Ask HN: Custom license, does it make any sense?
I am developing RediSQL (https://www.redisql.com) a project that has an open and a closed source "PRO" part.
The open source part is accessible on github (https://github.com/RedBeardLab/rediSQL) while the closed source one is not accessible and I just sell the binary.
For several reason I would like to change the business strategy.
The new strategy will include push all the features on the free version and enable telemetric, while the PRO version would simply not have the telemetric active.
User of the free version can use all the features, but they need to constantly contact my servers, while user of the PRO version don't need to contact my servers at all.
If the telemetric is active (free version) and it fails for some reason, the software simply shut down.
The difference between the PRO version and the free version, hence will only be a call to function that is enable or disable with a compile flags.
I would like to have a license like MIT that allow user to do anything they please with the software, but they cannot remove the telemetrics part.
At the moment I simply add a condition to the MIT license, and I am wondering if that make any sense.
The "RediSQL license" would hence be something like this: https://gist.github.com/siscia/6dd8b1e6502f4510953f4c32aa239a58
Thoughts?