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Comment by XJ6 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a license page? I can't see one which is a shame.

It says on the home page that it's part of ServiceStack.Common, and covered by the same terms: https://servicestack.net/terms

Unfortunately, this appears to mean it is not free software (though it is gratis for some use cases).

The actual Project repo https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack appears to be AGPL3 with some exceptions, which probably explains why the info is buried

The Exceptions are for OSS projects, where it can be used as the OSS license for that project.

Regardless it's completely free to use for both commercial/non-commercial usage.

If I make project Foo, which leverages #Script, and make Foo MIT-licensed, by your statement #Script is now also MIT licensed in this project. So then Company Blah wants to use Foo, which happens to just be thin wrapper/modification around #Script, and is now permitted to take it and fork it into closed-source repos, yes? That is what this statement implies.

Regardless, this is why getting clever with software licenses, and giving guarantees in the form of comments instead of actual license legalese, is problematic. The intention might be clear, but the governance is only by law, and this appears to be in conflict with your statements.

ServiceStack's usage in OSS projects is covered in its License: https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/blob/master/lic...

i.e. It can be used as AGPL as-is, in addition it can be used in OSS projects under that license (to enable compatibility with the project) provided that the OSS Software remains OSS and provides complete source code for any additions. Although this AGPL/FLOSS Exception License only applies when you're creating your own distributions of ServiceStack from source code (i.e. very rare). This dual license option was added to allow OSS projects to use ServiceStack for free without paying for a commercial license, if that's not you, you can ignore this license option even exists.

All ServiceStack packages on NuGet are released under the commercial license [1] of which only requires a developer license when it exceeds the free usage quotas [2] which are only in ServiceStack commercial products namely the ServiceStack Web Service Framework, OrmLite [3], ServiceStack.Redis [4] and PocoDynamo [5]. All other ServiceStack Software inc. all client libraries, inc. Serialization and ServiceStack.Common (containing #Script) are unrestricted libraries which can be used for free without a commercial Developers license in both commercial/non-commercial projects.

[1] https://servicestack.net/terms

[2] https://servicestack.net/download#free-quotas

[3] https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack.OrmLite

[4] https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack.Redis

[5] https://github.com/ServiceStack/PocoDynamo#pocodynamo

More broadly, "clever" software licenses really hamper adoption. Even if it's not exactly AGPL and it has lots of exceptions, the mere mention is enough to scare off many developers and companies.

Then forget this OSS license option even exists, which you're never going to use unless you build a custom distribution of ServiceStack without a commercial license. The AGPL/FLOSS license exists to allow free usage in OSS projects without needing to pay for a commercial license.

Regardless #Script is unrestricted and free under the commercial license, which is what all official ServiceStack NuGet packages are released under.

If that's your intent (free, in perpetuity), why not release it under Apache or GPL or something?

#Script is not a product that's for sale. It's gratis for all use-cases.

It's completely free to use as mentioned at the bottom of the home page: https://sharpscript.net/#free

The source code for ServiceStack.Common is inside the https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack repo

The sharpscript.net website itself (written in #Script Pages) is at https://github.com/ServiceStack/sharpscript

For now. That's how all of ServiceStack used to be. They don't have any problem changing the license for all future versions whenever they feel like it.

That’s how it will always be. You can’t retract an OSS license, and the old ServiceStack v3 you're referring to continues to be available 6 years later:

https://github.com/ServiceStackV3/ServiceStackV3

Mentions it at the bottom, but looks like you need to go here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/ServiceStack.Common

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