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Comment by rhodey | Hacker News Reader

Though you may wish the license was different I find it hard to believe you have no idea what the license allows for

This can be found online as "dual licensing"

I understand your intent here but you're being told that you have not correctly achieved it, and you need to make some small changes to get to where you want to be.

Presently you say this: > This software is available under two licenses: > MIT: non-commercial use > Proprietary: commercial use, contact for terms: hello@bizcardz.ai

What this means:

"You may select from one of two licenses for this software: - the MIT license which has no restrictions of any kind - a proprietary license you must contact me to learn about."

I get you think adding "non-commercial" to that line means you're telling folks the MIT option is only for noncommercial uses, but that's not the end effect. What you are actually saying is that people can choose MIT or not, and they're going to choose MIT. You tried to say it's MIT only for noncommercial, but that language IS NOT IN THE MIT LICENSE and so your statement is unenforcable. We're only trying to help you here.

What I think you're looking for:

You may select from one of two licenses for this software: 1. All use where the code is used in a commercial, revenue generating, or other for-pay or professional use, you must purchase a license. Contact me for details. 2. For non-commercial uses the software is free to use, modify, and redistribute for other non-commercial uses.

Then you want to use a license that agrees with your desires, and MIT is not that license.

Right now anyone can take your code, take it under MIT, and you've got literally nothing to say about it. So just change that license, that's all.

Or don't it's not our code that will be misused.

Never write a legal document yourself. Always talk to a lawyer because these traps are really easy to set.

This is not how dual licensing works. If you offer two licenses I get to pick. And I pick MIT which allows me to use it commercially.

If you disagree, then it's not MIT but some custom license, so don't label it as such.

What the license allows for is very clear

I publish many things without dual licensing and yet your kind will not be satisfied

if it forbids commercial use, it's not MIT. like at all

This is simple I wrote a license The license says there are two licenses If you are non-commercial you get MIT If you are commercial you email for terms

There is nowhere a claim that this is MIT

You can create any custom license terms you like, as you have done, but if you refer to it as the "MIT License" (which you do, explicitly) without the source being available under the MIT license, you invite only confusion.

If I published using any non-commercial license whatsoever there would be disagreements so here we are all the same

Yeah, why do anything right, people will complain all the same. /s

Your lawyer will explain to you that what you wanted, and what your license terms actually mean, are two different things. There are noncommercial users who have downloaded your software and are using it under the terms of the MIT license. You already gave them permission. Now, they can give copies to commercial users, who can use it under the terms of the MIT license. Your lawyer will explain this to you.

> The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software

You can just change the license, that's what MIT allows for. You are allowed to do whatever you want:

  MIT License

  Copyright (c) [year] [fullname]

  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), **to deal
  in the Software without restriction**, including **without limitation** the rights
  to use, copy, *modify*, merge, publish, distribute, *sublicense*, and/or sell
  copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
  furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
  copies or substantial portions of the Software.

  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
  IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
  FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
  AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
  LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
  OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
  SOFTWARE.

You have to keep the copyright notice and notice of existing permissions, but that is not the same thing as a license. And you are allowed to sublicense into a more restrictive license (such as proprietary/closed source). Just not the other way around, which is what the inclusion of the existing notice helps to enforce.

So being non-commercial I can just fork and redistribute the software under MIT license? Strange, but acceptable.

This isn't about demanding you let companies use your code. This is about what you are calling that license. It is not the MIT license and it is wrong to lie to people by calling it the MIT license. You should give it a name like "The bizcards license" or whatever.

IANAL but you also might want to consult a lawyer since your franken-license contradicts itself. It might be hard to challenge a company in court when they steal your code.

No. I may have a guess of what the intended license is but what the license says is complete nonsense. It's self contradictory.

If they want to let people use it in non-commercial settings but are willing to provide a license for commercial use, then they could have provided a non-commercial license.

If they wanted to provide a FOSS license, then they should have provided one and offered a dual license option (by the actual commonly accepted usage of that term in this context).

If they want to make an MIT-like license but make it for non-commercial use, then they should just call it a non-commercial license and not confuse the issue by claiming it's MIT.

As it stands, they've provided a FOSS license, that explicitly allows the use, modification, redistribution and resale in commercial settings, but slapped a "non-commercial" term at the top of it.

"Please use this software however you like, including in commercial settings, redistributing it for profit and modifying it for your commercial use. Also, don't use it for commercial use"

What?

Don't mind me over here reselling your software non-commercially

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