
Ask HN: Open Source License model to charge big enterprises - victor106
I have a reasonably successful library that I plan to open source.<p>However, I would like to charge big enterprise customers who make lot of money using the library a small fee.<p>How do I go about doing that? What kind of Open Source license should I use? Any examples?
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kenster
Open source does not currently allow for what you are trying to achieve.
Consider Fair Code: [https://faircode.io/](https://faircode.io/)

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pabs3
Your best option is to use the GNU AGPL or GPL and sell a different license to
companies who find those unacceptable. Be prepared to go to court in order to
uphold the GNU licenses, companies will violate them a lot. Also be prepared
to have companies reimplement your library from scratch in order to avoid the
GNU licenses.

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_frkl
Yes, copy left is really your best bet. While 'technically' not open source,
there is also parity (
[https://licensezero.com/licenses/parity](https://licensezero.com/licenses/parity)
) which I think brings a few interesting ideas to this space. All of those
options make It harder for your open source users though.

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meretext
Make it public domain. While any major corporation could still use it without
you being paid, many don't and will request you provide the same code but
under a license their lawyers are comfortable with. SQLite sort of runs on
this model -- it's public domain, but the author has been asked by many big
corps for licenses and pay for them. They also pay for direct support, mods to
the code. The testing harnesses and other aspects of the development and
testing of SQLite but which are not part of SQLite can be kept entirely
proprietary. I don't know if this model would fit for your library, SQLite may
have a very different niche as an embedded database, and frankly it is used
_everywhere_ , so not sure if that would work in your case, but it's another
option to think about.

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verdverm
Trademarks with a MIT / Apache 2 / BSD style license are starting to be
considered one of the better models we know of right now.

Check out [https://coss.media](https://coss.media) and definitely JJ's video
call with GitLab founder Sid

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HideousKojima
There are no open source licenses that do that, at least none that meet either
the Open Source Initiative's definition nor the Free Software Foundation's
definition:

[https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

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zzo38computer
Public domain or GNU AGPL would work, as mentioned by the other comments. I
suggest doing either of these. If many companies won't touch the stuff with
GNU AGPL, they can still require a license, so you can offer a commercial
license, and then there will be the payment for it. Other kind of multi-
licensing with GNU AGPL is also possible.

