“Source available” licenses that don’t allow profit do exist. See all the anti-cloud licenses that came out when AWS started selling open source databases as a service. It’s just that hardly anyone touches code licensed like that. Hell, even Linux used to have a “can’t have money change hands” clause until Linus realized that was stupid. See his debconf talk where he talks about it.
If AWS wants to use it, the entirety of their platform would have to be open. Billing system, machine provisioning, networking, database failover -- everything.
They won't do it. But someone with ambition will, and they'll start to grow a platform that is less risky and increasingly more attractive. As it gains steam, it could become not only a refuge from cloud lock in, but a huge threat to existing players.
I know that I hate, HATE, thinking about lisences, to the point I typically don't include one, or use some nebulous beer-ware hack. How does a new set of licenses help me?
This would be UNLICENSED or NONE then. Unlicensed software can’t be used for too many things, since it’s encumbered by copyright restrictions. (The author’s right to create copies is, in the U.S. at least, implicit, meaning that the simple act of creating a work is enough to have the “copyright” for it.)
There is The Unlicense [1] that explicitly transfers copyright to the Public Domain.
The difficult part is enforcement: How can we even know if a user has made a modification?
The older licenses assume that a user can’t really get more than personal benefit from a modification unless they “distribute” a copy of the modified software to someone else. Clearly the recipient of a copy of commercial software can look and see if any Copyleft code was included.
With the rise of software-as-a-service, however, the modified copy never leaves the user’s computers. This seems like it violates the spirit of “everyone benefits from everyone’s work”. This is one of the issues new Open Source licenses are trying to address.
AGPL is like, okay maybe everything needs to be released. And when you are also using proprietary third party software it becomes a real hairy mess.
There are only very few cases in which GPL is ideal.
I think GPL with it's focus on 'can't be used in commercial' is deeply limiting.
I think the 'You have to make public variations of this module but it can be used for anything and linked to closed source statically or dynamically' ... is more ideal for those kinds of things, which is kind of pragmatically the case. But still.
It would also be nice if courts could make rulings on verbiage or licences instead of waiting for trials because that legal cloud is a big overhang for the entire world.
Who's gonna sue me?