[License-discuss] Open Source license question

[Atwood, Mark]

You can call your project “open source” as long as you are clear about the paid portion.

Just to avoid all sorts of headaches for your downstream, users, and public position, keep the open source core portion in one git repo, and then keep the paid add-on in a *different* git repo, with build time or install time instructions are how to combine them.  Keeping the non-open-source portion in a subdirectory or something like that causes headaches and often needs special handling by your users.

For example, if your open source core and paid extension were in the same repo, we at Amazon would not be able to load your project into our internal caches for use across the company, and it would need a tech and legal review for every install.   Which is slow, and would make it much less likely to get used, and thus much less likely to get community participation and bugfix contributions from Amazon developers.

But, if your project was cleanly separated into separate repos, we could load the open source repo into our caches, it would be more likely to be used, AND once its more likely to be used, it would be more likely that a team or some would decide they also wanted to pay for the telemetry service.

(I make no guaratees that Amazon will purchase your paid extention, I’ve not even looked at your project).

But anyway, you are fine what you are doing, and you can call it “open source” or “open source with paid extentions” you want to be more precise.


..m

--
Mark Atwood atwoodm at amazon.com<mailto:atwoodm at amazon.com>
Principal Engineer, Open Source Program Office, Amazon.com
+12066042198



From: License-discuss <license-discuss-bounces at lists.opensource.org> On Behalf Of Chris B
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2024 9:07 PM
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [License-discuss] Open Source license question


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Hi all!

I am an open source project maintainer and I was referred to this mailing list recently as a good place to ask questions.

I was recently told by a community member that I should not be using the term "Open Source" as it has legal implications and the project doesn't fully embrace that term. Here is the argument:

1- The program has an optional paid component (not open source). The core program (that is open source) is fully functional as a stand-alone application. But the user has the option to pay for extra features that are not open source

2- The program has an optional telemetry that users can opt in / opt out before even installing the program.

3- Because of 1 & 2, there is a License Terms doc that outlines what is open source and what is not, and how the telemetry data is being used and what is being sent out.

I have personally seen all of the above in other software that have an "Open Source" label. But wanted to check with this group if there are any legal implications that I am missing here.


Examples that I have found related to the points above:
#1- Ubuntu (paid support, backup etc)
#2- Syncthing data: https://data.syncthing.net/
#3- VSCode https://code.visualstudio.com/license

Happy to hear your thoughts!

Thanks,
Chris

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