News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Show HN: LayerJS – A simple UI composition and navigation... by codetrotter on Thursday May 03, 2018 @12:21PM (#16987322)
Non-standard license with a restrictive custom clause unfortunately.

https://github.com/layerJS/layerJS/blob/master/LICENSE

> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software, including the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

> 1. The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

> 2. The Software must not be used in the code base of HTML editors or web builders. A HTML editor is a software (or hosted web application) that can be used by a third party (the user of the HTML editor) to create HTML documents that can be exported and used elsewhere. A web builder is a software (or hosted web application) that can be used by a third party (the user of the web builder) to create HTML documents that are hosted or dynamically generated under a top level domain chosen by the third party. The code base is the source code of the HTML editor or web builder, including the source code of publicly available plugins. No calls to layerJS can be made from the code base, but third party users can use layerJS in their websites that are built with these HTML editors or web builders.

> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

> This license is derived from the MIT license (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

Re:Show HN: LayerJS – A simple UI composition and navigation... by thomnah on Thursday May 03, 2018 @12:31PM (#16987421)
This is really not meant restrictive. Its basically MIT and only restricting one particular use case (if you want to build a webeditor like WIX, etc. ) It's currently protecting our baby startup (layerjs.com) and should avoid that someone is using layerjs.org (which will be used inside) to get an competitive edge on our baby (: So don't be to harsh on this. We will remove this clause altogether once time is ready to launch.
Re:Show HN: LayerJS – A simple UI composition and navigation... by codingdave on Thursday May 03, 2018 @08:37PM (#16991269)
I had a conceptually similar tool driving a startup way back in 2001. It failed because there was no market - people who couldn't code wanted to just hire a designer/developer. People who could code didn't care about a codeless web design tool. People who did use it nitpicked the resulting markup. Admittedly, many years have passed. The market may differ now. But I'd seriously validate the problem you are solving here.
Re:Show HN: LayerJS – A simple UI composition and navigation... by crawfordcomeaux on Thursday May 03, 2018 @02:40PM (#16988585)
If someone copies the startup after launch and you "lose" to them, does that mean they're better equipped in some way than you? If so, does the competitive edge actually matter?

I view it more as a myth stemming from survivor bias.

Re:Show HN: LayerJS – A simple UI composition and navigation... by codetrotter on Thursday May 03, 2018 @12:39PM (#16987494)
> We will remove this clause altogether once time is ready to launch.

Glad to hear that :)