I tried a couple license finders and I even looked into the OSI database but I could not find a license that works pretty much like agpl but requiring payment (combined 1% of revenue per month, spread evenly over all FOSS software, if applicable) if one of these is true:
- the downstream user makes revenue (as in “is a company” or gets donations)
- the downstream distributor is connected to a commercial user (e.g. to exclude google from making a non profit to circumvent this license)
I ask this because of the backdoor in xz and the obviously rotten situation in billion dollar companies not kicking their fair share back to the people providing this stuff.
So, if something similar exists, feel free to let me know.
Thanks for reading and have a good one.
No, there isn’t and there won’t be any since what your saying is absolutely against FOSS values. You are in non-commercial/commercial license territory, give a look at winrar’s/unity’s and the like, gpl is not for you.
Could you elaborate how it is against foss values to keep people from being exploited?
Another user, toothbrush, has already posted a link to the 4 freedoms, I’d recommend reading that entire page for a most thorough explanation.
But basically your plan goes against three of them (assuming you’re going to release the source code, if you don’t your not granting any of them). Freedom 0 says you can use the software however you like, for any reason including for profit. You can charge the users but once you give them the (Free) software it’s completely theirs. Freedoms 2 and 3 state they can redistribute copies or distribute their modified version in any way they want provided that the give their users the same freedoms they were given.
I still dont see how this breaks any of these. They get the source code and they get to sell it (or whatever), they can change it however they see fit. They still have to provide fair upstream financial kickback imo.
Then it’s not FOSS. I don’t see how it’s very different from Unity (for example) licensing model. So maybe a license like that can have a place, but not in the FOSS space and it will be definitely not compatible with any gpl.
Unity is insane, asking for money per download, leading to completely lopsided situations where you get ruined if you have too many users for free.
And thanks for your opinion. My opinion is that this is what foss needs and its very much foss. The foss principles I read clearly state free as in freedom, not free beer. Putting in an elaborate payment scheme that benefits small companies and individuals and makes large companies pay their share to help counter the thankless grind of foss development is totally in line with the principles imo.
Your opinion is at odds with the rest of the FOSS community though, and always will be. You can license your software however you feel fit for your project, but don’t expect to get any traction from the Libre community when you do.
“Free as in Freedom” means a lot to people. Restrict that freedom and you’re out.
I see you quoting “Free as in Freedom” but you seem to imply that FOSS also means “Free as in gratis”. That is not true. FOSS does not grant you the freedom of receiving everything for free (gratis).
Are you free to distribute something if someone charges you a fee to do that distributing?
If it’s a service, sure, but if you charge money for access to the software itself, that is non-free.
If Ubuntu charged money per seat for running a prod server I’d call foul. But I have no problem with Ubuntu Pro.
“Forcing donations” is just a fancy way of saying “charging licensing fees”.
It’s clearly a license fee. I don’t see how a license fee stands in conflict with FOSS though. FOSS is Free as in freedom, not free as in gratis.
The godfather of all FLOSS licenses himself (GPL) contains explicit terms to allow license fees too.
The freedom in Foss is freedom to redistribute (under the same license).
Is the the distributor or the og developer getting the licensing fees? Neither makes any sense to me.
That’s the hard part: Who has claims to how much of the license fees. That’s an extremely tough question to answer because it necessitates quantification of code contributions which is far from a solved problem.
A fee for comercial use or corporate users sounds like “discrimination against fields of endeavor” to me.
I think it perfectly aligns with the freedom 2 “redistribute to help your neighbor”. It you dont make money with it, you dont have to pay anything, if you do, you should give back, simple as that.