or pay us for proprietary" a company trying to ship a native app is faced with the choice of not using the library, paying for the library, or releasing their product under the GPL to use the library while avoiding paying for it.

[Abishek_Muthian]

Have you seen such dual-licensed library with GPL? Just curious for a real example.

[dllthomas]

https://www.sequencejs.com/licenses/ seems to be a real example, with the free option being GPLv3.

[Abishek_Muthian]

Interesting find, I took a cursory look at their GitHub[1] and they seem to accept PR from outside but I didn't find any explicit mention of copyright transfer; Perhaps because there's no separate version of sequence.js for commercial use(Just use case differentiation).

[1] https://github.com/IanLunn/Sequence

[colejohnson66]

Not the GPL, but Qt GUI toolkit is famously LGPL-or-cash

[Abishek_Muthian]

Ah Qt! I knew we often discussed about license of some project. Thanks.

Once again, LGPL being more permissible than AGPL shows IMO the need for having a permissible license for the dual-license.