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Comment by theosp | Hacker News Reader

At JustDo we make our source code available for transparency and collaboration, we use a source-available license that ensures fair compensation for our work. This model allows us to maintain the benefits of open development while avoiding the pitfalls of unrestricted open-source licensing, ensuring we can sustainably develop and support our software.

I developed this license https://justdo.com/source-available-license , if someone wants to adopt it for their project, I'd love to provide its Latex form, just DM me. (With enough demand, I might Open Source the Source available license ;) )."

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Could you use a PolyForm license instead? They have a set of standardized, source-available licenses that are much shorter and easier to understand.

"The PolyForm Project is a group of experienced licensing lawyers and technologists developing simple, standardized, plain-language software source code licenses. PolyForm aims to fill gaps in the menu of standardized software licenses, like non-commercial, trial, and small-business-only terms."

https://polyformproject.org/

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this project.

> allows us to maintain the benefits of open development while avoiding the pitfalls of unrestricted open-source licensing, ensuring we can sustainably develop and support

"allow us", "ensuring we can" ...

You misunderstand OSS, which is about "allow all", and "ensuring all of us can". Of course, the OSS model doesn't always work, nor do its proponents claim it is the one true way to run a project. Though, they do get irked when source-available licenses try to pass off as "almost OSS" but aren't quite.

I wouldn't care too much about what some dudes who don't pay for my software get irked by.

The gp clearly distinguishes open-source and source-available, and I don't think he misunderstands OSS.

> I don't think he misunderstands OSS

Perhaps misunderstands source-available:

"At JustDo we make our source code available for transparency and collaboration"

I don't see any misunderstanding there. Maybe you misunderstand the basic meaning of words?

Transparency: If I can see the source code, that is certainly pretty much the definition of transparency.

Collaboration: It is easier to collaborate if I can see the source, don't you think? That doesn't define the legal terms under which this collaboration happens, of course, and you should make sure they suit you before you collaborate.

Sure, collab with source-available licenses at your own peril.

Or at your own benefit. As with any legal agreement you enter into. Also, you might be able to reach out to them, pay them, and obtain a different license. It is easier to see if this is worth the effort by seeing the source code first.

Your confusion isn't mine to solve but fortunately more ink has been spilled already, by folks more capable than I, for just that: https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2018/12/14/open-source-confront...

The confusion seems to be all yours. This article is certainly something. First, they dispute that licenses are actually setting legal terms. If they were not, then there was no point to open-source licensing either. So that argument is idiotic. Secondly, sentences like

> Open source software companies need to come to grips with that uncomfortable truth: their business model isn’t their community’s problem, and they should please stop trying to make it one.

are full of unjustified entitlement. And also not relevant: The companies we are talking about are not open-source companies. They are just companies. Some of them, with source-available software and/or hardware. Some of them, with open-source software and/or hardware. Some of them, with both.

The entitlement therein is justified in the context of OSS.

> So that argument is idiotic.

Well, what's idiotic is expecting collab on a source-available project. There's a reason the community forks or uses OSS instead, as the article notes.

  Those of us who have been around for a while — who came up in the era of proprietary software and saw the merciless transition to open source software — know that there’s no way to cross back over the Rubicon.
  
  Open source software companies need to come to grips with that uncomfortable truth: their business model isn’t their community’s problem, and they should please stop trying to make it one. And while they’re at it, it would be great if they could please stop making outlandish threats about the demise of open source; they sound like shrieking proprietary software companies from the 1990s...

> Well, what's idiotic is expecting collab on a source-available project.

Depends on what you understand by "collab". That can be a business partnership where actual money is exchanged. It is called capitalism, and I leave it up to you to judge how idiotic it is.

> Open source software companies need to come to grips with that uncomfortable truth

Again, I don't know many open-source software companies. I am currently using the Monaco Editor for a project, it is great open-source software, published by Microsoft. I wouldn't call Microsoft an open-source software company, though. Which is my point.

I don't think a small software company can gain much these days by making their software open-source. Just put it behind an SaaS, with a generous free tier (free as in beer) to attract users. Make (some part of) it source-available, so that people can experiment with your software and interface with it, for example for writing plugins (that would be the collab part). Think really hard about whether to actually open-source anything, and if it is worth it. When in doubt, consider AGPL.

How so? That's literally the point of source-available licenses: a company using the code can audit it and sometimes, depending on the license fix issues for their own use.

I wouldn't be interested in collaborating with a company on their source-available software (since I'd be doing free work for their profit), but if my company were using their product, and we needed a new feature or bug fix that they weren't going to prioritize, I'd much prefer to build that feature or fix that bug myself and give it back to the company than have to maintain my own fork.

And I don't really see a problem with that. Presumably my company would be using their software because building the whole thing ourselves would be too costly. But if I need to spend a week or two augmenting it? That's fine. Cheaper for my company, and I'm getting paid to do that work.

> a company using the code can audit it and sometimes, depending on the license fix issues for their own use

Presumption that enterprises don't have access to / or fix bugs in proprietary closed-source software of enterprises they depend on is unfounded. iow, source-available (as a way to increase collab and be transparent) is a gimmick.

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

Would rather have my team to build the features we need instead of maintaining screens, custom fields or transitions, and ask for a new feature that would take ages.

> ask for a new feature that would take ages

You underestimate the level of cooperation that can exist between two tech companies working on each other's proprietary code-bases (where warranted). I'd wager that those agreements won't look too different than with source-available firms.

So, to me, there's no added benefit to source-available; some of these firms want to build a FOSS-like community but also don't want to be FOSS.

GP didn't claim their software was OSS.

I personally wouldn't use something available under a non-OSS source-available type license, but if they're able to build a business around it and are doing well, that's great.

This is a disease. It is not open source. No one who values open source will use it. For any task, for software that would run on my system, I would rather use open source even if it's five times worse.

No one is asking you to.

Correct, but I am asking people to not use it because the whole software chain would erode and fall apart if too many people started using such non open-source licenses. Moreover, open source safeguards adoption of the software.

How does the MIT license do any of those things?

Have violations of this license been successfully countered?

Yeah, source available is the way to go.

I'm not here to make Bezos' yacht ten feet longer.

What's wrong with AGPL?

monkey paw curls Your AGPL code now only runs on amazon lambda functions.

Stallman et. al. have not worked in big corp since the 80s so they don't understand how misaligned incentives are now. The AGPL is a solution to the issues we were having in the 00s. The issues of the 20s are solved by source available licenses. Or my preferred solution, any open source license which can only be used by a natural person, corporations need not apply.

this is super good

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