Motivations and pitfalls for new "open-source" licenses

karim — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 17:09:52 +0000

Anyone pushing "open core" should read some of Matt Asay's essays, like this one:
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3032647/face-it-theres-...

It's probably safest to see FLOSS projects as marketing. I also disagree with Cheng on Trademarks -- and maybe there's good reason for large companies to be worried about FLOSS project maintainers starting to use those. Trademarks are a perfectly legitimate way to make money from FLOSS. That's how Android works. The entire ecosystem is controlled primarily via a trademark. So, if your FLOSS project is your primary marketing vehicle, that's fine; that's how most companies make their money anyway: branding. Just make sure whenever the associated trademark is used that you derive something from that. Here's Lady Ada's answer to "I would like to sell my project as a product and I'm scared of someone becoming a competitor! ": "You can use trademarks to create a brand. Trademarks are not covered by Open Source licenses so they remain your property. Trademarks are super-cheap compared to patents, and you can file for them yourself for about $275."

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Motivations and pitfalls for new "open-source" licenses