Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrKai77 | Hacker News Reader

As stated in the comment on GitHub, Luminare will only be accessible by sponsors. If you have financial restrictions or are not able to sponsor me, I am open to giving the you the source code. However, this is all in order to make Loop more profitable, as I have put all my free time into making it. I hope you understand :)

View on HN

I don't think anyone disputes rewarding individuals for software they provide to their patrons. I hope you prosper!

But "open source to those who pay" is quite a stretch of the definition.

If you check Open Source Initiative's list of approved licenses, you won't find anything that fits this definition:

https://opensource.org/licenses

The closest I know to what you're describing is Business Source License (BSL):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Source_License

> The Business Source License (SPDX id BUSL) is a software license which publishes source code but limits the right to use the software to certain classes of users. The BUSL is not an open-source license, but it is source-available license that also mandates an eventual transition to an open-source license. This characteristic has been described as a compromise between traditional proprietary licenses and open source.

This did not occur to me, thanks for bringing this to my attention! I will definitely look into this! I guess Luminare may end up being fully open-sourced.

This fits even more with the Wikipedia definition of BSL.

Just call it what it is, there are no feel-good points for advertising it as something it isn't.

People are ambivalent about BSL licenses because of the way companies use them to step back from their previous commitment to open source.

They're still an improvement over closed-source licenses.

You can sell GPL software. But the purchasers can then turn around and distribute it: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMon...

I don't know if it would work for you, but dual licensing GPL software is a common way folks generate money to support their work.

I think this confuses "software is open source" like it's some intrinsic property of the software, and "if you pay me I will sell you the software under an OSS license which is totally fine.

It's a bit of an honor system because is allowed to just publish it for anyone to download for free but it's absolutely something you can do.

If you need to go proprietary to make enough money that's fine, but this is not open source and in particular it is not compatible with the GPLv3 license stated in the README. You have likely already given some users the right to redistribute Luminaire under GPLv3.

That's not Open Source then. And probably goes also against the GPLv3 license that you're using.

I don't think they're bound by the GPL if they're the sole copyright owner. Did they take outside contributions without a copyright assignment?

If you release software under a license then that version of the software is bound by the license.

Unequivocally false. A sole copyright holder is not bound by license terms in the same way as parties to whom the work is being licensed.

Maybe I'm missing something? But my assumption was that if I "acquired" (downloaded…) software licensed under e.g GPLv3, me as the user at least have the theoretical possibility to pursue the rights granted to me by the copyright holder in the license.

Of course the copyright holder can license new distributions under a different license (or different licenses at the same time). But are you saying that a copyright holder post hoc can revoke the license?

Wouldn't that be kinda weird? Suppose I buy some proprietary software (without any dependencies) because it's GPLv3, and then when I wanna exercise my rights, the sole copyright holder just goes "nah, when I think about it, this is actually not GPLv3".

(If you are correct, I guess that situation then might just be a civil case unrelated to the actual license where I essentially didn't get what I paid for)

No one claimed or even hinted that authors can retroactively revoke the license. But sole authors aren't bound by the terms of the GPL when they themselves distribute the software because they already have that right as an author without a license, as opposed to others who are granted that right by the license.

Hmm. I interpreted "[not publishing source code] goes also against the GPLv3 license that you're using" as meaning that the author is "bound" by the license to provide the source code.

Of course, the terms in GPLv3 that puts limits on the licensee / user (like that derivate works must be GPLv3) are not relevant.

But section 6 in the license stating that the source code must be distributed still holds true. Either OP distributes the source code to people who have the binaries, or the work is not licensed under GPLv3?

They can change the license by creating a new release with a new license, but existing versions with the previous license retain the previous license.

The copyright holders / holder can change or rescind the license, but not retroactively.

> this is all in order to make Loop more profitable, as I have put all my free time into making it.

How do you plan on monetising Loop?

I do not plan on ever monetizing the core functionality of Loop, which is why I initially turned to making some of the source paid. Of course, this didn't seem to work, so Loop is now once again, fully open source :p

Currently, the only way I am making money is via donations, and it seems to be working much better than how I initially was doing, so I'll see based on how these first few weeks with 1.0 ends up.

I wish you the best. I don't think "not-fully" open source would make a difference in terms of donations. Have you looked at setting up a Patreon?

I guess that may be true. I will definitely look into setting one up!

A popular model is delayed source code release, so new features are developed on a private branch and binary releases, along with the code, and made available to supporters and then after X weeks merged into the main branch. Not sure how this would work with GPL3.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com