Ask HN: What software license is most appropriate to build a business on?

1 pointsdavidkellis2y ago1 comments

Source code licensing seems to be a sensitive topic, and I have my own opinions, but I'd rather just be frank and ask the group: What are the best open source licensing options to build a business on?

I benefit greatly from open source - standing on the shoulders of giants and all that - and I want to contribute useful tooling back to the community. I enjoy making my projects available for others to use freely. At the end of the day, I'm selfish - I care about feeding my kids, owning a house, putting my kids through school, etc., which is all very expensive.

I don't want to work for someone else all my life, which means starting a software business, and licensing is a key issue here.

How do I balance: 1. Sharing my work with the community in a way that benefits everyone 2. Ensure that I can profit off of my work (e.g. prevent Amazon et al from simply hosting my software as a SaaS offering, like they did with elasticsearch)

The most palatable option I see is a more restrictive license for commercial users, a more permissive license for non-commercial users. Thoughts?

1 comments

version_five2y ago

Some random thoughts on a complex topic:

Why do you want to open source your project? Is there a business reason? There should be, even if you're an open source advocate. You could also choose to donate money you made to a project, volunteer, etc.

Who is going to use the open source version of you software?

As for the license, non-commercial always rubs me the wrong way. Whatever you do, just don't pretend that is open source. Trying to get good PR or community contributions for something that only you can profit from under the guise of open source is super sleazy. I think if you're going that route it's better to just make it freemium and not even bother releasing the source.

That aside, the license really depends on your strategy. Start with what you are trying to achieve, concretely, not "sharing with the community".

You could also consider open-core.

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