Note: This licensing is really unclear and problematic.
Wonder Unit even has developers sign a CLA agreement assigning all contributions to Wonder Unit (https://cla-assistant.io/wonderunit/storyboarder)
Maybe the author should consider a more explicit proprietary for liability purposes and clarity about revocability, exclusivity, transferability, et al, but for now any user should assume he can choose to do whatever tomorrow and proceed with caution.
And I understand that these are your thoughts, but what I'm looking for is a clear and legally enforceable license, which seems to still be missing.
"The ability to produce derived works is a key attribute of open source." Where did you get that gem from?
"but what I'm looking for is a clear and legally enforceable license, which seems to still be missing." As far as I know the only OS License that has been deemed enforceable is GNU General Public License.
It's free software and the code is viewable, what's so hard to understand?
From the open source definition: https://opensource.org/osd
> As far as I know the only OS License that has been deemed enforceable is GNU General Public License.
The OSI recognizes a number of different licenses, as do the attorneys of the numerous individuals and companies making use of them.
> It's free software
It's not, unless I have a legal right to redistribute a modified copy.
"Open source" and "free software" both have requirements to meet their respective definitions. And additonally, "source is viewable" is not the same thing as a license.
No one gets to "own" what open source means.
But, in their definition: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."
All that says is that derived works are allowed under the same terms as the original software, which technically could enforce a royalty payment to the original for any derivative, how would that sit with you?
You're conflating community and cultural definitions with legal precedents and enforceability. GNU GPL is the only enforceable one in a US (and I think UK) court of law.
In the end of the day, what's the argument - you want the software creator to use a LICENSE you approve of or else not call their software release "free" or "open" because you feel that misleading?
I'm not going to argue with someone who thinks open source is a feeling subject to their own personal interpretations in lieu of license.
Don't they, though? "Open Source" is not even a natural turn of phrase like "Free Software" is. Open Source is a strange phrase made up to describe a specific thing, and that thing is not that the source is available to be viewed.
edit: Also, thinking that the GPL is the only enforceable software license is just strange.
I understand that in practice, ESR successfully muscled others out and claimed effective cultural ownership of the phrase, but that doesn't mean that no one else is allowed to try to stake their claim and see if it sticks.
I personally think the unlimited redistribution clauses that are mandatory for "Open Source" licenses have caused some serious problems. Commercial vendors have improperly conflated the distribution of source code with the complete inability to make any money from it.
The problem, of course, is not that the source is available and people are free to tweak and understand what's happening on their own machines, but that the licenses which open-source programs grew up under made serious commercial sales effectively impossible. The only business model that's viable is selling support. Compare the market caps of Oracle and Microsoft to Red Hat for an illustration of the comparative effectiveness of these models.
Stallman at least swapped commercial viability out for the infectious nature of copyleft, intended to keep as much software free and shareable as possible. Permissive BSD/MIT family licenses just give it up.
The "problematic" bit is that the project's page describes it as open-source, says "you can even make improvements", etc., though the project isn't actually licensed that way (or at all).
You link to your "Thoughts on Free and Open Source." from the github repo, which gives a reasonable explanation of what you are looking for in a license and why. It concludes
> So what I’m thinking based on my experience:
> MIT License + The following exceptions:
> [...]
But I can't find anything saying you've actually released the software under such a license instead of just thinking about it. Ideally the license would reside in a license file in the git repo like is fairly standard these days.
From Github on licenses:
> You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work. If you're creating an open source project, we strongly encourage you to include an open source license.
That aside, you seem to be conflating "free as in speech" (FOSS) with "free as in beer" (freeware, or how most people treat WinRAR) in some parts of that writeup. Ardour is the usual example of software that's the former without being the latter (you can download the source code for free if you have the know-how to compile it yourself, but a donation is required to download the pre-built direclty-installable binary).
It's also problematic for educational institutions even if they happen to be tolerant of a little bit of colorful language here and there. By charging $30 a seat for the "educational" version and wanting to forbid educational institutions from distributing the "free" version, you're punishing the Goonies-tolerant organizations for Goonies-intolerance. Not to mention the need to define what "educational institution" means.
Being concerned about preventing others from making money off this ("If we struggle to make it free, you can’t be paid") seems to also run counter to the stated reason for making it free in the first place ("We will make money from creating great stories, not selling overpriced niche software.").
There's also the problem of longevity. If Wonder Unit, Inc. goes belly-up, then its non-FOSS storyboard editor does, too. An actually-FOSS license means there's at least some chance of the broader FOSS community keeping it alive, if only so that they can say "well hang on, Linux has awesome creative/multimedia tools, too - and we don't even have to pretend GIMP is one of them anymore".
All that said, the MIT license is probably not the right fit for Storyboarder itself (but is certainly a good fit for the underlying libraries; same with the ISC license) based on your criteria. A strict copyleft license - like the GNU GPL - might actually be more up your alley, since it would force anyone hoping to make a buck off your hard work to release their source code and allow others (you included) to do the same and make a buck off their hard work. If they don't comply, sue 'em.
Of course, even that one educator's little stunt of cloning your repo and removing all references to Wonder Unit would run afoul of both the MIT and ISC licenses, so you'd still be covered if you took the legal approach to going medieval on his Goonies-intolerant ass.
All in all, it doesn't really matter to me (as a Linux-using end user) what license you opt to use for Storyboarder (I use plenty of non-free software day-to-day), as long as there actually is a license so that I know whether or not I'm legally allowed to even use the software (let alone redistribute it, modify it, package it up for a Linux distro's package manager/repositories, etc.).
Even with all that aside, though, Storyboarder looks like an amazing tool, and the fact that it works on something that's not running Windows or macOS is a pretty damn big deal. Kudos, and thanks for your hard work. Whatever the license ends up being, it'll be a valuable contribution in that particular niche of "storyboarders who want to use Linux".
I get the feeling that what you want is a 'Free as in beer, not free as in speech' license with user having the ability to suggest changes to source.
You are obviously trying to underhandedly gain adoption to then turn commercial.
It's perfectly fine to give out free versions with restrictions on redistribution and commercial use. Publishing the source code in such an arrangement is even laudable.
But it is not Open Source. Those words have meaning, and I have no doubts that you know as much. E
ven if not: I assure you that 90%+ of your contributors are under the impression that they are contributing to a FOSS project as it is commonly understood.
If you are using the free Github plan, you're also breaking their terms.
This is not ok.
notably no LICENSE field or package.json field
He even took the time to let developers know they assign all rights to Wonder Unit when the contribute with a CLA: https://cla-assistant.io/wonderunit/storyboarder
https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/blob/25a82cc20b01...