Open Source for Business

What Hacker News says

1. kshri24Jul 2024
   Do read these two great books by Heather Meeker:

   1. Open (Source) for Business: A Practical Guide to Open Source Software Licensing

   2. From Project to Profit: How to Build a Business Around Your Open Source Project

   This video presentation by her on this topic is really valuable too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck1gJIZ3Lr4

   You will then have a really good idea of where to start. As the parent poster said, it is wise to switch to AGPL if you want to build a COSS business.

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2. mlmitchJan 2021
   It’s hard to know without digging into your your library, which I haven’t. Also, I’m not a lawyer so I won’t try to give you a legal opinion.

   However, you should probably take this one seriously.

   I recommend reading the book “Open Source for Business” by Heather Meeker if you are looking for background on open source licensing. It’s written in a way that’s really accessible to non-lawyers.

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3. freeqazOct 2022
   The current system is broken. I don't think I agree with everything in the post, but I'm excited to see movement in this space given that this is a space I spend a lot of time thinking about. (I'll expand on that below)

   Even if I disagree with parts of this, this is still one of the most interesting things that I've read around OSS licensing in a minute! Having actual VC money behind this movement is awesome.

   For context: I run an Open Source company that's YC + VC-backed. We use a hybrid of Apache and Business Source License (BSL, a "non-compete" license that converts to Apache in 2-3 years). Our license file[0] has context about my thought process around this, but I still am not totally happy with it. (BSL isn't an "OSI-Compatible" license, but feels like the "best compromise" license out there currently.)

   To come to that conclusion, I've read both Heather Meeker's book, "Open (Source) for Business"[1], multiple times now and I've also blogged about this topic[2] before. (She helped write the BSL license.)

   All of that is to say, it's complicated and there are some perverse incentives that can prevent you from always "doing the right thing".

   Problem #1: You lose control. You may begin with Apache but, as OP states, you eventually end up with the incentive to "rug pull" by switching the license because of market forces/VC influence. (I'm the founder of my company and I would resist it, but eventually our investors might control the board and make that happen anyway by firing me.)

   Problem #2: The hardest part of building a company is getting traction. Just getting anybody to care about you takes a ton of effort and having a permissive license makes it way easier to get that early adoption. And, by the time you have adoption and you decide to go raise VC money, you now end up with Problem #1.

   Problem #3: If you start with a copyleft license like GPL/AGPL then you make Problem #2 (adoption) harder. Many companies simply won't use your software if you're using a copyleft license (like Google). (Linux is a notable exception here, while companies like MongoDB switched from AGPL. It's crazy.)

   We are using BSL because it feels like the best compromise (it becomes Apache 2.0 eventually). I do still think a lot about switching to Apache though. I just really hate the idea of "rug pulling" and I'd rather be honest from the beginning with a license like BSL, even if it is more difficult to get that initial momentum.

   Does anybody else have thoughts to share about this?

   0: https://github.com/lunasec-io/lunasec/blob/master/LICENSE.md

   1: Open (Source) for Business: A Practical Guide to Open Source Software Licensing - Third Edition https://a.co/8SLjVZI

   2: https://www.lunasec.io/docs/blog/how-to-build-an-open-source...

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