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Comment by kevincox | Hacker News Reader

Just because something has upsides doesn't mean it doesn't have downsides. While I am glad that this will likely provide more funding to these projects changing to a non-free license has incredible impact on how a project can be used.

I think it is fair to talk about this and how it can maybe be done better.

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> I think it is fair to talk about this and how it can maybe be done better.

I agree, though it's evident that the discussion is stained by the tone of this article.

They aren't approaching this topic with some respect and understanding, while being fully aware that these license changes are aimed at large companies which keep taking, but do not support the open source community.

Isn't it also the case that large companies are the reason projects like Linux have been so successful? Linux is an example. A very high percentage of Linux contributions are from corporate sponsors. [0]

[0] https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel/ (Kind of old but I don't think it has changed much.)

Some companies do support open source projects, though that has no relevance here. We're talking about large companies that generate a profit on the back of open source projects, and refuse to support those projects.

If you want to control which companies can use your project free of charge and which do not there is already choice for that - this choice just is not called Open Source.

By what method woud you propose to distinguish companies that "refuse to support those projects?"

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