Thread

Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to

196 points · 209 comments · Muhammad523

mentalgear · 1789939873 · focus · HN ↗
I feel like the main issue with projects switching between a permissive and less permissive license and back is that starting out as fully permissive in the first place was the main error.
If everybody would just agree to start their open source code as something like source-available or OpenRAIL -requiring companies with more than $5M in annual revenue to pay for the work - we wouldn't be in this situation.
<a href="https://fair.io/" rel="nofollow">https://fair.io/
1. rpdillon · 1789941607 · focus · HN ↗
  They won't do this, because starting out as non-free doesn't get the same traction. Now that I think about it, it's basically a form of enshitification: draw people in with one deal, then after they're onboard, change it to something less favorable.
  1. amelius · 1789941999 · focus · HN ↗
    Why is it enshittification if you only have to pay when you have >$5M in revenue? Is your world so shit if you cross that threshold?
    johnnyanmac · 1789942329 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the issue is more on how you audit such things. Governments struggle (partially by design, but still) to get proper audits on who uses what and how much money they make.
    The theory is great, but I'm unsure how you execute this.
    kelnos · 1790013271 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the maintainer is still better off if only 50% of companies that should be paying are actually paying. The alternative is to just get nothing.
    And if the maintainer wants to, they can always try to go after some of the more egregious offenders.

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