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Comment by andris9 | Hacker News Reader

I’m selling an AGPL licensed app that allows to access IMAP/SMTP accounts over REST (https://emailengine.app). At first I sold it in a way where AGPL version was completely free and public, but you could pay to get the same thing with a MIT-license. Turned out that no-one cared about the license, everyone was happy to use the free AGPL thing, so I changed it in a way where the app is dual licensed under AGPL and proprietary license and you need a “license key” to fully unlock it. As it’s AGPL with source code available from Github you can freely remove that license key check, just a 1-line change. It’s still a big enough of a hurdle that I’ve actually gotten some customers.

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I've been obsessed with those kinds of strategies for (A)GPL software lately. If it's true, like the critics say, that customers like locked-down, dumbed-down software, there's no reason we can't do that with GPL stuff - even though it can be easily bypassed in then source, and other distributors can sell clean versions, plenty won't.

GPL software should use the same predatory tactics as proprietary, and trend chase. Focus primarily on trend-chasing and marketing, focus on getting cash by any means necessary other than not making the source available. Market hard, dual license.

Dropping a license check in (as long as it's not obfuscated or intentionally confusing) is very cool in my opinion, and I wish you luck. Thanks for adding to the commons.

> GPL software should use the same predatory tactics as proprietary, and trend chase. Focus primarily on trend-chasing and marketing, focus on getting cash by any means necessary other than not making the source available. Market hard, dual license.

I'd rewrite this as "People who want to make money from GPL software should ...", because GPL software in general doesn't have to have a commercial goal.

All the numbers are public so you can follow how I’m doing with EmailEngine and if it’s worthwile or not in the long run https://www.indiehackers.com/product/emailengine

>the same predatory tactics

>trend chase

>getting cash by any means necessary

>Market hard

I think you have a distorted view of the commercial software world. Of course you can find some bad apples but the majority just isn't like that.

This has an interesting aspect to it.

Yes, it's AGPL with source code publicly available, but if you remove that license key check yourself, you have to make it public, effectively broadcasting that you don't pay for software. In a way, it's naming and shaming. The alternative is using the fork of someone else who has done so and complied with the license, but then you're suddenly dependent on some random downstream and who knows what else they have mixed or might mix into it or just give up merging from upstream eventually.

> if you remove that license key check yourself, you have to make it public...

...for the users of the modified software, not everyone. If the only user is you, having the source code on your own machine is enough.

Why would that be shameful? Putting an antifeature in software is shameful, but taking it out is virtuous.

Going out of your way to avoid supporting software you use commercially isn't virtuous

I wanted to integrate your project in another open source project that I was contemplating of working on. However, the licensing bit made me think twice about that. While I could see that under the terms of GPL I could easily remove the code that checks for the license, and that the code was not hidden or obfuscated in any way, but at the same time it just felt against the spirit of the project to do so for anything other than purely personal use. Hence I am evaluating other projects for my use case.

I think this approach of dual licensing is well suited when the intent is to let people audit source code freely for evaluation or personal use purposes, but then pay up when they wish to use it in their public/commercial projects.

How did you setup your contributor license agreement (assuming you have one in order to incorporate external contributions that you want to dual license). Just a GitHub PR template where they have to check a box to confirm they agree ?

I use CLAAssistant and do not accept PRs without it https://cla-assistant.io/ - not that there are any notable PRs, mostly README typo fixes and such.

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