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Ask HN: What license should I use?

2 points by codegladiator ↗ HN
I am writing a software and want to keep it open source. I also want to earn to live of it, through maintain that software. I currently licensed it under GNU GPL v3, but got a couple of requests that it doesn't allow making profitable propriety software on top of my work.

It is a server-side software which people are required to host themselves.

4 comments

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r3bl
Why not MIT?

It seems like an universal answer to "licenses are too complicated, just do whatever you want with it" scenario.

codegladiator
How would I be able to earn off it ? I considered the option of "donate something button", but I haven't seen any projects where the developers were able to live comfortably on the donations. Plus donations isn't stable.

Hoping to find balance somewhere.

belorn
There is a few standard ways to earn a living on writing open source software, all with benefits and drawbacks.

1: Selling exception. Keep it GPLv3 (or AGPLv3) and offer profitable propriety software to pay you for an exception. The major drawback is that you can't use others gpl'ed software in your software, including patches.

2: Subscription based donation like patreon. It is more stable form of donation if you got a existing user base that is willing to upfront commit to it. License choice is generally best as a community decision.

3: Hosting provider. In this case you want to corner the market in hosting the server-side. If people are required to host themselves than this is obvious a non-option. AGPLv3 is generally a good choice in keeping competition at bay and honest.

codegladiator
Thanks for the nice overview. Option #2 seems like the way I would want go.