Feedback on open source royalty license?
Feedback on open source royalty license?
Feedback on open source royalty license?
I'm about to release a library, and do not want to use a normal free license like the MIT, Apache, or the GPL. I want to keep the license simple and easy to understand. It also would be considered a non-free license, as it requires a royalty payment. Though, the royalty would not be directly to this library, but open source repositories in general. This is what I had considered so far.
- 5% of generated income (per profit generating product) paid as royalty yearly to "approved open source repositories" if income is above $1,000,000/year. It's free if income is below that amount. The goal is to be similar to Unreal's license.
- All repostiories on GitHub.com that meet these requirements are "approved open source repositories"
- They have more than or equal to 1000 stars
- I'm aware that stars can be purchased, but this is against GitHub's TOS and the case for fraud is more obvious. Intentionally purchasing stars with the intent of not paying royalty is similar to just not paying the royalty
- The royalty must be paid between at least 10 repositories, with no more than 10% to a single repository
- I might provide some lists with easy methods for averaged mass payments to like 100s or 1000s of repositories, but if they want to use discretion, it's allowed. They are just prevented from contributing everything to 1 repository.
- They cannot be the same repository or project that is paying a royalty, but the same organization is approved as long the individual repository meets the requirements
- The intent is to partially reward companies with many highly starred open source contributions, but their use level is on their own PR. I also dislike the idea of verifying and tracking identities of different library authors, as I like to create repositories without them being associated with my name. Though, I do think that it makes sense for stars. (The developers providing stars would technically be voting on who should be elgible for financial contributions)
- They have more than or equal to 1000 stars
- After 5 years, the license transitions automatically into MIT or public domain for the version used. Though, new versions could still be under the same license.
- License is automatically compatible with licenses that use the same wording.
- No extra royalty if another dependency also uses this license
- If the other license raises or lowers the royalty rate, it's still compatible, with the royalty rate being the higher of the two.
- It's also compatible if the amount of repositories is raised above 10 by limiting percentages more.
- And, also compatible if the star threshold is raised.
- If GitHub removes stars, the existing approved repositories at the time of removal will persist as royalty options, but no new options will be automatically defined. (As the copyright holder, I still maintain the right to increase approved repostiories at anytime by issuing under a new license)
- No liability. The liability is still similar to MIT, Apache, GPL, etc.
- Royalty is paid by taxable year, follows tax season for US.
- Chosen repositories by the payer must be listed on the license
- Inclusion must link GitHub URL, payment amount, year
- The license must be distributed in the same location as all other distributed licenses in their application
- Chosen repositories by the payer must be listed on the license
- Just like the MIT or Apache license, the license cannot be revoked unless the licensed company decides to break the law, sue the license issuer, etc. No expectation of support, etc.
- The source can be modified. Usage of it does not need to stay open source.
- (Maybe, if possible) - Provide GitHub the ability to sue companies in noncompliance for a 10% reward of the settlement after lawyer fees.
- (Maybe) - Include Codeberg too. Though, I'm concerned other developers will be less likely to use a license of this type if they don't recognize the organization.
The motivation is just that I believe it's possible for a license like this to work. Tech companies frequently use a similar income model for their products and do not have issues paying Apple their 30% tax. There's often a expectation that companies contribute back to open source repositories, so I view 5% as an easy amount to meet. (Companies should already be contributing back at a level to where this license is viewed as free) Though, I don't expect any large company to move fast on a license of this type.
I've considered a license like this in the past, but thought about it again when Microsoft requested support for FFmpeg when their engineer hadn't read documentation. When requesting a support contract, Microsoft offered $2000. This was viewed as insulting to the FFmpeg developers as Microsoft generates billions of dollars in income every year while using their software in their products.
Large companies, like Microsoft and Google, pay Apple 30% to list their products. (30% of a billion is 300 million, 150,000x more than $2k) I don't think spending the money is the issue, they just frequently refuse until they are without options.
I haven't consulted a lawyer for it. I'm just interested in understanding how it is perceived. I also am willing to consider significant changes, but I haven't had better ideas for creating a license for funding open source.
As for my library
- It's unimportant, in a niche, and blockchain related
- I wrote it for personal use
- It won't bother me if the license just completely fails or is impossible to enforce. (Though, Unreal Engine uses a 5% royalty license that seems successful)
- It also won't be elgible for part of the royalty until it meets the same requirements.
- I expect developers who might use it will not be generating above $1m, so they won't care that it's not under MIT, Apache, GPL, etc.
Any suggested changes if I decide to do something like this? As an example, larger/lower star requirement? (I was concerned of excluding really high quality software that just hasn't received notice by other developers) I also like the idea of changing the maximum contribution to 1% per repository as I think it could become difficult for companies to exploit. (Though, I was concerned that companies acting in good faith would be encouraged to not support really good projects that badly need financial contributions) I also think same organization contributions seem bad to approve, but my opinion for allowing it is because developers are rating these repositories as highly appreciated. (They're contributing really high quality open source software) Is this a bad idea or seem too complicated?
For something simple, it seems an incredibly complex affair for both the licensee and enforcer.
It's just difficult to think about royalty based licenses that pay back to developers. I don't think there will ever be a perfect system, but I do think it's possible to create something that raises more income than what is available now.
Is this a bad idea or seem too complicated?
I think it's a great idea. Forcing commercial entities to contribute monetarily back to the opensource world? Awesome. If such a license existed, were legally applicable, and infectious like the GPL (as in code built on top of it should also be non-gratis opensource), I'd write all my code in it.
Of course you have to think of the loopholes e.g it shouldn't be possible to donate to something you own either directly or indirectly, that would defeat the purpose. I can't think of other stuff, but this is probably where a lawyer comes in.
Honestly, what you could do is:
- set up a poll and share the link far and wide (here, mastodon, and if you use commercial services like reddit, insta, facebook, etc. then those too)
- go to a lawyer
- set up a patreon, liberapay, gofundme, or whatever with the purpose of getting this license written (I'd donate)
- make a repo with the license and share progress (this is a perfect usecase for change tracking)
You could also contact the people at https://creativecommons.org/ . Maybe they could help you with finding a lawyer versed in this stuff. It's doubtful Free Software Foundation would help, but you can always take a shot.
Thanks for putting thought into this. I'm with you that commercial entities should pay for opensource if they use it. All of them.
I took a moment to think about my response.
If I continue, I would like to do something like the following
The group that this targets, software developers, I don't think we're difficult to contact. There's usually personal websites or email addresses associated with accounts. I think it could be possible to survey a large randomized sample, above 10,000 developers who have contributions to highly appreciated repositories.
There would have to be some cut off for who to select. I think I would like to focus on developers who are planning on licensing software, as in, they're already demonstrated they're writing licensed software. This is all to say, I don't want to haphazardly screen the general public opinion.
In this post, I noticed that those responding seemed to slightly skim over or misunderstand parts of it. This is partially a communication failure for me, but also seriously hinted to me that asking with text about licensing details seems like it could be a bad idea. I think like a video that first covers topics followed by a survey might be better, but I'm worried something like that will bias those that I ask.
Before all of this, before I talk to a lawyer, I want to think about all possible restrictions or options available. This is where I think comitting to a git repository would be a very good idea. Just making an attempt to determine everything that is relevant, because there are clear differences in how a license should work.
After that, I can consult to determine what is and isn't possible. And from there, I'm hopeful that it's possible to carefully survey and understand opinions on what more developers and companies would like to see in a license.
I don't want to accidentally create a license that becomes stuck and is extremely damaging. I want it to serve those that are using it in a way that makes them happy.
I'm still not 100% committed to this yet, but feel good about the responses here. I was worried the responses would be highly negative, as it's something that takes very unrestrictive software and tries to convince the authors to charge for it. I'll have to think about what I want to do some more.
That's a good approach. Good luck :) I hope to see an update sometime.
Software cannot be Open Source and require royalties.
The word you're looking for is "source available", not "Open Source."
You should probably be talking to a lawyer, not Lemmy, let alone /c/opensource.
That is a definition that has a lot of history and it's very dynamic. (Also, definitions are very important in many legal systems.)
If you look at GNU GPL v3, "free" is free to use, copy and modify, not "free" as in price.
You could also be talking about open source that is free for non-commercial use.
There are tons of licenses for open source, so definitions for important words should be in those licenses.
I definitely will need to talk to a lawyer if I proceed. Asking here is more so about trying to determine if other developers would be flat out refuse to use a dependency with this license, or find it interesting, etc.
A couple of comments:
- All of my projects are on Sourcehut. So all of my projects are automatically excluded from your narrow definition of "open source projects" worth supporting. So are all projects on gitlab, or... anything but github. Your license sounds more like a mechanism for promoting a monoculture and incentivizing developers to host on github.
- Say my library uses a library that uses your library. Is your license more infectius, like the GPL, or parasitic? Do all projects using your library have adopt your license, or include it?
All of my projects are on Sourcehut. So all of my projects are automatically excluded from your narrow definition of “open source projects” worth supporting. So are all projects on gitlab, or… anything but github. Your license sounds more like a mechanism for promoting a monoculture and incentivizing developers to host on github.
I don't disagree. I don't really know how to fix the problem in what has been considered without an extra organization that does some form of identity verification and then collects votes on open source from anywhere on the internet.
The only reason GitHub was selected was because it's easily recognized and the metric is understood
Say my library uses a library that uses your library. Is your license more infectius, like the GPL, or parasitic? Do all projects using your library have adopt your license, or include it?
Anything that depends on it would be including it in something else later. I was considering anything that used it that made income had to pay 5% royalty. A library that uses a library that uses a library with it would had to pay 5% on income made with the final library. Though, I don't necessarily have an opinion on requirements of the license of the final library. I also wasn't considering open source restrictions like the GPL.
I don't really know how to fix the problem
This would be something that would be a deciding factor for me. I don't have a solution, either, but it would need to be addressed before I'd consider something like this.
A library that uses a library that uses a library with it would had to pay 5% on income made with the final library.
But my library is MIT, and free. Can I use a library that uses a library that uses your license? Either your license considers itself incompatible with the other licenses, meaning it's virulent like the GPL: my library must use your license, because it uses some library that uses your license; or there's a clause that says it must be included with incompatibly licensed software, in which case it's parasitic: someone could still clone my library, replace the dependency that uses your license with some other library that doesn't - remove the parasite, so to speak. In the latter case, I could still BSD-3 Clause or MIT my library, with a big ol' warning in the README about your license and the implications.
This really seems like something you should pay a lawyer to figure out what would get you the results you want.
I love this idea. I feel like a shakeup with licenses is needed. I wonder if you could consult a lawyer then ask some larger open source projects if they would be willing to adopt the license?
If it's identical to GPL or MIT for small licenses, but forces corporations to give back to the community, it's only fair.
I love this idea. I feel like a shakeup with licenses is needed. I wonder if you could consult a lawyer then ask some larger open source projects if they would be willing to adopt the license?
Contacting authors of repositories seems really smart. I imagine it could be possible to contact a large percentage of them. I just want to be confident that I have a good license that will be liked before I make an attempt.
edit: Though, looking for feedback from them might also be a really good idea
This is definitely going to be the future. Not sure if in this exact way but free work for corporations is over.
Look into how JUICE (https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE) works. They are open source, but also operate under a type of licensing model.
I cannot speak to how their business works or if they are considered non-exploitive. However, I know their framework is super-common in the digital music world.
I'm not actually interested in charging money for myself though. The point of the license is more so to create a license that is compatible with others using it and causes downstream users of it to also have to pay. Like I'm more so imagining a best case scenario where lots of source available software is available for 5% (like use all of it together too) flat on $1m+ in income. (And free for everyone else)
If two libraries were using this licence, would that mean 10%? If a large company used 20 libraries thats 100%?
No, just flat 5% for all compatible. The income is for project level. Downstream would pay the same 5%. They would pay at their discretion to anyone with 1000+ stars on GitHub. (or some variation of this)
A license is only as good as it's enforcement. How do you intend to enforce it? Companies are highly unlikely going to turn over their books to you.
I don't expect legitimate companies earning over $1m/year to just flat out violate the license. I do think they might try to dodge amounts owed with accounting, but Epic seems to find this business model viable with Unreal Engine. I'm also not going to signficantly care if it's violated, the fact that they're legally obligated to pay seems better than just giving it to them for free with a more permissive license.
Federation stopped working earlier, so I had to switch to CapitalistSusScrofa@sh.itjust.works
Too complicated especially if you want big companies to use it. They usually pre-approve the MIT/BSD and LGPL license but nothing else.
I don't really care if they use it. I think overtime it could be possible to move a large chunk of software over to a royalty based license. It just has to seem like a good deal to developers, and they'll move.
If you want developers to use your license, you should work on why a commercial product like GitHub is used to judge popularity, why popularity is useful and what about small projects, and how can projects receive money (in France it would be an administrative pain in the ass because of taxes and stuff).
It seems like you aren't the only person thinking about this
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/30/bruce_perens_post_open_license/
I think you might be closer than Bruce Perens to a license that more people would be willing to use. However, they explicitly name and define machine learning model training as a prohibited use of the covered work.
I was already pinged to a discussion of it.
There's so much to read that I haven't already. I think real democratic control of a license could be good. Though, I haven't taken time to understand the governance structure of it.
However, they explicitly name and define machine learning model training as a prohibited use of the covered work.
This doesn't immediately sound bad to me.
I'm not informed on software law. As an example, my understanding from Oracle v. Google is that Google received a ruling from the Supreme Court around 2020 that stated their copyrighted use of a public API, like the public side documentation side of method calls could not be considered a violation of copyrighted works. The idea that they could use machine learning on the internal code of methods and use it to write their own version from the the start of the method call doesn't exactly seem like a good thing to allow.
Though, this is a really uninformed opinion. I haven't read any of it in detail. The public opinion is usually on Google's side. I'll leave an excerpt.
Now let us consider the example that the District Court used to explain the precise technology here. Id., at 980– 981. A programmer wishes, as part of her program, to de- termine which of two integers is the larger. To do so in the Java language, she will first write java.lang. Those words (which we have put in bold type) refer to the “package” (or by analogy to the file cabinet). She will then write Math. That word refers to the “class” (or by analogy to the drawer). She will then write max. That word refers to the “method” (or by analogy to the recipe). She will then make two pa- rentheses ( ). And, in between the parentheses she will put two integers, say 4 and 6, that she wishes to compare. The whole expression—the method call—will look like this: “java.lang.Math.max(4, 6).” The use of this expression will, by means of the API, call up a task-implementing pro- gram that will determine the higher number.
In writing this program, the programmer will use the very symbols we have placed in bold in the precise order we have placed them. But the symbols by themselves do noth- ing. She must also use software that connects the symbols to the equivalent of file cabinets, drawers, and files. The API is that software. It includes both the declaring code that links each part of the method call to the particular task-implementing program, and the implementing code that actually carries it out. (For an illustration of this tech- nology, see Appendix B, infra.)
Now we can return to the copying at issue in this case. Google did not copy the task-implementing programs, or implementing code, from the Sun Java API. It wrote its own task-implementing programs, such as those that would determine which of two integers is the greater or carry out any other desired (normally far more complex) task.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/593/18-956/case.pdf
This isn't all that relevant, and there's lots of case law. It just seems slightly frustrating to me that the law might allow 1) a company to use copyright software for learning 2) take public methods, and their supporting documentation 3) and finally use them inconjunction with a prompt of the documentation to generate the internal code.
This all is a very unresearched or serious view of it. For whatever reason, I just was already thinking about it. It's all to say, I think I understand the argument for disallowing machine learning use. I haven't really decided where I align. I think it's really valuable that we can automate anything, but I also feel negative to the idea of signing everything over to the tech companies and hoping for the best.