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18

What license should I use to prevent AWS e. al. from selling my
open-source software as a service?

[renderTimi]
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18
Posted by3 hours ago

What license should I use to prevent AWS e. al. from selling my
open-source software as a service?

[renderTimi]
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[renderTimi]
 
level 1
* 2h

Depending on what you want, AGPL is one option. It won't stop a third
party from running your open-source software as a service, but it
does require that they provide the source code to all users (hence,
the users could take the modified code and run it themselves if they
wanted).

Alternatively you could use a CC BY-NC-SA license which prohibits all
commercial use and requires that derivative works are published under
the same license.

Off the top of my head I am not aware of any licenses that would
allow internal commercial use but prohibit selling a service based on
the software as a product, should that be what you mean.

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level 2
Op * 1h

I know Elastic License V2 comes close. But apparently it's not
considered an open-source license :(

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Continue this thread 
 
level 1
* 16m

I think your question is not unlike many entrepreneurs ask "what if
someone steals my idea"?

Your OSS might well be the next sliced bread, but if you are in a
position where cloud providers are selling it as a service, you have
it made. You can make money in multiple ways, including providing
value-add services, premium support, etc. There are multiple ways to
monetize a popular OSS tool.

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level 1
* 14m

Can't be done. If it's *proper* OSS, the it's by definition open
enough for AWS to use. A restriction that prevents AWS from using it
would make it no longer open source.

This is part of why darklang is "Source Available" instead of open
source. People can still see the source to understand what's going
on, contribute if they wish, etc.

Our license is at https://github.com/darklang/dark/blob/main/
LICENSE.md

If it's valuable for your users to run your software themselves, this
won't be the best license for you. In our case, we're not creating
something we want our users to run, so that's why we used this
particular license.

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level 1
* 11m

You could pick whatever license you like the most (GPLv2, GPLv3, MIT,
AGPL, whatever) but modify it to add something like this at the end:

"Companies which are a subsidiary of, owned by, or controlled by the
following companies, or by the officers of the following companies,
are not licensed to use this software:

  * Amazon

  * Google

  * Microsoft

  * Apple

  * Facebook

  * Salesforce

  * Alibaba

  * Tencent

  * Samsung

  * Huawei

  * Xiaomi"

As others have mentioned, AGPL is generally a good choice. It's not
yet entirely clear what it prohibits and requires, so mega-corps are
extremely allergic to using anything that is AGPL.

You can also dual-license code you write (AGPL for the masses,
proprietary license for Amazon if they want to pay for a license
they're not allergic to) but if you are incorporating code
contributions from the general public it would help to have an
Audacity/Muse-style CLA in place before you start accepting
contributions, so that people who don't want to contribute to a
propriety license can avoid contributing to your project.

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level 1
* 6m

Some bigcos won't use WTFPL-licensed software: Google and Intel
certainly won't.

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level 1
* just now

I saw a Creative Commons license recommended elsewhere. Please be
aware that they're not recommended for software. See: https://
creativecommons.org/faq/#
can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software

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