commons-clause
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fossas
How do I apply the Clause?
Hi, I hope it's this is a good place (technically, it's a feature request to add a FAQ entry to the site). I didn't find any better place on https://commonsclause.com/
The FAQ states:
[...] those that adopt the Clause should understand the broader implications of making a license change and commitments to source availability.
That's some very careful wording coming from someone who understands open-source on quite a deep level :) Basically, the Clause is not enough on its own. You (probably) need to combine it with a "commercial" licence, which should give back some of the rights the Clause takes away. The hard problem is: which rights?
The FAQ also says:
The Commons Clause is a first step at starting an important discussion about the state of modern open source businesses.
[...] we need to start a conversation on what we can do to meet the financial needs of commercial open source projects and the communities behind them.
Where is that discussion happening, assuming you're planning to take part? Can we expect a follow-up from you, or would you prefer the community (individual projects/companies) to sort this one out? Are you following and replying on Twitter/Reddit/blogs? (To subscribe to the conversations, I'd need to be aware of them.)
Are some of commonsclause.com authors willing to act as moderators, e.g. collecting the considerations, best practices and experiments around implementing the Clause (probably limiting themselves to an opinionated, but hopefully well-researched view)?
Thank your for consideration, and thank you for your efforts to make community software sustainable.
Thanks @encukou. #5 opens up a great discussion about guidance on how to apply the Commons Clause.
As for the discussion, I think it's already happening all around you. Over 10 major pieces have been published and spread about open source sustainability since the launch of the Commons Clause. I think Twitter and HackerNews is a big place where people are expressing their views. This tracker could be a great place for longer-form content.
I hope people here share as well, even if the opinion is "kill it with fire". Ultimately I think this will lead to a better world where everyone wins, especially developers.
We link directly to the Github repo on the bottom, but a "How can I participate" question seems warranted. Keeping this open until we have a resolution.
As for the discussion, I think it's already happening all around you.
Before engaging in a conversation, I like to check if the point I'm concerned about has already been considered. The "wild west" discussion model doesn't make that possible. Hacker News starts with a useful analogy and then seems to devolve into attacks. As for Twitter... I don't really want to check :(
So, pardon me if I repeat other voices.
The clause doesn't answer questions like What happens if Amazon buys the company and revokes commercial use rights for everyone else? There's a quagmire of considerations which the Open Source model quite elegantly addresses/sidesteps.
Most discussion I find says it's bad to take these rights away. But you know that, you just want to give them back in a different way, right? The FAQ already admits the clause is not sufficient on its own.
I think it's quite pointless to discuss the effects of applying only the clause. There might be multiple additions in the future, but there needs to be some – and the Clause author's preference will probably matter a lot.
Are you interested in discussion on this? Is that discussion already happening somewhere I didn't check? Or are you drafting something privately and don't want comments at this point?
As someone who wants to be source-available, but non-commercial: how the heck do I use Commons Clause? Do I include it as "CommonsClauseLicenseCondition.txt" alongside "LICENSE.txt" ?
Here's an example of how n8n used the Commons Clause license alongside an Apache license.
After some research, my conclusion (which might be wrong) is that Commons Clause is intended for use as just a paragraph inside of a custom software license. And that if you start with a different license as text, you should modify it so that it's clear that this is no longer the old license, since you've modified it. My understanding is that the n8n license I linked to is not necessarily the best example, since it is just a copy paste of the two licenses and that the use of the name of the Apache license should not be used if you've modified it.
Additionally, the original post in https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/902 has links to various projects that use commons clause.