Indeed, it is a principle of open source that people can freeload off your work. As soon as an author restricts their work to non-commercial use or commercial-with-a-fee (which is entirely reasonable), it is no longer considered "open source".
> We are asking of you only one thing. Go forth and use your license. We are not stopping you. Just don't call it Open Source.
Go ahead, call it open source. The OSI has no trademark over the term, and the idea that their narrow definition is the only "official" one is a load of crap. There is plenty of room for what constitutes open source that doesn't fall underneath their umbrella.
Edit: I understand this opinion is controversial. If you disagree, please comment and explain why.
I'd challenge that. Under copyleft and other "share-alike" or "reciprocal" licenses, loading isn't free for everyone, in particular those who create software. There's a cost in sharing source and rights for new code.
I think the community as a whole has forgotten that, because copyleft licenses have fallen behind the times. With a glaring, unpatched vulnerability like the ASP loophole affecting most copyleft code, the terms of the licenses no longer implement the deal their authors wanted to make. Which is why I proposed the license in the second quote you pulled.
I read your license, and I like the idea. It does seem a bit complicated, but I guess that's inherent in having to wade through payments and private licenses and such. I'm curious, was the LR-0 approved by the OSI? I can't find it on their website.
And thank you for reading the license! I've probably poured more time into that document than any other in my career. You're right: there is some inherent complexity in what it attempts to do, compared to permissive open source licenses like MIT or Apache.
Since submitting the license to OSI for approval, the discussion has repeatedly gone off the rails, consuming months of time and thousands upon thousands of words on the mailing list. The silver lining: accepting that OSI approval won't be forthcoming, soon or at all, and that it isn't worth what I thought it was, frees me up to focus even more sharply on clarity and simplicity. If you're interested, I'd love your feedback on this post-OSI "fork":
https://github.com/licensezero/parity-public-license/blob/ma...
I've already had some great feedback from others. A few let me thank them publicly in the repo.
Perens: "There are already too many Open Source licenses. If we never accepted another, that would not be a particularly bad thing."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Mitchell: "Plain English legal drafting is making inspiring headway, as a craft. Open source licensing shouldn't cut itself out of the benefits."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Tzeng: "It strikes me that there's no real reason for the rest of us to bother being here if the "old hands" decide what to do regardless of the consensus of the list. Evidently any license submission can be delayed indefinitely."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Randall: "But, one thing open source and free software have demonstrated is that chaotic, rowdy groups of humans can accomplish amazing things together, even despite (and sometimes because of) all their imperfections. Please be patient with us, but persistent. I promise you will get an answer."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Perens: "There aren't that many actually useful variations on the licenses that actually pass the OSD. There are actually only three useful licenses, a gift-style, a sharing-with-rules-style, and something in between. Given Affero and GPL3 terms on those three, essentially all purposes for Open Source can be carried out. All else is embellishment."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Villa: "I'm pretty sure that, contra Bruce, it isn't OSI's position that open source needs to stay forever trapped in amber, but a reasonable outside observer (like Kyle!) could certainly conclude otherwise."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Fontana: "I'm generally struck by how conservative, technically and perhaps legally clueless and hidebound contemporary proprietary software license agreements tend to be - though not in the same way as open source licenses, which are vulnerable to similar criticisms."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Perens (quoting): " > A bolder new license might consider: What does an economically viable open source look like?
My usual answer for this is that if you have to ask how you're going to make money, you're the wrong person to make Open Source. Nowhere in the mission of OSI is any mandate to provide authors with a viable business method."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Mitchell: "Hacker-types still favor MIT/BSD over Apache 2.0. Facebook followed suit after the PATENTS tragicomedy. If you don't trust FSF---or OSI for that matter---and you don't have a legal department large enough for an open licensing wonk, you want a license you can read. You want a purpose-built tool that directly expresses your purpose, and little more."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
Perens: "We are asking of you only one thing. Go forth and use your license. We are not stopping you. Just don't call it Open Source."
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...