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Is there a License that requires the user to donate if they make revenue? (lemmy.giftedmc.com)
submitted 10 months ago by haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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I tried a couple license finders and I even looked into the OSI database but I could not find a license that works pretty much like agpl but requiring payment (combined 1% of revenue per month, spread evenly over all FOSS software, if applicable) if one of these is true:

  • the downstream user makes revenue (as in "is a company" or gets donations)
  • the downstream distributor is connected to a commercial user (e.g. to exclude google from making a non profit to circumvent this license)

I ask this because of the backdoor in xz and the obviously rotten situation in billion dollar companies not kicking their fair share back to the people providing this stuff.

So, if something similar exists, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for reading and have a good one.

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[-] mark@programming.dev 5 points 10 months ago

Interesting idea. A couple questions:

How would it work if the open source maintainer is a commercial company?

AFAIK there are no restrictions on when an Open source maintainer can change their license. They can do it even after their work has already been used.

So couldn't a company like, Facebook (since they own open source React) just change their React license to this one and all of sudden start charging everyone for it? 🤔

[-] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago

The old version will still be available under whatever license it was released with

[-] mark@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

Sure but new versions are released pretty often, which essentially means they can change their license whenever they want.

[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

See the current Redis situation, or Mongo a little while ago, among others. Originally open source, then at a certain point they changed to a source-available/more restricted license. The final open source license releases have been forked and now maintained as an alternative

[-] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks!

From my pov, a maintainer or user who just works on the software for their own pleasure (witch markedly no use in their company/revenue stream) would probably have to be excluded for fairness reasons.

Afaik it depends on the license. I think the agpl can never be changed. Someone once called it a viral license of something because it taints every project it touched because every project that uses the code must be agpl from that point forward.

But there are far more knowledgeable people than me out there, maybe someone can explain it.

If facebook change to my idea of a license, they would get part (as in shared with every other FOSS project said company uses) of 1% of every companies revenue that uses react. Thats quite a lot probably.

Thanks for chiming in. :)

this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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