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Comment by nautilus12 | Hacker News Reader

What about a type of liscence that behaves like a union. If you pay into this union then you are free to monetize all software with this particular license? Then at least AWS has to pay elastic something if they want to use it

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Philosophically, I hate the idea that someone else will waste part of their short life reimplementing something that I just got working way, way more than I hate the idea they’ll make something so valuable that they become fantastically wealthy from it, especially since the last is such a rare case and it’s incredibly more rare that it will be because of my software.

If someone wants to use my software, I want to let them. If they use it to make 10 bucks, 10 kilobucks, 10 megabucks, or more: good for them! I don't want to erect a toll booth in front of the software for everyone just to block that.

So basically a proprietary license. You use software under the terms of the license (or negotiate). Nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of proprietary software out there. But it's not free/open source.

ADDED: Music is more of a pay-per-play thing and I'm not sure how that works for software. But it's still effectively paying the copyright holder for the use of their work.

I hate it how whenever people try to constructively think about these kind of issues they're immediately shot down with words like "proprietary", which functions nothing more than a snarl word here, or the old It's Not True Free/Open Source™ discussion stopper.

Can't we just allow people to talk about these issues and discus the pros and cons of various approaches based on their merits?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with proprietary. It used to be used all the time to mean something like special feature that only we have.

I'm a big supporter of free/open software. I also appreciate that business models based on it don't work for everyone. But, in that case, don't just use free/open for branding purposes.

Then poor people will not be able to use the software.

I suspect that's up to the software developer. If they want to write software in a manner that allows its use by poor people, then no problem. I write software like that. I use the MIT license for most of my software.

I don't like GPL, because I don't like coercion; but I'm a contrary bastard.

I like the "ASCAP" suggestion. I would be unlikely to use it, myself, but I think it's a viable option.

> I don't like GPL, because I don't like coercion

Permissive licenses allow coercion of users by corporations.

TomaTOE, ToMAHto.

We'll just agree to see things differently, then.

No probs.

Cheers!

You are of course right that GPL is a kind of coercion, too. The question is which coercion is more harmful to the society. It's the same as with any law.

It also allows corporations to use that software to provide society with a good or service that is valuable.

If you're like me and believe the whole of mankind is generally pro-social - permissive licensing enables that majority to do more good than harm with open-source overall.

> If you're like me and believe the whole of mankind is generally pro-social

I indeed believe that. But I don't believe that corporations are pro-social. They are pro-profit due to the capitalistic system. Also, opening the source code is not a bad thing per se and does not harm anyone. It encourages the spread of knowledge and therefore innovation.

Sure, and how do corporations make money? by doing something that the generally pro-social public finds valuable.

Of course it's not hard to find examples of corporations acting poorly and even examples of anti-social behavior making lots of money, but society in general seems to be quickly moving in a good direction. Less violence, more wealth, better tech, etc.

I write open-source software. Almost every line of code I've written in the last decade has been open. Not only that, but I also tend to open things like "raw materials," such as SVG originals, OmniGraffle files, Word Processor docs, and data spreadsheets.

I want ALL people -especially poor and disabled people- to be able to use my software, without any restrictions, so I use the MIT license, to give a figleaf of self-protection.

I know that some folks would like me to use licenses that add restrictions to the use of my software, but that has been an issue, in the past.

If I think that the software I write should be more restricted, I have options, and I'm grateful to the open source community for creating those options.

I used to participate in a fairly left-leaning political community, but I am very "centrist." I'm able to find common ground with either side.

For a couple of years, it was fine. Lots of urbane, articulate, respectful discussions. The community actually developed a fairly respected reputation.

Then the extremists arrived. They were LOUD. And quite abusive.

They managed to chase out anyone with any moderate political leanings. We had to be 100% extreme, or we would be branded "Nazis," and abused, doxxed, insulted and every conversation rapidly devolved into screeching monkeys, throwing poo at each other. I assume the site owners liked that because..."engagement."

I haven't been back to that community for years, but I haven't heard much good of it, since. It no longer has a respected reputation.

It can be similar to fines in Scandinavia (AFAIK). They're linked to your total income e.g. 0.001% of it for running a red light.

>0.001% of it for running a red light.

That would be $1 on a $100k salary.

While it’s not for fees and only for court convictions, Germany has the concept of "Tagessatz" (Day-fine [0]) which means the monetary punishment is given in a number of those, one day-fine is supposed to be the money you would normally make in one day.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine

Does this not just drive people to organize their finances to have less income and more capital gains?

Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.867. Only Russia and The Netherlands are higher - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in...

Theoretically it’s supposed to include capital gains, but according to German Wikipedia we use the net salary.

Ah so it's worse for poor people than rich people. Unintended consequences I guess.

It’s still better than flat amounts.

Were you thinking about Switzerland maybe [1] ?

[1] https://www.wired.com/2010/01/record-speeding-fine-dents-swi...

I've also thought about something similar, though I would call it a coop instead of a union. I would also say you need to share your other code too and contribute some profits - basically if you use the software you become part of the coop.

I like that idea. Things like ASCAP[0] come to mind.

Not everyone loves ASCAP, though. I am not in the business, so I don't know all the issues.

[0] https://www.ascap.com

ASCAP (and BMI) sound like a mafia shakedown in stories I heard from small businesses. "I hear you've got live music here. The performers must be playing our licensed material. It'd be a shame if something happened to your business." I've heard this from two small business owners who hosted live music and had strict guidelines that performers play only original or public domain music. Both said that the union rep simply wouldn't take "No" for an answer and kept coming back and making vague threats.

That makes sense. You'd need to make sure that didn't happen. It would probably be easier to ensure, because of easily-read written licenses.

You wouldn't have the bent-nose chaps trying to extort users of MIT-licensed software.

These shakedowns already happen. Oracle is a good example of one company who conducts them. Microsoft gained a reputation, back in the early 2000's, for feigning incredulity that you'd be using PCs with a non-Microsoft operating system.

It's a lot easier, as a user of software, to choose software with Free or permissive licenses than it is to know if a musical composition is part of the ASCAP or BMI catalog, though. I'd just avoid proprietary licenses, like those from Oracle, Microsoft, or you're describing, and encourage others to do the same.

One might organize such a union as a platform cooperative.

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