this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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It's no longer open source if you restrict commercial usage. Sure, licence your software that way if you want to, but don't call it open source.
is ubuntu not open source then? or libreoffice?
if so, sure.
Ubuntu and LibreOffice are both free for commercial use. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?
canonical and libreoffice are examples of companies that do commercial support contracts. proxmox is an example of a free for personal use, but paid for businesses.
im talking about licensing and business models, by giving a few examples of how devs can be paid while being free and open for users, but paid somehow for companies. and how that doesnt necessarily mean it has to be closed.
I see what you mean. Yes there are great examples like those that offer support contracts for the open source software projects.
I think one point of confusion here is that as open source licenced projects, they do not restrict commercial use. The companies that lead the development just happen to also offer the best paid support.
Minor correction: proxmox is AGPL so free to use commercially without their support contract.
i usually advocate for a more restrictive license for commercial use, to avoid openssl type situations. where huge corpos will take it, use it to build big infrastructure without compensating the creator at all, and not even bothering to help with maintenance.