It’s surprising to me that there hasn’t been a successful license like this yet. I imagine there are other people considering one too. It looks like he’s made more progress than I did though.
My first imprsesion is that 1% of revenue seems low. In comparison
Epic - 5%
Apple - 30%
Google - 30%
Amazon - 15-45%
Twitch - 30%
I noticed
Post-Open requires a central entity that receives and apportions payment, does enforcement, and operates the service entity (or three central entities, one for each purpose). Open Source developers are very independent, and have not had to deal with a central entity until now, even one that they own.
I think there needs to be very careful consideration when creating organizations to manage a royalty that would apply to the entire industry.
As an example, I imagine there are organizations that dislike Doctors without Borders because they serve communities within Russia or Iran. If there’s political takeover on an industry license, it could exclude ever being paid for open source work when it touches sensitive topics.
There’s also the risk of financial takeover. The moment the organization starts collecting billions of dollars from copyrighted works, there’s extreme incentive for takeover from tech companies. It sounds insane to me to consider something like “developers should sign all their software over to Oracle and trust Oracle to distribute it back.” Though, I’m not ready to rule out that an organization can’t be successful.
It also creates the complicated question for who should be entitled to funding, and I think it could be tempting to make the case that certain charitable software projects should receive funding. This is in significant contrast to a company like Apple, which collects 30% and can spend it on anything Apple desires. I currently think developers should primarily be entitled to receive the royalty, and if they desire to allocate it to non-profits, that’s their decision.
I still really have to think about it.
I like that he’s well known. It seems like he is politically controversial. I tried some searches, and it seems like there are mixed opinions about him. I don’t personally know the entire history. I think it would be good for a well known and trusted person to champion this type of license.
It also looks like he’s open making changes to it. In the article it says he is searching for volunteers and legal funding.
I agree with your points. Centralizing the funds of all opensource using this license is simple, but dangerous. It could easily turn into another Mozilla and lose its way.
There probably isn’t a perfect solution, but there are least 2 people on this planet thinking about it unimpeded by the OSI’s opensource definition, which is good.
I think the 1% is so that a company didn’t shy away from open source completely. I don’t know how it will work for example if the company is using 5 of this license. Will they pay 5% or 1%? Probably 1%, but I didn’t see it addressed in the article. Anyway, since the cost is small for a big company, but can be huge in number for an individual, I think it is fair.
Also, what if a contributor is acting on behalf of a company? Would the company receive the payment or the individual contributor? There is just so much to cover.
It’s surprising to me that there hasn’t been a successful license like this yet. I imagine there are other people considering one too. It looks like he’s made more progress than I did though.
My first imprsesion is that 1% of revenue seems low. In comparison
I noticed
I think there needs to be very careful consideration when creating organizations to manage a royalty that would apply to the entire industry.
As an example, I imagine there are organizations that dislike Doctors without Borders because they serve communities within Russia or Iran. If there’s political takeover on an industry license, it could exclude ever being paid for open source work when it touches sensitive topics.
There’s also the risk of financial takeover. The moment the organization starts collecting billions of dollars from copyrighted works, there’s extreme incentive for takeover from tech companies. It sounds insane to me to consider something like “developers should sign all their software over to Oracle and trust Oracle to distribute it back.” Though, I’m not ready to rule out that an organization can’t be successful.
It also creates the complicated question for who should be entitled to funding, and I think it could be tempting to make the case that certain charitable software projects should receive funding. This is in significant contrast to a company like Apple, which collects 30% and can spend it on anything Apple desires. I currently think developers should primarily be entitled to receive the royalty, and if they desire to allocate it to non-profits, that’s their decision.
I still really have to think about it.
I like that he’s well known. It seems like he is politically controversial. I tried some searches, and it seems like there are mixed opinions about him. I don’t personally know the entire history. I think it would be good for a well known and trusted person to champion this type of license.
It also looks like he’s open making changes to it. In the article it says he is searching for volunteers and legal funding.
I agree with your points. Centralizing the funds of all opensource using this license is simple, but dangerous. It could easily turn into another Mozilla and lose its way.
There probably isn’t a perfect solution, but there are least 2 people on this planet thinking about it unimpeded by the OSI’s opensource definition, which is good.
Anti Commercial-AI license
I think the 1% is so that a company didn’t shy away from open source completely. I don’t know how it will work for example if the company is using 5 of this license. Will they pay 5% or 1%? Probably 1%, but I didn’t see it addressed in the article. Anyway, since the cost is small for a big company, but can be huge in number for an individual, I think it is fair.
Also, what if a contributor is acting on behalf of a company? Would the company receive the payment or the individual contributor? There is just so much to cover.