To chime in on "why would I do this": Lots of companies already are successfully built on open source, so I don't buy the *"but then I can't make money"* argument - at least, not as a blanket statement . There are two models I've commonly seen used: The direct Red Hat model (open source software, commercial support) and the indirect Cognitect model (Datomic is closed source, but its built with and on a wealth of open source which Cognitect maintain). The Red Hat model could probably work for Datomic as its something where customers likely want commercial support for, but its unlikely to work for Cursive.
Basically, it can and does work for many people, but to directly address the question "why?" - I've been involved in startups for a few years and a very common question I was asked by potential customers is *"but what if you go out of business? Will we still be able to use the service?"* What Fergal is proposing (or the escrow alternative that Franklin mentioned) aims to solve that and give these customers peace of mind. This is likely only relevant to early stage startups, however. An established company like Cognitect likely doesn't have this issue and therefore has more flexibility in how they offer their products. At the end of the day, its up to each individual to decide whats best for them, their software and their business, but having options available is a good thing, if this license can be made work. On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 at 13:27 Franklin M. Siler <m...@franksiler.com> wrote: > > On Jun 5, 2015, at 0711, Fergal Byrne <fergalbyrnedub...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > The GPL already has a clause which allows the owner (and downstream > user) to defer, for 12 months, the full obligations of GPL - see this guy's > take: > https://github.com/zooko/tgppl/blob/master/COPYING.TGPPL-v2-draft.rst > > > > Our idea is a bit more startup-friendly - on the commercial side of the > dual license, everyone can keep their improvements/extensions closed for up > to the full duration of the time-bomb, but they then have to give it all > back. > > > > As to enforceability, I'm guessing copying the language of GPL is > hopefully sufficient. These things are rarely tested as far as I know, but > I'm sure someone knows better than me. > > > I think the GPL, MIT, Apache, etc. licenses are probably fine for real > world use. Why? Because everyone uses them. They are industry norms. > > The license you linked is a draft; however, mainline GPLv3 has some > specific terms related to timing- see section 6(b). > > The thing is that licenses are not “contracts” in the sense that a > contract is offer + acceptance + consideration. A license is a promise not > to sue, and there are a number of subtle but important things that may or > may not work in that situation. For example, there is no blanket rule on > the relationship between fair use and a license agreement. All of this is > complicated in that purchased software may have a controlling contract on > top of the licensing agreement, so the enforceability of the system as a > whole can get quite messy. > > All I’m saying here: I’m not sure that a court will buy that “if you do X > before this date, I won’t sue you; but then if you do this after Y date, I > will” is a valid license. It’s certainly not the norm. > > Frank > > > Franklin M. Siler > Counselor at Law ||| franksiler.com > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with > your first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Clojure" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
