I don't fully understand LLC except that they protect owners from company liability.
Just trying to figure out what the goal for this company is.
LLCs in this context signal "This company has no outside investors", because almost every venture-backed technology company will be organized as a C Corporation instead.
I am choosing to run this open source project through a commercial company - that enables me to have a bank account, use GitHub Sponsors, pay others for work, and enter in support and development contracts with other companies and the public sector. Non-profit foundations like US 501(c)(3) aren't practical to create for solo developers.
I must disagree. Even in the early days, even though that was the intended use of the .com TLD, it has always actually been used as the default TLD instead of the .net TLD.
I really hate it, but whenever I see a .com I have never, and will never assume it has some sort of commercial angle.
I'd go so far as to say "especially in the early days". When I got my first domain in ~'92, it was just a personal domain, and they wouldn't let me get a .net because I wasn't an ISP, or a .org because I wasn't a non-profit. And .edu was right out.
A 100% independent software project
Protomaps is a self-funded, solo developer project with a mission to make interactive cartography accessible to hobbyists and organizations of all sizes. An essential part of that mission is publishing open source software under commercial-friendly licenses.
You can support my full-time work on Protomaps in a few ways: * Downloading the open source world basemap tileset with a support plan on GitHub Sponsors. * Paid development of open source features.
Said sponsorship is a requirement for using the pre-hosted files for commercial uses in a SaaS-like manner.
But some of the wording in the faq is a bit confusing. E.G. There's a whole section about "Why don't you just sell plans for the hosted API?" right after detailing how to sign up for said plan for the hosted API.
The hosted API is "free" in the sense that there are no tiers. The API costs me money to run, which is why I require a GitHub sponsorship for commercial use. This is ideal for use cases where deploying your own tileset is impractical.
If you are using the hosted API heavily then it makes sense for you to "graduate" to deploying it yourself.
They seem to be explicitly noncommercial
The difference from other commercial vendors is the focus on a complete, easily deployable solution - the hosted API is meant for non-commercial and light commercial use, instead of being the main product offering, to avoid the incentive trap of locking-in paying users to the API.
A related concept is the Community Right to Replicate: https://2i2c.org/right-to-replicate/