[License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money

[Chris Travers]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 5:45 AM, Pirmin Braun <pb at intars.de> wrote:

> Am Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:07:01 +0100
> schrieb Cinly Ooi <cooi at theiet.org> :
>
> If it was only my situation, I wouldn't have asked. But I'm also an Open
> Source Evangelist and FSFE member and have detected this common pattern
> with Open Source projects becoming mature, usable, successful. They don't
> fit into the Open Source world any longer and start escaping into dual
> licensing, Open Core, closed source forks or only older versions remain
> free. Not only the projects are lost but there is also a brain drain of
> programmers. Another brain drain pattern: talented young programmers turn
> away after their first half finished Open Source project for a real job.
> Whether this was considered or not, I can imagine a better overall
> situation but it all boils down to breaking the money barrier.
>

This isn't a problem with open source.  It is a problem with corporate
control.  If you have a single-vendor solution controlled by a single
company, yes, this is a trend.  On the other hand if you have a
multi-vendor solution (PostgreSQL, Apache) the dynamic is very different.
Note these are under more permissive licenses that allow proprietary
forks.  I can talk more about PostgreSQL than the others.

PostgreSQL has always had proprietary forks which are a little ahead of the
standard version in some ways or another.  The thing is, they largely serve
as a means of pointing the direction for future development.  There used to
be Mammoth PostgreSQL which offered replication as standard.  Then
PostgreSQL got replication and the mammoth went extinct.  Then there was
Green Plum but they went their own way and we got Postgres-XC.   And so
forth.   PostgreSQL continues to develop quickly in part through
competition with the proprietary forks.  This is one of the things we tried
hard to replicate in LedgerSMB.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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