Re:The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders
by MaxBarraclough on Friday November 20, 2020 @10:32AM
(#25161391)
> If you chose a license you regret, its kind of just your fault
Agree. The only possible exception I can think of it if you make major contributions to an existing project, and of course use the licence they chose. Even then though, you've voluntarily agreed to those licence terms.
If you "make it free" and choose a very relaxed and unencumbered license to encourage adoption of your project and make it more popular. And then you do get popular, and start thinking people should now pay you, it seems like a bit of a lure. There are often alternative open source or closed source solutions. Yours might have reached this popularity not because it is the best, but because it is a good one that is also free and unencumbered.
And now like you said, you're free to change the license for all new code to something else, make it paid, closed, or any other restrictions. And that's fine.
That said, this is about licenses and having companies use your stuff and renumeration and all that.
I think a bigger issue, one that is justified, is the toxic interactions you might need to deal with if your open source project becomes big. People can act really entitled, when you don't owe them nothing. And I find it kind of weird how people will actually act more entitled to something that is offered to them free and open source, than if it was something they'd been paying for. Which kind of baffles me why that is.